OU vs. FSU - mini preview

Dejuan Miller will step up in this game. He is a big target and will get his chances against this zone defense.

But I honestly have no idea what is going to happen in this game. I’m hoping we pull it out strictly based on the fact that it is at home.

And I might be one of the few that think the USU game was a good thing, as they won’t be letting up or getting cocky in this game. If we had blown out USU then maybe we come out flat here.

Win by 6

Been waiting for Miller to step up going on two + years now. Hopefully that helmet to helmet shot won’t keep him out of practice at all this week and he’ll have the chance to get in there and make a difference.

Miller and Caleb didn’t even start and Miller only played 2 or 3 snaps, Miller is too big and fast of a target not to play..and the defense is gonna have to come out angry and crazy ready to kill.

Caleb has not been as dialed in as some of the other receivers in practice it sounds like. Miller has been praised several times by Jones and the coaching staff. I agree, this big and fast target needs to be utilized. However, he needs to run clean routes and create space as all of our receivers do. I just see him being valuable against this type of defense because he can find space in the gaps and with his size he should be able to catch a lot of balls. Defensively, I think we did not show off our more complex packages which includes a lot of rotation in the secondary. Come Saturday we will look like a different defense. Look for Nelson to bounce back (he is truly better than that) and look for Q to have another pick. I could see us scoring once off an interception or fumble recovery too.

ARGHHHHH

I hate that offense! Totally pointless. The players are lost and confused..and the team didn’t actually snap a play any quicker than calling a play in the huddle.

As for the game: Jones needs to not float balls over the head of receivers.

Not sure if any of my fellow ‘visitors’ has pointed that out, ha ha.

We just hope he starts sliding before Saturday. I think you are all on point here – offense is experienced and efficient, defense is talented but young. I would guess that someone will have to make a great play to pick-6 on Ponder, the fumble may be more likely. I hope Eddie Gran has resolved those issues from last year. Last Friday I would have given OU the win by 7-10, but after USU I have a glimmer of hope. I think we have a shot if we get some breaks on special teams or on the turnover battle.

A few questions:

A. Will Stoops punt to Greg Reid? Obviously, you don’t want to but what will he do if you’re punting from a poor field position (hopefully that will happen at some point)?

2. If we are able to minimize the running game (we won’t stop it), is Landry patient and accurate enough to pick his was down the field on 4-5 yd passes?

D. Who should we watch out for on D and same question for offense (can’t pick Broyles or Murray, we already know about them)?

A) yes, but it will be super high, non returnables type kicks or along the sidelines, nothing in the middle of the field.

2) yes Landry is capable of 4 yd passes. Look for Rat also to be releasing on those types of plays. Look for the FB to be a bit more active in short passes. As well as DeMarco. He is more of a danger getting the ball out of the backfield with a pass, than a handoff. I am just saying, he will light you up that way, ask Texass or A&M

D) Defense: Beal, T Lewis, the Hammer, & I am gonna say a DT (they will rotate, but I think one will strp up) Check all helmets for heads, you never know with Carter
     Offense: Stills, Millard, DeJuan Miller, & on a limb, I think a TE breaks some backs this week. A couple of plays, enough to inflict some damage in the zone.

I hate the fact that OU came out flat against utah st. I’m sure the coaches are letting the players have it this week and I for one do not want to see a OU team that has a chip on its shoulder. You guys have out recruited players and out developed players over FSU for a decade now. We finally have (I believe) a very good coaching staff but it will take time to catch up to the OU’s the TX’s and the Florida’s of the world. I think the vegas line of +8.5 (FSU) is about right. Murray is gonna have a good day against us. Our offense is very good (maybe a little better than OU’s), but OU’s defense is A LOT better than FSU’s defense. that will be the difference. You’ll win this year. Next year in Tallahassee may be a different story though

We will run 2 Tight 1 back most of the time or a really loaded 2back 1tight but I wouldn’t call it I formation….its zone blocking so I’m not actually sure we have a “push you out of the way advantage” there. think mobile run blockers/pass blockers not big burly blockers.

I also fully expect OU to punt to Reid. It should be in fair catch mode.

On kickoff I’d actually be more worried about Lamarcus Joyner than Reid as Reid is a Punt specialist and not a super fast straight line runner.

Throw at the strong Saftey it’s much better than last year for us, but still our weakest spot due to the injury of the 6’2" 230lb starter. (God please let him play…but i doubt it)

We expect to loose but feel we at least have a chance after last weeks performance. Progress is a bit faster than I thought…how far? find out Saturday.

