SportsRatings 2015 College Football Pre-season Top 128
| Florida State Seminoles (ACC #3; Atlantic #1) |
 #22 |
2014 Results |
AP #5 USA #6 | Strength:#25 Success:#3 Overall:#8 |
| Record: 13-1 | Bowl: Lost to Oregon 59-20 (Rose) |
||
| 2015 Outlook |
Picks: AP #10 | USA #8 | Lindy's #12 | Athlon #9 | Steele #9 | ESPN #21 |
||
| Record: 9-3 | Bowl odds: 99.5% Playoff odds: 8% | ||
Last year's FSU team was the luckiest in recent memory, 7-0 in close games en route to another undefeated regular season. They didn't even compare to 2013's dominant team and this year without Jameis Winston's magic to bail them out they might have a season more fitting for their actual Strength. They also might end up in the Playoff again, as their schedule is not exactly terrifying.
| Offense 4 ret. starters |
2014 Scoring Offense: #35 (raw) #22 (adjusted for opposition) |
| 2015 Projected Scoring Offense: #44 (adjusted) |
Losing Jameis Winston isn't a good thing for the offense but it's not what hurts them the most, as Everett Golson should do a pretty good job of replacing him. They lose key receivers and most of their offensive line, and that's why the offense looks much less effective this year.
| Passing Game |
2014 Passing Rank: #14 (raw) #10 (adjusted) | 2014 Sacks Allowed (raw): #40 |
| 2015 Projected Passing Rank: #29 (adjusted) |
2015 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #83 |
Jameis Winston (3,907 yards, 25 TDs, 18 interceptions) wasn't the same player that won the Heisman trophy (40:10 ratio last year) which will make last year's stats a little easier to replace. Sean Maguire (339 yards, 1:2) is next in line but Notre Dame grad transfer Everett Golson (3,445 yards, 29:14) is the better talent. The bigger problem is the loss of Rashad Greene (1,365 rec yards, 7 TDs) and Nick O'Leary (618 yards, 6 TDs). They still have Travis Rudolph (555 yards) and Jesus Wilson (527 yards). The offensive line is a concern too, with four starters gone and protection will be an issue for the new QB. Maguire knows the offense but struggled last year, while Golson had his problems but would do about as good a job replacing Winston as anyone. It's the loss of receivers as much as than anything that downgrades the passing game, but there are several reasons to think things won't run as smoothly this year.
| Rushing | 2014 Rushing Rank: #98 (raw) #61 (adjusted) | 2015 Projected Rushing Rank: #99 (adj.) |
Dalvin Cook (1,008 yards, 8 TDs) turned it up at the end of last year as a freshman and he's back, after some mid-summer questions as to his availability were resolved. #2 Karlos Williams (689 yards, 11 TDs) is gone, however, and the bigger concern is the offensive line. Four starters are gone including first-round draft choice Cameron Erving. Sophomore Roderick Johnson is the only one back, and Cook's late-season momentum might be disrupted. Assuming Everett Golson wins the QB job he could contribute here, too, as he had 283 rushing yards (8 TDs) at Notre Dame.
| 2014 Adjusted Stats: | Rush Defense: #39 Pass Defense per-game: #90 Per-attempt: #53 | ||
| Defense 7 ret. starters |
'14 Scoring Defense: #52 (raw) #43 (adjusted) | '14 sacks: #118 | '14 picks: #51 |
| '15 Projected Scoring Defense: #34 (adjusted) |
'15 sacks: #118 | '15 picks: #36 | |
For years Florida State had one of the most fearsome pass rushes in college football; last year they averaged just over 1 sack per game. It doesn't look like things will get better this year; the defensive line returns two starters but Mario Edwards (8 tackles for loss) departs. Both starting linebackers return to the 4-2-5 including Reggie Northrup (122 tackles) but key reserve Matthew Thomas is out for the year. The secondary has 3 starters back; they lose PJ Williams (10 pass breakups) but Jalen Ramsey (12 pass breakups) returns. Overall the four top tacklers are back and the defense will rebound a bit but not match 2013's heights when it was among the very best in the nation.
Special Teams/Situations
- Kicking Game: FSU has superstar kicker Robert Aguayo (27 of 30 FG last year) back again, along with punter Cason Beatty (41.0 average).
- Return Game: Kermit Whitfield is back to return kickoffs (20.8 average); he had a touchdown return in 2013. But Rashad Greene (10.7 on punts) is gone.
- Turnovers projection: As good as Jameis Winston was last year he threw a lot of interceptions (18) and with Sean Maguire's 2 that's 20 total. Everett Golson threw 14 last year and fumbled 8 times, but the fumbles probably won't happen again. It's possible that FSU has fewer turnovers with Golson at the helm, but either way it doesn't get worse compared to last year.
