The Florida State Seminoles have as many collegiate wins as you and I do. There's a pretty big problem with that, as neither of us participate in the actual sport. Alas, through two games, Jimbo Fisher and company are 0-2.
Asking if Jimbo Fisher is in trouble after the start is bluh. Wanting a coach canned — one who has been otherwise successful, mind you — after two games to start the season is just strange. Unless there is a history of ho-hum play or general debauchery in that coach's resume (hello, Brian Kelly), there's really no reason to have that discussion…
Yet.
There are some issues that might cause that conversation to happen at some point, however.
There are 130 big boy college football programs in the country. Florida State ranks dead last in an important category; turnovers forced. To be even more Camp Crystal Lake clear about it: Jimbo Fisher's team is the only in the entire nation that has yet to intercept a ball or recover a fumble.
To be fair to FSU, the Seminoles have only played two games. Scheduled events against ULM (cancelled) and Miami (postponed) did not happen due to awfulness that was Hurricane Irma. Most teams in the country are already on their third or fourth game, so the counting-stat version of the takeaway category is slightly misleading.
There's far more to this. At least in terms relative to this season.
Freshman gunslinger, James Blackman, looked decent in his first outing. While there were moments when people openly pondered if injured opening-day starter Deondre Francois would be Wally Pipp'ed by the freshman, he did come back down to Earth as the game progressed.
By the time it was all said and done, Blackman tossed it around the field for an impressive 287 yards and one touchdown. His completion percentage was just a tick below 58 percent, which doesn't seem too awful, until you realize that Francois passed it at a 59 percent clip his entire freshman season and the year before that, walking FSU punching back, Everrett Golson, hit on 67 percent of his passes.
This is the potential line in the sand.
Basically, at least in a weird way, Fisher's offense is designed to have his quarterbacks connect with targets at a high rate. That is unless the gunslinger lacks experience.
Jameis Winston connected on over 65 percent of his passes during his tenure with FSU and even E.J. Manuel hit on 68 percent of his passes the year prior to FSU going to the title game (Manuel hit on 65 percent the season before that).
Hell, even Christian Ponder connected on 61 percent of his passes while with the Seminoles.
Observation being: The only two times in the Jimbo Fisher era that QBs under his watch have hit at clip under 60 percent were last season and so far this one. Both campaigns in which the gunslinger had no college football experience.
Is that a trend or just a result of freshman signal-callers manning the helm? Whatever it is, it is worth monitoring. If the offense is designed for efficiency, and it can't be that due to the most important position in football, that spells trouble.
Obviously, Fisher gets a relative pass this season — or, at least he should. He fully expected to have a more experienced quarterback starting under center when the season began. Then, because of bleeping course, Francois went down and things changed.
However, people might want to wonder why the coach doesn't have a more game-ready backup at his disposal. What good is all that talent on the rest of the field if the kid leading the charge isn't yet up to the challenge?
Florida State fans are actually somewhat reasonable. Depending on how the rest of the season goes, let's just see how long it takes before their sanity makes way for anger.
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