A season in review.Jimbo Fisher was hired at Florida State to revive a once-explosive offense that had fallen into utter disrepair by the end of 2006. When he finally supplanted Bobby Bowden as head coach three years later, though, Fisher's mandate was on the other side of the ball: The 2009 Seminole D was unrecognizable as a product of longtime, respected Bowden aide Mickey Andrews, falling on its face out of the gate and eventually stumbling in at dead last in the ACC in rushing, pass efficiency and total defense.
FSU gave up at least 26 points in every conference game in '09, and had to be bailed out by repeatedly by the offense in shoot-em-up wins over bottom-dwellers N.C. State (45-42), Wake Forest (41-28) and Maryland (29-26) – all of which put up more than 400 yards total offense – as well as at North Carolina (30-27), where the 'Noles had to rally from a 24-6 hole in the second half. It was the first time a Florida State defense had allowed 30 points per game across an entire season since an 0-11 effort in 1973, three years before Bowden's arrival.
Compared to the rock bottom of Andrews' swan song, the mediocrity of the first season under Mark Stoops was a great leap forward – or backward, if you're thinking along a timeline – especially against the 'Noles' closest annual rivals, where the results weren't so mediocre. In the instate wars, they held Miami to 17 points and Florida to a paltry seven in a pair of satisfying blowouts. Within the Atlantic Division, they shut out Wake Forest and held Boston College, Clemson and Maryland under 20 in FSU wins.
Elsewhere, though, the shootouts persisted, and the offense proved less prolific in keeping pace. Oklahoma knocked FSU off the national radar with a vengeance in September, dropping four touchdown on the Seminoles the first four times it touched the ball in a 47-17 incineration that brought visions of 2009 flooding back. Even on the heels of a subsequent five-game winning streak that eased some of the worst fears, the 'Noles were lit up in losses at the hands of the three most veteran quarterbacks in the ACC: N.C. State's Russell Wilson (247 total yards, 4 touchdowns in a 28-27 upset that put the Wolfpack in the Atlantic Division driver's seat for the last five weeks of the regular season), North Carolina's T.J. Yates (439 yards passing, 3 touchdowns in a 37-35 Tar Heel win) and Virginia Tech's Tyrod Taylor (287 total yards, 4 touchdowns in a 44-33 triumph in the ACC Championship Game). Four times Florida State allowed upward of 20 points, a good rate in the grand scheme, but all four times it went home a loser.
Fortunately for the overarching sense of progress over the next six months, the Chick-Fil-A Bowl win over South Carolina sent FSU into the offseason with probably the most promising defensive effort of the year – a five-turnover, four-sack, 17-point night against a solid veteran quarterback (fourth-year junior Stephen Garcia, making his 31st career start) and his All-America receiver, Alshon Jeffery, that sealed the Seminoles' first 10-win season since 2003. Cornerback Greg Reid knocked out star workhorse Marcus Lattimore on the first series of the game, and went on to justify his five-star recruiting hype as the game's MVP, setting himself up for a more sustained breakout as a junior. Seven other regular defensive starters will be back with him, including top pass-rusher Brandon Jenkins and the other cornerback, Xavier Rhodes, both of whom landed on the All-ACC team prior to the bowl – and two of the three likely new starters in the fall, linebackers Christian Jones and Jeff Luc, were hyped, five-star recruits themselves last year, to say nothing of 2011's incoming superstar-in-waiting, James Wilder Jr.
But it's not like Florida State has ever lacked for talent, or for high expectations as a result. If this group has earned the top-10 projections certain to come their way this summer, it's mainly because they're being compared to their immediate, vastly underachieving predecessors instead of the halcyon headhunters that made top-five finishes routine for more than a decade. With the offense taking significant hits at quarterback and on the offensive line, the old standards will be in force, and it will take another leap forward to meet them.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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