Coaching Hot Seat Ranking: #126 (COLD)
Jimbo Fisher has lived up to Bobby Bowden's legacy in the W column; in the last three years he's won 12, 14, and 13 games. That puts him at the very top of the list in terms of safest coaching positions in the land. There's a bit of controversy with his unyielding support of Winston, and several other FSU players have been in trouble recently. If he weren't winning he might be in warm water, especially at FSU where expectations are very, very high. So far he's exceeding them, though.
Recruiting 2015 Recruiting Rank: #14 2014 Recruiting Rank: #3
FSU chugs along in recruiting, one of the few non-SEC teams that consistently ranks at or near the top ten. In this year's smaller group Fisher still brought in four more consensus 5-star players: wide receiver George Campbell, corner Tavarus McFadden, safety Derwin James (all from Florida) and defensive end Josh Sweat from Virginia who may start the first game due to injury issues the defense has been having.
2014 Recap
Compared to 2013's Seminoles, 2014's model didn't impress. But they did win. And win, and win, and win. Not since Ohio State of 2002 was there a team that looked so bad while winning, but kept winning no matter what. From the first game against Oklahoma State (37-31) something looked wrong. But we ignored it, thinking that one game doesn't mean anything. The win over The Citadel was extremely weak—but they didn't take the game seriously, right? They almost lost to Clemson (23-17 OT), but they didn't have Jameis Winston (still, compare it to 2013's 51-14 road win). They were behind at NC State big time but rallied. By the Notre Dame game they were 6-0 and it was still hard to tell if they were any good. The narrow win (31-27) over a questionable Notre Dame team didn't answer anything. Nor did the comeback win against Louisville, the narrow B.C. win, the Miami comeback...eventually it became clear that this was going to happen to any team that wasn't overwhelmingly better than the Seminoles. They escaped Florida and Georgia Tech, and looking back, it's quite an accomplishment. Nine wins over bowl teams, three wins over Committee top 25 teams. Still, they beat a lot of good teams, but no great ones. And they barely beat the good ones. It took a game against a great team to finally expose the Seminoles as a pale imitation of the 2013 national championship team as Oregon pasted FSU 59-20. It also showed the real problem with FSU in 2014: the defense, formerly a top five unit, just wasn't very good in 2014.
Last year's prediction: Of course we put FSU #1—how could we not? They were so dominant in 2013 and Jameis Winston was back along with enough defensive starters to keep the team a clear #1. We downgraded their rating quite a bit but they were still so far ahead of the rest of the field that we predicted a 12-0 finish. We were right about that but not the way it happened—with close calls nearly every week. Even before the Oregon debacle they obviously weren't the best team in the country, and it was mainly the fault of the defense, which fell from #4 to #43 in adjusted scoring allowed. We predicted the D would fall, but only to #8.
2015 Outlook
|
Florida State 2015 schedule & forecast |
||||||||
| 9/5 | Sat | vs. | Texas State | 97% | W | |||
| 9/12 | Sat | vs. | South Florida | 98% | W | |||
| 9/18 | Fri | @ | *Boston College | 74% | W | |||
| 10/3 | Sat | @ | *Wake Forest | 86% | W | |||
| 10/10 | Sat | vs. | *Miami FL | 73% | W | |||
| 10/17 | Sat | vs. | *Louisville | 83% | W | |||
| 10/24 | Sat | @ | *Georgia Tech | 39% | L | |||
| 10/31 | Sat | vs. | *Syracuse | 95% | W | |||
| 11/7 | Sat | @ | *Clemson | 45% | L | |||
| 11/14 | Sat | vs. | *NC State | 75% | W | |||
| 11/21 | Sat | vs. | Chattanooga | 92% | W | |||
| 11/28 | Sat | @ | Florida | 47% | L | |||
|
Straight up: 9-3 Cume: 9-3 Bowl eligible: 99.5%
|
||||||||
Florida State is good enough that they can win all their games again and go 12-0 in the regular season for a third straight year. The question is whether they'll have last year's luck. They'll need it to win close road games against Georgia Tech, Clemson, and Florida.
Apart from that, the season should be smooth sailing. Texas State and South Florida are near-gimmes at home, with Boston College and Wake Forest the easiest ACC road games of the year. They get Miami at home this year as well as Louisville. They had trouble with 3 out of the 4 of those ACC foes last year but with a little luck they'll be 6-0 at mid-season.
We rate Georgia Tech as the hardest game on their slate; they beat the Yellow Jackets by 2 points last year on a neutral field, now they face them on the road. Survive that, and two games later they travel to Clemson to face a team they needed overtime to beat last year at home. And they end the season at Florida; they beat the Gators by 5 at home last year.
The pitfalls are spaced out over the 2nd half of the season, and as we said with luck the Seminoles could go undefeated again, and another trip to the College Football Playoff is not out of the question at all. But last year's luck—seven games won by a touchdown or less?—isn't going to happen again. We think they'll lose somewhere along the way and maybe even get upset this year, winning 9, 10, or 11 games, but not 12-0 again.
More Previews • Full coverage of all 128 FBS teams
SportsRatings 2015 College Football Pre-season Top 128
Comments