Sooners' Offense Still Has A Lot Of Work To Be Done

It doesn’t get much worse than that.

Ponder This
On the other hand, I don’t know that there is any defense that can stop our offense when Ponder is healthy. He fried several good and athletic Ds last year including Miami and UNC. Defensive play-calling doesn’t seem to matter too much. We have about three different plays called for each down and Ponder checks the team into the right one based on his Defensive read at the line. He is very smart – graduated in 2.5 yrs, has his MBA, and this year is getting some sort of certificate for football film watching and analysis. He is a tough kid who played (at) Clemson against their D while having broken ribs. Despite his injured condition, he nonetheless separated his shoulder in that game tackling a Tiger defender who had turned the ball over. In all likelihood he would be playing in the NFL this year if he didn’t have to have off-season shoulder surgery. Jimbo Fisher has said that he has given control of the offense than any QB he has ever coached. Ponder prefers to be a be a pocket passer, but he can throw on the run and scrambles/rushes very well. (He has the fastest shuttle time on the team, which helps him avoid the rush while staying in the pocket.

Gran’s stable of backs
Despite missing Ponder for the last 4 games last season, our offensive was still ranked one of the ten best in the country. In the off-season, we Jimbo acquired Eddie Gran as RB coach. Gran may be the best RB coach in the country as he has coached the leading rusher in the SEC 5 out of the past 10 years. FSU does a RB by committee thing. For much of the off-season, until late in the fall camp, our starting rusher, Jermaine Thomas (Jr.), had lost his starting position to Chris Thompson (Soph.). Against Samford, our 3rd string RB, Ty Jones (Jr.), had the highest rushing stats, gaining 107 yds on 8 carries (13.4 yd. ave.) (Jones actually carried the bulk of the running several games early last season until he was replaced by Thomas. Jones has had some consistency issues due to diabetes.) Our two fullbacks Lonnie Pryor (213 lb) and Debrale Smiley (231 lb) are guys who were HBs at the lower level, but they are heavier than our 3 HBs so Jimbo puts them at FB. Pryor does everything well every down and has break away speed. Both Pryor and Smiley are Sophs. All of the backs are good receivers (all except Jones caught passes against Samford), but the ones you have to watch out for most are Pryor, Thompson, and Thomas. Under Gran, all of the backs are running harder and will look to deliver punishment to defenders at the end of a run rather than running out of bounds. None of the backs are particularly shifty as our offense is geared more towards one-cut backs, where the backs are geared to make one cut and go vertically (as opposed to horizontally) down the field. If we want to spread the field horizontally, we throw screens or bubble screens or run reverses.

Return of the Giants
The offense returns 19 of 22 players from last year’s two-deep. The entire O-Line is back and is anchored by All-American Guard Rodney Hudson. These guys put on good weight in Fisher’s new S&C program. They employ a zone-blocking scheme and have been working together as a unit since their careers began. Many feel that O-Line coach Rick Trickett is one of the best, if not the best Oline coaches in the country. He was at West Virginia before joining Fisher at FSU three years ago. Last year, the ’Noles prevented sacks on 97% of passing plays. They were also quite effective running the ball, earning the #1 run efficiency in the country.

The Spread
FSU does not use a spread offense, we use more of a pro-style package. However Jimbo/Ponder are difficult to prepare for because they spread the ball around so much. Jimbo will throw a bunch of different looks and run plays to attack every part of the field. UNC di a good job of shutting our O down in the 1st half of last year’s game. They sat people on the line to shut down the quick bubble screens that often go for 5-15 yds. UNC shut those down pretty well. Ponder led us to a 2nd half come from behind win by coming out from halftime and working the mid- to deep balls. Most pro scouting reports have Ponder as the highest rated QB this year and the reports say that he is the most accurate passer in CFB. Inside/outside, left/right, short, medium, and long—FSU will attack every spot in the defense. Ponder is notorious for distributing his passes to 8-12 different guys every game. Ponder’s play-checking at the line combined with the even distribution of balls and working every nook and crannie of the field makes the FSU offense very difficult to prepare for. Ponder is very patient and will seldom try to force a ball. Rather, he will take what the defense will give him. Our O-Unit has an amazing ability to be patient and put long slow drives that result in TDs together without shooting themselves in the foot with penalties or dropped balls. That ability is what drove the dagger into the heart of BYU last year (and thankfully kept our horrible D off the field).

