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Randy Shannon

He is only 55 and far more qualified to be the DC than Fuller. Shannon was the DC at Miami from 2001-2006. He won the Frank Broyles Award as the nation's top collegiate assistant coach while at Miami in 2001. Linebackers coach in the NFL. Been a coach on two national title teams, and another as a player. Deep ties to south Florida.

Shannon defenses consistently finished among the best in the nation:

2001 – 6th
2002 – 7th
2003 – 2nd
2004 – 28th
2005 – 4th
2006 – 7th

Yet many of our fanbase thinks we can do better mid season. Scratching my head. Give Shannon the job and see what he can do. We certainly can’t do worse.

Fuller called Saturday a success

Clickbait title, but they only give so much room lol. Context: in speaking about sudden change of possessions, he had this to say:

“… for the most part, statistically, with the number of points we gave up, for the amount of times we had sudden change, it was a success.”

He did go on to say we gave up 35 points and lost the football game, implying that's bad. And he went on to say from a points standpoint, he was excited about them and the effort in those situations.

Fuller interview
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One thing that has to be pointed out: our strength..

What I'm about to say is no knock on Storms as I really think he is a heck of a strength coach. This is more of an indictment on the overall talent and the level of players we've been bringing in the last 3 or 4 years. I listened to one of Devontey Love-Taylor's trench talk sessions a few weeks back and it was right as the season was starting and he was saying how much stronger he felt now with a full offseason of training and said his bench is finally up to 400lbs. He was proud of that. And this is no knock on him. He's a great kid doing the best he can. And then I heard Robert Cooper say he was benching like 405. And these are some of our biggest and supposed to be strongest guys. It raised an eyebrow for me and here's why:

All this took me back to my time at FSU in the early 90s when Dave Van Halanger was the strength coach and I can remember reports coming out where numerous guys were benching 425. We had several guys back then pushing near 500lbs. Our teams were substantially stronger than these kids seem to be now. I can recall Derrick Brooks being reported at a 425lb bench. I doubt we have a LB now who is close to that. Reinard Wilson was a 500lb bench press guy. Brian Allen was a 425lb bench press guy. We just had guys back then who were much much stronger.

When I hear guys like Love-Taylor and Coop say they are just hitting 400lbs and they've been in college 4 years or more it made me think what were their strength numbers before? Coop is damn near 340lbs and he's just now hitting 400lbs on the bench? Love Taylor is 320+lbs and he's just now hitting 400lbs on the bench? Our oline is still getting pushed around a lot. Very rarely do our QBs have a clean pocket for more than 2-3 seconds. Even our running game and run blocking is more of a struggle this year as far as consistency. We just aren't a strong team..

Storms can only do so much if the ceiling for the kids he's working with is not that high. You can only get them so strong if they can only do so much. Just something that came to light for me listening to Love-Taylor talk.

Stat Bomb: Pro Football Focus grades from FSU-Wake Forest

Here’s a short rundown of the PFF grades from the FSU-Wake Forest game. PFF does not allow us us post grades for all the players, so we just cover the high and lowlights. But if you have a question about a specific player, just ask and I’ll be happy to provide that info.

Overall Team Grades:

Top Mark: Despite giving up three sacks, Florida State again did fairly well in pass blocking (71.4). The defense tackled well with its best mark of the year at 76.3.

Low Mark: The offense overall had its worst grade of the year (51.6) and second worse over the last two seasons - 46.5 grade last year vs. Pitt. The rushing grade was abysmal at 41.1, which was the worst mark by FSU since PFF began doing grades in 2013. The low grade was greatly impacted by three fumbles. Only one other time did FSU finish with a sub 50 rushing grade -- 2015 Peach Bowl game vs. Houston (47.0).

Odd: Even with a couple breakdowns in the secondary, the coverage grade was actually decent (71.6).

Passing:

With two interceptions and two fumbles, it was rough outing for McKenzie Milton. He had a career-low 45.0 passing grade and just a 28.1 offensive grade (team low).

Jordan Travis actually completed 5-of-6 nd finished with a 71.5 passing grade (61.8 offensive grade).

Rushing:

Jashaun Corbin – 45.7 rush grade. He was docked because of the early fumble.

Treshaun Ward – 70.3 rush grade

Lawrance Toafili – 58.6 rush grade

Receiving:

It was another uninspiring outing for the Seminoles' receiving corps. Tight end Jordan Wilson was the only one that came in with a solid grade at 73.4.

Pokey Wilson (64.3) made a nice return to the lineup leading the receivers with three catches for 91 yards and a touchdown. Nobody else among the receivers stood out grades-wise all scoring in the 50s except for redshirt freshman Darion Williamson (68.4).

Blocking:

As noted above, pass-blocking was better than expected. Three starters finished with marks above 73 -- Dillan Gibbons (73.1), Baveon Johnson (82.7) and Brady Scott (75.4). It was a down game pass-blocking wise for Devontay Love-Taylor (58.5) and Darius Washington (42.0).

The line surrendered three sacks and gave up eight pressures on 30 quarterback drop-backs.

Run-blocking was slightly improved from the first two games but still well below average. Darius Washington has the best run-blocking grade for a starting OL this season (64.8). However, the rest of the starters really struggled with Brady Scott (45.8) and Gibbons (43.5) finishing with sub-50 marks.