Special Teams
Collectively, our kickers and return guys are as good as any in the country. Greg Reid averaged over 18yds per return as a freshman. Many of those runs ended b/c he tripped over his own feet or bumped into his own guys. Freshman are bound to make mistakes like that. Still, he was the top punt returner in the country. Another quirky thing that tends to happen is that he often seems to bump into a big pile and amazing bounces out and keeps on going. The one time Samford allowed him to make a catch, he took it 74 yds for a TD. However, I think he only had one TD last year. Usu. he just gave us great field position due to him tripping over his own feet or his own players. Now that we have a new ST coach (Eddie Gran), I would expect G5 to be much smoother. It was also encouraging to see us block a punt against Samford. I attribute that to Gran. Our other returner is 5* freshman Lamarcus Joyner, who was the top-rated CB in HS and USA Today HS defensive player of the year. In HS, he made a habit of returning kicks for TDs. In practice, his D skills have lived up to expectations. Maybe we’ll get to see whether his return skills will do the same. You might also see Jr. WR Burt “Speed” Reed or some of our other speedy young DBs. Sounds like OU has a great punter and good coverage teams. Our PK, Dustin Hopkins, has a very big leg and is pretty accurate. Early last season, he had trouble with the PATs as he was typically a long distance FG specialist. I think he has hit something like 33 PATs in a row now and none of the Noles fans worry too much when he is on the field. I don’t get too excited about ST and I don’t know too much about OU’s ST, but am comfortable in saying that at best at worst for FSU, special teams will be a wash.

FSU O vs. OU D
I think every Nole fan would welcome a shootout and has confidence that our QB, Christian Ponder, can keep us in any game (when he is healthy). He’s one of the top dozen names on the Heisman watch list. According to the NFL scouts, he’s the most accurate passer in CFB. His arm is strong enough to get the ball anywhere it needs to go, but you wouldn’t describe him as having a cannon. He was not highly touted coming out of HS, but has developed tremendously under Fisher. His greatest asset is his ability to read the D and check FSU into the right play. On any particular snap, FSU has three plays called and Ponder’s responsibility is to check us into the right one based on his read of the D. He is very mature and patient in the pocket. He is also a good scrambler. Even if you count sacks as rushing attempts, CP7 averaged about 20 yds rushing/game last year. In the BYU game, he had 77 yds rushing. He’s not Michael Vick, but he can motor if his guys are covered and a lane opens up.

The toughest thing about FSU’s offense is that it is very balanced and it attacks every part of the field: inside, outside, left, right, short, medium, and long. We do not have guys like Murray and Broyles to key on. In 7 of Ponder’s 9 games last season, 8 or more guys had receptions. You can also expect 5-6 different guys to have rushing attempts. Last year against BYU, 11 different guys had rushing attempts. Ty Jones, who is our current 3rd string HB, led the Noles in rushing for several games at the beginning of last season. He also had 107 yds against Samford and averaged over 13 yds/carrry. Both of our FBs were HBs in HS. All 5 of the RBs have good hands and can expect to have the ball thrown to them. Each of them has a bit of a different running style. Our starting FB, Lonnie Pryor is a fan favorite who has break away speed. (Against Clemson last year, he caught a screen pass and burned right through their D for 49 yds & a TD.) Jimbo will show a lot of formations, will mix the passing and rushing up about evenly, and anyone we send in on O is likely to get some touches b/c we distribute the ball so much. The play calling and distribution make it really difficult on opposing Ds b/c all 11 guys have to play hard for 60 mins. We don’t have any specific guys to key on except maybe Ponder. If you blitz him, he’ll check the play at the line and hit the hot read. He’s patient, won’t force throws, and will take whatever the D gives him.

The passing game does have some question marks b/c we only have two receivers returning and the other guys are either freshmen or sophs who haven’t had much PT. Our TEs are really no threat, but they might catch a ball or two. Last year the receivers had a problem with fumbling. Hopefully that will be corrected with the new blood.

If you intend to stop this offense, you will have to hit Ponder. That will not be easy b/c our O-line is probably somewhere in the top 5 in the country. I don’t know the exact number, but they allowed very few sacks last year per pass attempt.

The FSU pass offense is better than the run offense. Perhaps you might try to shut down the run and force FSU to become 1-dimensional. If that happens, expect a variety of screen passes which effectively act as running plays. If your corners sit on the LOS to shut those down, expect Ponder to burn you with mid-range and deep balls. Most of Ponder’s INTs come from receivers who run the wrong route or are tipped balls. Perhaps crowd noise will keep the young WRs from hearing which play Ponder checks to and lead to a wrong route run and an INT.