Very Special Teams
FSU’s special teams are one of the top units in the country. As a freshman, Greg Reid (“G5”) received all-American honors as the nation’s top punt returner (averaging 18+ per return). Samford for the most part made short out-of-bounds punts to keep it out of Reid’s hands. The one time Samford kept the ball in bounds, G5 got his hands on it and took it to the house (74 yd return for TD). FSU also blocked a punt. G5 is now a Soph. Since Samford would not kick to him, Fisher decided to work him in on offense by pulling Ponder out and running the wildcat with G5 under center. Fisher has not run any wildcat during his time at FSU until yesterday’s game. Guess that’s one more wrinkle for OU to worry about.

Our PK is Dustin Hopkins, who was the highest rated kicker coming out of HS in 2008. He once hit a 60-yd FG. Hopkins, now a soph., is one of the kickers on the Lou Groza Award watch list, which is presented to the nation’s top kicker. The two FSU kickers who have previously won that award (Sebastian Janikowski and Graham Gano) both found jobs in the NFL. Hopkins started his career as a true fresh. last year by nailing a 52-yarder against Miami in the season opener. He has a tremendous leg and was ranked 4th nationally last year for number of kickoffs resulting in touchbacks with 24.

OU Favored
The Noles are still very human/vulnerable. Most of the 2-deep on D are fresh. & sophs. In the off season, the D players said that they did not even have a defensive playbook under Bowden—everything was man coverage. Mark Stoops has implemented some zone Ds and it will take a while for our youngsters to get used to the reads. The complexity of what we do on D all depends upon what Stoops has had time to implement. We also stold ECU’s DC, Greg Hudson, and made him our LB coach. Both Stoops and Hudson have been notorious for having defenses that have a great takeaway ratio. But still, our guys are very young and we are not deep at any position on D.

We can be vulnerable on O, when Ponder hurts his knee (as was the case during last year’s USF game), vulnerable when Ponder decides to tackle opposing defenders by leading with his throwing shoulder, and have had a number of receivers fumble or run the incorrect route on a timing throw (which leads to INTs). The most likely scenario for our O to break down against OU is with the wideouts fumbling or creating INTs. Ponder’s INT stats from last season are very deceptive as 4 of the INTs came against Clemson when Ponder was playing with broken ribs and Bowden was calling deep passes against Jimbo’s advice. Most of the rest were tipped balls or cases where the passes were timing patterns where the receiver needed to read the D and run the correct route & didn’t. Very seldom do INTs result from Ponder misreading the D, throwing a bad ball, or trying to force a ball.

Our wideouts are also very young (3-true fresh and 2 RS fresh) and our TEs are average at best. On the other side, Jimbo is very high on them and one has won a starting job. In addition, Jimbo voluntarily released Jarmon Fortson, who would have been our leading returning receiver, for violating team rules (failed drug test and some misdemeanor off the field offenses). I would like to think Jimbo wouldn’t voluntarily get rid of a top guy if we didn’t have suitable replacements.

Hopefully under Stoops/Hudson, our D will be able to be in the top 50 (or at least better than 106 out of 120). We have some freakish athletes on D, but they are young and in a new system. Norman is a tough place to play and no one knows quite how all of our youngsters will react as this will be the first D-1 game for many of them and no one knows how they will handle the noise and crowd. Ponder and the offense will be alright and will keep us in every game we play. Here is a picture of one of our freshmen LBs when he was in HS. Notice his teammates sitting behind him for comparison. Freakish athletes.

Most of the people at Tomahawk Nation think OU has a 60-70% chance of winning the game against the young noles. While knowing that the Noles have a chance to win any game strictly due to their offense, most do expect a win in Norman. Good luck, guys.