There is no doubt that FSU Football will be back. The modern day college football program has drastically changed and with it comes a new Head Coach who completely understands every facet and a winning process. Since the great Bobby Bowden announced his retirement, Florida State began a major change toward the modern era. Jimbo Fisher worked, and worked, and then worked again. He cleaned house of the dead weight coaches. The reason they were dead weight is that they no longer worked hard in recruiting, coaching, and divided the team in the locker room. What remained were the hard working recruiters, and knowledgeable coaches in TE/Recruiting Coordinator James Coley, WR Coach Lawrence Dawsey, OL Coach Rick Trickett, and DT Coach Odell Hagan’s. This is all Florida State had for the most crucial time for recruiting leading up to national signing day. What this group did in this time was phenomenal. Top to bottom this class was great and Fisher Lead the charge with hard work and determination which led to FSU getting 24 signed letters of intent with some notables such as:
#1 DB and Defensive Player in the Nation, Lamarcus Joyner from St. Thomas Aquinas in Ft. Lauderdale
#1 MLB Prospect in the Nation, Jeff Luc from Port St. Lucie Florida
#1 OLB Prospect in the Nation, Christian Jones from Orlando Florida
At the same time Florida State was recruiting their tails off, Fisher had to assemble the rest of his coaching staff. The qualifications were cut and dry. Candidates must be able to do two things better than anyone else in the country; recruit and coach. He gets Eddie Gran to coach Running Backs and who is “The South Florida” Recruiter in the country outside of Florida. Coach Gran has coached many notable running backs during his time at Mississippi State, Auburn and Tennessee. You might have heard of a few; Duce McAllister, Ronnie Brown, Cadillac Williams, and Brandon Jacobs to name a few. The Florida State defense was abysmal to say the least in 2009 so Jimbo gets Mark Stoops from Arizona to be the Defensive Coordinator. The Stoops family name is synonymous with DEFENSE. This family knows how to shut you down and Mark was ready to separate himself from his brothers at Oklahoma and Arizona. Mark was also a coach at UM where he recruited and coached some of the best DBs that arguably College Football has ever seen in Sean Taylor, Ed Reed, Philip Buchanon, and Antrel Rolle. Mark Stoops is going to bring in a defense that is multiple with more zone coverage to reduce the mismatches by spread offenses and prevents big plays.
Jimbo Fisher didn’t stop there with helping the defense. He went and got East Carolina’s Defensive Coordinator, Greg Hudson to be the Linebackers Coach. East Carolina won the Conference USA Title beating the high octane offense of Houston led by Case Keenum and held Arkansas to 20 points in OT who has Ryan Mallett as their QB. Coach Hudson is one of those other guys who can coach and recruit as well. With Stoops wanting to be the secondary coach as well as the Defensive Coordinator, Fisher wanted to get another coach to be the Defensive Ends Coach and leave FSU great Odell Haggins to coach the Defensive Tackles. Upon Mark Stoops’ recommendation, Jimbo interviewed D.J. Eliot from Rice and in the interview he blew Coach Fisher away and D.J. became the DE Coach. The offense was pretty much set, but Fisher wanted one more thing. Since he couldn’t be on the field giving the QBs the full time attention due to his increased Head Coaching responsibilities he got a trusted and proven guy for him in Dameyune Craig whom he recruited and coached at Auburn and was on staff at LSU with Fisher. In Jimbo Fisher’s first month as the Head Coach he assembled a top 10 recruiting class and a coaching staff that met his qualifications of true coaching and relentless recruiting.
In addition to the position coaches the biggest hire might have been the Strength & Conditioning Coach, Vic Viloria. Vic was at LSU with Fisher while Nick Saban was the head man and the strength and conditioning program still resonates at LSU. Coach Viloria is a former football player and graduate of SMU. Last year he was the S&C coach for his alma mater. SMU who has never really recovered from the NCAA Death Penalty levied upon it in the 80s went from 1 win in 2008 to 8 wins in 2009 with Coach Viloria heading the S&C program. Coach June Jones now heads SMU and clearly understands the importance of the S&C program. “Viloria endorses the "Hatch System" which develops functional and explosive strength in players through the use of free weights, plyometrics and jumping drills”, to quote ESPN. In addition to a new S&C Coach, Fisher increased the size of the S&C Staff from 2 on staff to 12 on staff. This allows for 2 expert staff members at each daily station for the players.
New Head Coach Jimbo Fisher also implemented a nutrition program and FSU Football now has a full time Nutritionist on Staff. The team now eats together at the Team dining facility 3 times per day and the seating is broken up into three areas, weight gainers, weight losers, and weight maintainers. These are practices that the top schools in the country have instituted like, Alabama, Texas, Ohio State, and those nasty Gators. Florida State fell back dramatically since 2000 in many areas but Fisher has all the right processes in place for future dominance.
Player Development is a huge point of emphasis for Coach Fisher and the entire staff. FSU has brought in coaches who can “coach”, implemented a better and more concentrated S&C program, and has implemented a nutrition program. All that sounds like a success already but Jimbo Fisher didn’t stop there. He has hired the prestigious sports academy IMG in Tampa to help the players mentally. The players will understand better why they are successful and what they need to do to repeat successful behavior on and off the field. Fisher also has tested all players and all incoming freshman to determine what tools work best for them to learn.
Spring practice and the Spring Game were noticeably different. Spring practice was a much faster pace with everyone getting reps. Coaches were able to actually coach the players and all the feedback is that they (the players) see why the new defensive scheme will be successful. Jimbo Fisher issued a challenge to FSU fans and they responded with 50,000 in attendance. Fisher made it a fan friendly place as the admissions are free, yet many donated cash to the Booster Buckets. The Spring Game was excellent. I noticed the defense didn’t look lost. They just looked like they need more reps in the scheme to better understand their reads. The Offense looked great at times but the real game scenario played out very competitively which was a goal for Fisher.
Considering all the things he and his staff have accomplished so far I have to give an Off-Season grade of A. If history is our indicator for the process to work and get FSU back to National prominence then that should be 3 to 4 years. I do expect FSU to win the ACC Atlantic Division and have a great chance to win the ACC this year but it is year one of the new Jimbo Fisher process. One of the indicators that should get Seminole fans excited is he has a vision of getting FSU back ahead of the competition and not even with it. In the Future Fisher would like Florida State to have an indoor practice facility and a dorm that is big enough to have all the football players in it with other students under the NCAA guidelines. This will ensure the Seminoles can practice anytime and they live together as a family and the staff can keep better tabs on the players. These two goals look very achievable due to his efforts on the Booster trail which has increased Booster contributions significantly. I have heard a figure of an increase close to 200% and tickets sales at Doak Campbell have increased in the neighborhood of 450%.
Jimbo Fisher has this fan's vote of confidence..........GO NOLES!!!!