For the first time I can ever remember, not a single penalty was attributed to the offensive line. Just last week the OL was responsible for seven of FSU’s 11 penalties.

Defense:

Derrick McLendon came off the bench to turn in a team-leading defensive score of 73.2. He had 1.5 tackles for loss and a QB pressure on 41 snaps played. Meiko Dotson came in at No. 2 among the defenders with a 72.8 grade. He also had an excellent tackling grade (81.3). Other notables with above average marks: Robert Cooper (72.2), Jammie Robinson (68.4), Jermaine Johnson (68.9) and Fabian Lovett (69.5).

Starters and major contributors that struggled included Stephen Dix (52.0), DJ Lundy (50.6), Sidney Williams (50.0) and Quashon Fuller (45.3).

Players that tackled well: Jamie Robinson (82.6), R. Green (81.8), J. Jones (81.7), M. Dotson (81.3), J. Johnson (80.1).

As noted at the top, coverage was slightly improved this week. Leading the way were J. Robinson (75.6) and M. Dotson (69.2). Robinson was targeted five times and gave up three catches for 40 yards. Jarrian Jones and Jarvis Brownlee Jr. were really picked on by Wake Forest. Jones (55.9) gave up six catches on seven targets for 83 yards. Brownlee (55.0) surrendered three catches on six targets for 71 yards.

"All the confidence in the world..."

In his most recent presser, Norvell said "I've got all the confidence in the world in what we're doing and how we're doing it," . Am I missing something? I have been a Norvell supporter and not one of those that's been screaming about how he should be fired. I realize it's going to take a lot of time to turn this around. But he can't be serious when he says he's confident in what they are doing and how they are doing it. LOOK AT THE RESULTS THUS FAR! The only thing to be confident in right now is the need for changes to be made.

Change DC now

It’s essential that we do not wait until the end of the season to make changes to address our horrid performance on both sides of the ball. Norvell et al needs to quickly convince our recruits and we fans that what we saw against JSU and Wake in no way represents the true character of this FSU football team.

Demoting Fuller and promoting Shannon to DC is the only coaching change that should be done now, unless we need to replace an assistant if we make Fuller a position coach. Hopefully this would spur the defense to play up to their potential and be trusted to get stops.

An offense that trusts its defense is much more effective. It can play without fear of making a mistake. It also plays without the pressure of feeling they need to score on every possession. Playing under that kind of pressure leads to too many errors and turnovers.

For example, in 2013 JW had a terrific season. But in 2014, when CK’s defense couldn’t tackle, Jameis put too much pressure on himself and he threw lots of interceptions, a tendency that followed him to the Bucs. McKenzie uncharacteristically threw interceptions and fumbled on the goal line, as our defense couldn’t stop Wake.

The fact championship football almost always starts with defense is not accidental.
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Sunday Night Football reminded me of FSU's first 3 games!

Yep, Pro's screw up just like our players do!

KC vs. Ravens or Patrick Mahomes vs. Lamar Jackson

KC led the whole game except when Lamar took one in to go up by 1 point with a couple of minutes left. No problem as Patrick Mahomes marches the Chiefs down the field for an easy FG and the win. And because there is a little bit of time left KC Head Coach Andy Reid decided to run one up the middle in order to get the ball in the center of the field and burn up some time and run the clock down to a few seconds in order to prevent Lamar from pulling off a miracle after the field goal.

BUT, the KC RB carrying the ball didn't wrap it up with both arms and...........

FUMBLED! Ravens run out the clock and win.

(Pro coaches and Pro players screw up too!). LOL! 🤣 😅 😂
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So no changes, status quo?

No changes to depth chart? No changes to coaching staff? No changes to playcalling responsibilities, no changes to QB rotation, or Staring CBs. Why should we think anything different about this weekend or next? Why should team or recruits think different results? This team lacks fundamentals and plays dumb, coaching decisions are worse. We need something to change, players are playing soft and not gang tackling and watching other players try to make plays. Something has to change.

Why FSU Can’t Afford to Keep…

Norvell, Willie Taggart or any other coach who loses the fan base, by his second season.

AVG FSU Football ticket ~ $55
AVG Attendance (decent year) ~ 65,000
Home games Played = 6
Total Ticket Sales ~~ 21.5 million

Concession, Parking Sales ~ 2-3 million
Merchandise Sales (Direct) ~ 2-3 million

Total Sales (on premise) ~ 25 million

That’s based off 65,000 showing up. We’ve had years of 78,000. You think we average 35,000 next year if we go 2-10 this year? So take that 25 million and roughly cut it in half. That’s 12.5 million off the top.

Not to mention booster donations, licensing and branding deals (sponsorships and advertising), etc. gotta believe that’s another 5-10 million right there.

Now these are ballpark numbers, but they don’t come from thin air, and might even be too conservative. At minimum, you are looking at a 20 million dollar windfall. Norvell makes 3.75 million. Everyone points to us paying Taggart, but his situation is mutually exclusive from Norvell’s. We are on the hook no matter the coach.

Even if you hire a coach who does nothing but bring enthusiasm back to the fan base, my guess is FSU can’t afford to waste a whole season. Should be interesting.
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