Column: The Step-By-Step Guide to Fixing FSU Football

The first question many of you are asking is probably: what in the world do I (Clint Eiland, bigly Jimbo Fisher apologist) know about fixing football programs? Well, let me be the first to tell you that I have put in at least 10 years of my 21 into the NCAA football video game series. A good portion of those were invested in the Dynasty Mode, where you assume the role of a head coach (or sometimes offensive/defensive coordinator) and attempt to lead your team to success.

Folks, I’ve made Arkansas into the second best team in the SEC West. I brought Idaho an Orange Bowl appearance. I was one Washington State Hail Mary away from taking Colorado to the national championship. I led Tennessee to back-to-back national championships. When it comes to restructuring or revitalizing a football program, there’s few better than me.

With my very serious credentials now established, we move on to fixing the Florida State football program. Things aren’t exactly rosy in Tallahassee right now. It’s a basketball school obviously, but there’s no reason for the football team to be in this bad of shape. 2-5 with bowl-eligibility on the line? A 35-3 loss to Boston College? This might be the lowest point of the program since 1972. Bobby Bowden was still rocking bell bottoms!

Where does Florida State go from here? It’s going to involve a lot of turnover and a hard reset of many areas. The return to championship contention might happen sooner than expected if the correct changes occur. It should still go without saying that 2017 will not be salvaged. On the upside, that means you can enjoy bowl season without any stress!

Now to the changes:

Start Handing Out the Pink Slips

Defensive coordinator Charles Kelly, wide receivers coach Lawrence Dawsey, offensive line coach Rick Trickett. All three of those coaches need to be removed from the Florida State program if the Seminoles ever want to improve. The defense is not living up to its potential, the wide receivers are terribly inconsistent, and the offensive line has a low ceiling. Some were given passes after 2016, but the results in 2017 show how misguided that was.

Others are more on the fence now. Linebackers coach Bill Miller and running backs coach Jay Graham are included in this group. Graham is obviously not cut out for special teams coaching, but he is a great recruiter that brings in some great talent. We’ve talked about this at length here. That piece gives more context for who needs to be let go and why.

Find a New Message and Identity

If Friday’s blowout loss to Boston College showed one thing for certain, it’s that Florida State players are not buying into the coaching. That means they are either unconvinced or not interested. Either one is largely based on the staff (the latter also involves the players themselves, which the next point will get to). It’s related to how they market the program and how they convince kids to come to Florida State and play.

One thing I’ve been floating around in my head is the idea of a complete message change. When Jimbo Fisher first assumed head coaching duties, the vibe of the program was one of returning to greatness. The latter years of a struggling anachronistic Bobby Bowden program were over. Fisher brought new life to a dormant giant. Florida State was going to assume its rightful place back atop the college football world, and those who came to Florida State knew the high standards that came with it.

Safe to say that message is not resonating anymore. After 2013, Fisher let some pretty nasty strains of entitlement and laziness spread rapidly through his program. It is now being played out on the field, no longer restrained by players who largely succeeded at covering it up. Fisher needs to go back to the drawing board and discover a path to invigorating his players. It’s not tenable anymore to keep the same attitude and act like it will work itself out.

Cut the Dead Weight

There are current players who are cancerous in the locker room. They do not give full effort, they are convinced that nothing will affect their starter status, and they are looking forward to the NFL. That last one is fine. Just don’t trot out on the field and proceed to get beat by every receiver you line up against. Or get shut down by random cornerbacks. Or misread standard plays after you’ve been in the program for three or more years.

Sometimes a coach makes the wrong call on a recruit. He thinks that he will be a good fit in the locker room, but it turns out he’s hurting your team with his conduct. At some point, you have to get rid of those influences and let younger players step in. Especially if those younger players genuinely care and want to improve. We’re not going to call for specific players to be off the team (for obvious reasons). But rest assured that Fisher knows who they are, and he is quickly realizing why it got to this point in the first place.

Re-institute the Old Logo and Uniforms

Seize the means of logo and uniform production.

Own Up and Reignite the Fan Base

Fisher just spent the offseason lying about his team, and proceeded to spend the first six press conferences doing much of the same. He also yelled at a fan and begged for loyalty on the basis that his team would not quit. Well, they quit, so now fan loyalty can be up in the air as well.

Coaches from the Nick Saban tree always try to imitate his public relations with the media. They almost always fail, and that’s now including Fisher. Winning cures everything but even coaches with losing records can maintain a good rapport with fans and media. No one envies Fisher’s position, but at this point, he needs to assure fans that changes will be coming. It doesn’t have to be explicit and no names need to be announced. But what about a soft “I will definitely be reviewing the team and correcting the weak spots”? That’s a rough draft but the point remains.

No more folksy “inches away” tropes. No more borderline ungrateful demands for a football only facility when your team drags down the athletic department’s Academic Progress Rate (APR). No more enforced separation from regular students that would make Karl Marx want to write another book. Get honest with the fan base and make sure that they know you’re going to shake up the structure. We all see the stadium attendance dwindling and the outside interest plummeting. The spears of Champions Club loom over the deteriorating product.

In Closing

Will these changes ever come to pass? Disregarding the clearly sarcastic one, I only have complete faith in one ever happening (the coaching changes). Thankfully for observers, that’s the one that will make the biggest difference. I don’t know if Fisher will cut the dead weight or change his message.

I don’t have any faith in Fisher owning up and reigniting the fan base. Those last three will be the difference between Florida State attaining another dynasty and Florida State being a cyclical national competitor. Does it want to be Ohio State or does it want to be Oklahoma? Because right now, it looks more like Rutgers.

Maybe it’s time to boot up the NCAA games once more…