FSU Football: Jimbo Fisher and His Offense’s Struggles

Step back for a second and imagine that someone uttered this sentence about Florida State football before the Louisville game:

“Florida State will have a defensive score, will hold Lamar Jackson to his lowest output of the season, and will not let a single Louisville skill player gain more than 100 yards.”

What do you think the outcome of the game would be? Probably a Florida State victory. Heck, maybe even a Florida State blowout.

But as we are all aware, the Seminoles lost to Louisville on Saturday, 31-28, falling to 2-4 on the year and 0-3 at home for the first time since 1974. The fingers were quick to be pointed at both sides of the ball. One common target happens to be the defensive coordinator.

Charles Kelly and his defense have (rightly) been maligned. But Saturday’s loss was not on them. You knew coming in that Louisville quarterback and reigning Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson was going to have at the very least, a few scores. What Florida State needed to do was take advantage of a very suspect Louisville defense. But that never happened.

Instead, Florida state once again wasted multiple possessions and left points on the field. Once again, the Seminoles had crucial turnovers that killed momentum and equally as important, drives. Once again, they were unable to convert yards into points.

Three possessions resulted in a punt. One culminated in a missed field goal. Three were cut short by turnovers. The FSU offense mustered only three touchdowns.

Other ACC teams were able to gash Louisville’s defense like Chip Kelly was the head coach. The four other conference opponents averaged over 41.5 points per game and 522 yards per game when going against the Cardinals. Two of those opponents — North Carolina and Boston College — currently rank outside the top 85 nationally in yards per game.

Florida State failed to meet that benchmark by 13 points — even with the defensive touchdown — and over 100 yards. For years, Florida State fans chided teams like Florida or Boston College for having putrid offenses. Well guess what accurately describes the Seminoles right now?

In terms of blame on the offense, there’s plenty to go around.

Freshman quarterback James Blackman had a bad game. He made some good throws that helped Florida State keep up with Louisville and prevent a blowout, but his turnovers were absolutely costly for the team’s chances.

Most will remember his disastrous fumble late in the fourth quarter that gave Louisville possession for the eventual game-winning field goal. Yet not as many will remember the interception that was intended for Jared Jackson on the first play of a third quarter drive after Louisville had grabbed the lead.

The Cardinals were up 21-14 and that turnover helped them extend the lead 28-14. While Florida State eventually closed the gap, such an unnecessary play just made the hill that much higher to climb.

But how much of that was actually Blackman’s fault? Here’s a consideration: why was a walk-on receiver the choice for running that route and making that play? No offense to Jared Jackson, but many will have a hard time believing he was the best option at that moment in time. Someone tried to ask head coach Jimbo Fisher in the post-game if that play caused him to put in guys like freshman D.J. Matthews, who was not playing earlier in the contest.

“We were trying to get D.J. in the game earlier,” Fisher replied. “We had talked about in the game we wanted to make sure we played [Matthews]…it allows us to move some of the other guys in different positions, too, because there was some different ways we wanted to attack things and we wanted to move some of the other guys around. So it allowed D.J. to play in the slot.”

That sounds great. It’s also effectively a non-answer. A potentially game-changing catch was turned into an interception, probably because the best option to catch it was not there. That’s not on Blackman.

A similar coaching blunder was the 44-yard field goal attempt with Ricky Aguayo on the opening drive of the third quarter. FSU settled for a field goal attempt on 4th-and-3 inside the Louisville 27-yard-line. That misses the mark entirely.

Aguayo is a fine kicker, but perhaps Fisher should consider anything from 40-plus yards as “go for it” zone, especially if the distance is management and the opponent is suspect on defense, but capable of putting up points in bunches.

Yet the most inexplicable problem on Saturday lies in the rushing attack.

The pieces were all there for Florida State to have a great day on the ground. Running backs Cam Akers and Jacques Patrick were heating up, the offensive line was playing well, Louisville had given up over 350 yards to Boston College on the ground the week prior. Every factor was in Florida State’s favor.

Instead, it amounted to just 155 yards on 4.1 yards per carry. That’s not terrible. Yet it could have been so much better that it really makes one question what the game plan was from the start. From the coaching decisions to the play-calling to the terrible errors, Saturday’s performance by the offense was egregiously awful.

Fisher knows it too. He knows his offense was the primary culprit for the loss. Why else would he get into a shouting match with a fan after the game? How does a veteran coach lose his cool and respond to a heckler? Something got under his skin this game and helped lead to what people witnessed afterwards. The frustration finally boiled over.

After the game, The Daily Nole asked sophomore defensive end Brian Burns about the state of the program. Starting in 2015, Florida State has lost at least one more regular season game in each successive season. Pair this with an offense that’s not even top 50 in advanced metrics, and it’s very hard to see Florida State as anything other than a program in decline.

“Still confident. Still positive,” Burns said. “We’re going to finish the season out strong.”

Will FSU finish the season strong? Right now, there are more reasons to believe the answer to that question will be no, rather than yes.