2012 Pre-season Rankings: #5 Florida State Seminoles

SportsRatings 2012 College Football Pre-season Top 124

Florida State Seminoles  (ACC #1; Atlantic #1)

#5	2011 Results	Record: 9-4	Strength:#22  Success:#33  Overall:#23
		AP #23  USA #23	Bowl: Beat Notre Dame 18-14 (Champs Sports)
	2012 Outlook	Record: 11-1	Picks: Lindy's #8; Athlon #9; Steele #1
		AP #7  USA #7	Bowl: Orange (Eligibility odds: 99.9%)

Phil Steele has the Seminoles #1 in his pre-season preview. We might put them there if we were taking schedule into account, as FSU has the 2nd best chance of any team to go 12-0 in the regular season.

Offense 7 RS	'11 Scoring Offense: #40 (raw) #40 (adjusted for competition)
	'12 Projected Scoring Offense: #19 (adjusted)

The offense should improve in all areas to become top 25 worthy.

Passing Game	'11 Passing Rank: #33 (raw) #44 (adjusted)	'11 Sacks Allowed (adj.): #116
	'12 Projected Passing Rank: #16 (adjusted)	'12 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #108

E.J. Manuel (2,666 yards, 18 touchdowns, 8 int) struggled through 2011 with injuries, due in no small part to the offensive line's inablility to protect him. He was sacked 33 times, and backup Clint Trickett (675 yards, 7 TD, 4 int) was sacked 8 times. The line will be better this year but it's still an issue. With the top four receivers back led by Rashad Greene and Rodney Smith (1,156 yards combined) and two QBs who played extensively last year the passing game should run a lot more smoothly.

Rushing

'11 Rushing Rank: #109 (raw) #105 (adjusted)

'11 Projected Rushing Rank: #86 (adj.)

Devonta Freeman led the 'Noles with just 579 yards last year. He's back, and with a stronger offensive line that's enough to at least dig them out of the national cellar. Jacob Fahrenkrug, Bryan Stork, and Bobby Hart all started the majority of games last year on the O-line and Garrett Faircloth about half time.

'11 Adjusted Stats:	Rush Defense: #9    Pass Defense  per-game: #8   Per-attempt: #23
Defense 8 RS	'11 Scoring Defense: #4 (raw) #8 (adjusted)	'11 sacks: #4	'11 picks: #65
	'12 Projected Scoring Defense: #9 (adjusted)	'12 sacks: #1	'12 picks: #34

While the defense as a whole looks about the same this year—still in the national top ten—they should improve in a few areas specifically: pass rush and interceptions. The 'Noles had 40 sacks last year and an amazing 37 of them return, making them our favorite to be #1 this year (adjusted for the offensive lines they face). Defensive line starters Brandon Jenkins (8 sacks) and Bjoerne Werner (7 sacks), and backup Tank Carradine (5.5) are the keys. All four starters return to the D-line making the top ten rush defense potentially even better.

Their interceptions should increase not due to any particular individuals but due to returning most of last year's picks and pass breakups, spread amongs dozens of players. The secondary returns two starters including LaMarcus Joyner but Mike Harris is gone along with Greg Reid who was dismissed over the summer. At linebacker #1 tackler Nigel Bradham is gone while Christian Jones and Vince Williams are back.

Special Teams/Situations

• Kicking Game:  Dustin Hopkins, one of the country's best kickers, returns after making 22 of 27 attempts last year, while punter Shawn Powell (47.0 average, 41.3 net) is gone. Freshman Cason Beatty will take over.
• Return Game:  Lamarcus Joyner averaged 30.5 yards per kickoff return without a touchdown return to game the numbers. Greg Reid had a touchdown on a punt return with a 11.2 average, and as he's gone Karlos Williams may be the main fielder.
• Turnovers projection:  FSU should have more picks on defense, and suffer fewer on offense this year.

Coaching/Recruiting      2012 Recruiting Rank: #8          2011 Recruiting Rank: #1
Recruiting comes down from last year's #1 class, but only very slightly. And of the very top recruits—the best of the best in the nation—Jimbo Fisher got at least as many as anyone else, including perhaps the two best defensive linemen available, Mario Edwards from Denton, Texas and Eddie Goldman from Washington, DC.

2011 Recap
Two easy warm-up games (combined score 96-10) didn't prepare the Seminoles for Oklahoma, and they were beaten in a sloppy game. They travelled to Clemson and lost 35-30 in another free-for-all. Those were excusable in retrospect, but they shouldn't have lost to Wake Forest, also 35-30; clearly the disappointment of going 2-2 had worn on them. After that they turned things around with two 41-16 wins over Duke and Maryland, then shut out North Carolina State 34-0, whomped Boston College 38-7, and beat rival Miami 23-19. They lost to Virginia by a point 14-13, then beat Florida 21-7. They only beat three bowl-eligible teams though; Miami opted out of the bowl season at 6-6, leaving 6-6 Florida and 7-5 NC State as their top conquests. They capped a disappointing season on a positive note with an 18-14 comeback win over Notre Dame in the Champs Sports Bowl.

2012 Outlook

Florida State 2012 schedule & forecast
9/1	Sat	vs.	Murray State	100%	W
9/8	Sat	vs.	Savannah State	100%	W
9/15	Sat	vs.	*Wake Forest	97%	W
9/22	Sat	vs.	*Clemson	83%	W
9/29	Sat	@	South Florida	72%	W
10/6	Sat	@	*N.C. State	89%	W
10/13	Sat	vs.	*Boston College	96%	W
10/20	Sat	@	*Miami (Florida)	88%	W
10/27	Sat	vs.	*Duke	98%	W
11/8	Thu	@	*Virginia Tech	78%	W
11/17	Sat	@	*Maryland	96%	W
11/24	Sat	vs.	Florida	81%	W
Straight up: 12-0  Cume: 11-1  Undefeated: 26%

 

It's hard to believe a BCS-conference school—particularly one of the most successful programs of the last 25 years—would schedule two FCS games, but Florida State opens with Murray State and 1-10 Savannah State. We figure the 'Noles should beat the Racers by 47 points and they are an astounding 90 points better than the Tigers, making it one of the greatest mismatches in recent college football history. Since there isn't negative scoring in football, we estimate that FSU should win that one about 72-0.

Then they have the opportunity to get revenge on the two teams that beat them 35-30 last year. Wake Forest at home won't be much of a challenge, and FSU should beat Clemson comfortably, too. The problem is that after four home games, the Seminoles are on the road for 5 of the next 7. But they'll be favored in every one through to the end, and due to their projected strength and the projected weakness of the ACC—and their two gimmes at the beginning of the year—FSU has over a 1 in 4 chance of going undefeated. Every other top 25 team has a top ten team on its schedule, or would if they reach a conference title game, but the Seminoles avoid that and even including the ACC title game (probably against Georgia Tech) they still have a 1 in 5 shot at 13-0.

Last year the Seminoles were picked to be this good, too, and it didn't happen, largely due to injuries. But that team also had to play Oklahoma so they weren't expected to breeze through the season. This time expectations have to be higher due to the schedule if nothing else. The other edge of that is FSU is not going to the BCS championship if there are two other undefeated teams.

Since we place them #5 and not in the top two, we ignore the scheduling aspect and just assume the 'Noles win the ACC and go to the Orange Bowl. Since the Orange Bowl picks last, they'll be stuck with the Big East winner, who we project as South Florida. FSU and USF play in late September and they might play again in early January.

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