I’m not saying that we will keep our punter on the bench the whole day. I am just saying that I fully expect our O to get some points on the board. Although Ponder was out for the final 4 games of last year, the FSU offense was still ranked in the top 10 in the country. And we return 19 of the 22 guys from the 2-deep. This is the kind of offense that routinely produces long sustained drives, is very efficient at getting TDs in the red zone, and does not shoot itself in the foot.

FSU D vs. OU O
The thought of Mark Stoops zone D scares me. He has said that he’ll be multiple. I hope that means he’ll throw in a decent amount of man-cover 2. We have a very young D and hardly ran any zones under Mickey Andrews, our former DC. MA typically ran man-cover 0. Guys would get burnt and there was no help over the top. It will be hard for the young guys to pass guys off between areas, cover the seams, just generally execute.

But just about anything is better than last season. If you want to find out just how awful our D was, check this article out. The cliff notes version is that we gave up a ton of big plays and had the worst D in 30 yrs. We couldn’t stop the run, couldn’t stop the pass, couldn’t stop anyone. If Ponder didn’t outscore the other team, we didn’t win.

As you know, we brought in Mark Stoops as a DC and ECU’s DC, Greg Hudson to coach our LBs. Despite the piss poor performance last season, we have some elite talent at CB and LB. They are just very young. 4 of the new guys beat out one of our starting CBs from last year (Jenije). Consequently, Stoops moved him to S. On the one side, we have 5* Greg Reid (see above), backed up by Mike Harris who is one of the top JUCO xfer CBs in the country. Fisher has called Harris the “silent assassin”. On the other side, we have Xavier Rhodes (RS Fresh.) backed up by 5* Lamarcus Joyner (true Fresh. see above). Of the 4, Rhodes is probably the best. All of them love to lay the wood, particularly Joyner and Rhodes.

Our safeties are somewhat questionable. Hopefully we will have Nick Moody (~230 lb) back to start with Terrence Parks (~220 lb). If so, we will have one of the biggest safety tandems in the country, which would be wonderful for stopping Murray. Moody has had a groin injury, so Jenije has been filling in. I don’t really mind having our starting corner from last year play as he is more likely to perform better in Stoops’s zones due to the high number of practice reps.

The key to our LB corps is Nigel Bradham. He’s 240 lbs and has the speed to track down UF’s Rainey and Demps from behind. Our other 2 starting LBs are both seniors. But behind them, we have a Soph. & 3 true freshmen (2-5* and 2-4* guys). Two of those 4 (Luc & Williams) are about 250 lbs. of ripped muscle that can haul freight. Still, the guys are young and have a lot to learn. Stoops will also play a “fast nickel” where one of the two LBs is is an incredibly fast safety (Jajuan Harley).

Our D-line is very thin and young. There’s only 1 upperclassmen in the group that will see PT. Overall, the interior guys are better and are anchored by 5* Soph. Jacobi McDaniel. You’ll see freshmen get playing time on the line as well. Through Fisher’s new S&C program, many have added 20 lbs of good weight, which should help us not get pushed around as much.

The strength of this group is the CBs, followed by the LBs. Much of last year’s mess was caused by the front 7 not sealing the edge and stunting the DTs, which often took them completely out of the play. Our guys have recently said that they did not even have a playbook last year! They do now. Freshmen are bound to make mistakes and even experienced guys in a totally new scheme are bound to do the same. The best we can hope for is to have guys play good containment D and prevent the big plays. All of the guys in the back 7 are going to be very, very fast and many of them are bigger than what we had on the field last year. Undoubtedly, they will get better as the season grows and as they get more familiar with Stoops’s D. The key to this game for our D is containing Murray so that he doesn’t break a long one off.

I imagine OU will see much vanilla b/c Stoops probably hasn’t had time to implement much. Both Stoops’s and Hudson’s Ds have been known for winning the takeaway battles. I would like to seem some man-cover 2 b/c I have confidence in our corners provided they can get some deep help. Broyles should get some catches, but Landry will have to watch out because these Noles have great closing speed.

In the End
You guys are at home and we will be sending a lot of very young guys to play in a noisy, hostile environment. FSU’s receivers are unproven as well as the entire defense. It is amazing that we are ranked in the top 20. I do not expect OU to have back-to-back games at the USU level. I expect hard hitting and some fierce battles. Despite the week-one games, there are far more unanswered questions on the FSU side of the ball. I’m taking the over and betting that it will be a high scoring game. I think the winner will bet determined by who wins the TO battle and possibly special teams. I like that we are 8.5 pt. underdogs as we really have nothing to lose unless we get totally embarrassed. It COULD happen, but I don’t expect it to.