FSU Football: Alabama vs. Top 25 Passers in 2016

Florida State’s 2017 campaign opens with a tall task and that’s taking down college football’s preeminent power, the Alabama Crimson Tide.

In 10 years under head coach Nick Saban, Alabama has won four national championships. The signature of his Crimson Tide teams have been the defense and shutting down opposing quarterbacks.

Over the weekend, we looked at how FSU quarterback Deondre Francois had fared against top 25 defenses last year. Francois finished the season ranked 25th nationally with 3,350 passing yards.

Alabama faced just three quarterbacks last season that finished in the top 25 nationally in passing yards — Arkansas’ Austin Allen, Washington’s Jake Browning and Clemson’s Deshaun Watson — with two of those contests coming in the College Football Playoff. Here’s how Alabama fared defensively against those quarterbacks:

Browning was essentially shut down for the Huskies in the Peach Bowl in a 24-7 Alabama win. While Allen put up big numbers against the Crimson Tide passing, he was also threw three interceptions and was responsible for four turnovers. Five Arkansas turnovers in the contest led to 21 Alabama points — a significant number in a 49-30 Crimson Tide win.

In the National Championship, Watson had a performance for the ages against Alabama, throwing for 420 and three touchdowns, including the game-winner to Hunter Renfrow with one second remaining. Watson however, still lost one fumble in the contest and as a team, Clemson had two which led to just three Alabama points.

As far as Francois is concerned for the opener, taking care of the football is essential and making plays through the air might be as well. While it may be a bit much to ask Francois to have a night similar to Watson, it should be noted that Francois’ quarterback rating against top 25 defenses last season was slightly higher than the average of what the three mentioned put up against Alabama.

Among the three however, only Browning’s numbers were worse against Alabama than Francois’ average against defenses that finished in the top 25.

To make a long story short, Francois will have his work cut out for him, but most knew that coming in. Since 2008, Alabama hasn’t finished worse than 11th in total defense and should be stacked again on that side of the ball, despite having seven players selected in the NFL Draft.

The good news for Francois is that against top-25 defenses last year, FSU averaged 29 points per game. Going back to 2012, six of the seven teams to beat Alabama scored at least 29 points.

Mike Ferguson is the editor of The Daily Nole. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeWFerguson