Kickoff Special

Allllmost football season...you can feel it in the air. The temperature dips below 95 (at night), we reach the middle of the Hurricane alphabet, and our kids take a 7 hour break from XBox to attend school again. Pundits from around the country - exhausted after another six months of constant SEC supplication - wearily acknowledge that there is a remote chance that another conference school could win a National Championship. But since it has not happened since Brittany Spears started drinking, we all bite our tongue and hope. Unfortunately, another late Summer ritual has been the Kirsty Alley-like blown up expectations of our boys in Tallahassee, only to be followed by a September swoon. The good news - it ain't happening in early September.


Even after their early season cruise around St. Smallschool and Ridiculous U. for the first two games, the schedule is laid out for a run. And if the confidence and relaxed nature of the suddenly media huckster Head Coach is any indication of how we should be this season, then leave the lifeboats at home. This is a good football team folks. A team with more mature talent than any squad we have thrown on the dirt at Doak in well over a decade. The past few years have seen even minor injuries cripple us. Only three guys can stop our train by jumping off this year - LaMarcus Joyner, Christian Jones and Cam Erving. We can sustain injuries anywhere else and still win, and win big. Why, because the depth this staff has recruited - especially on defense and receiver - is big time.

The third team defensive line this season features the three best HS lineman in the country last year in Eddie Goldman, Mario Edwards Jr, and Chris Casher along with a former five star DT in Jacobbi McDaniel (who will probably redshirt due to depth). Ummm, these four would start on every other team in the ACC. That is like telling Kate Upton to hold because Carrie Underwood is calling in...This defense will be ridiculously good this season. I love the move of crash dummy Nick Moody to the strong side and freeing up Christian Jones to freelance. Telvin Smith operating behind the best interior in college football will be a missile when he is turned loose on a blitz. Just pity poor Xavier Rhodes, because he will see less balls than a Medieval eunuch. Just like Tracy Sanders and Martin Mayhew in the Deion era, Nick Waisome and Ronald Darby are going to get lots of game day reps. Fortunately, we are in good shape with Tyler Hunter in the nickel and our three safeties are all talented. I believe that opposing teams are going to be so scared of BJ and the Germinator that we will see a steady diet of quick slants, bubbles, and RB screens. Sack numbers will drop as opponents are going to be reticent to simply drop back and try and complete a normal route. So our punt return team - minus G5 who has sadly smoked his last opponent in Doak - should be well rehearsed by mid-season.

 Offensively, everyone wants to talk about the butterscotch mess that was our offensive line last year. And certainly, on the surface it does not appear to be a good sign when all insiders agree that our best 2012 lineman in the critical LT spot spent 2011 on the other side of the ball. But, if there has been one theme in the Jimbo Happy Dippy Do Daily Press Conference, it has been the unbelievable play of the new OL - and Cam Erving in particular. There is no doubt these boys are bigger. We are 300+ across the front, and all three fast food joints on Tennessee have recently installed double drive-thrus. We will see after Wake & Clemson if this group passes the fan eye test. Again, the good news is that there are plenty of bodies to throw at the problem this season. For example, if form holds, we should be talented enough to consider redshirting last years RT Bobby Hart in 2012. Next year, he will be old enough to vote and play for us again. The key here will be the beef in the middle. If the two monster sophomores in Mattias and Jackson can hold their own around the veteran Stork, then Jimbo's run-first attack should take hold.

A little thin at tailback with our first two backs coming off of back injuries and our bruiser JWJ just has to avoid TPD for a semester or two. EJ had the most accurate season in FSU QB history (really?), but in reality simply needs to be more accurate. He has weapons all over the field with an eight pack of ridiculous wideouts and a TE that can stretch the field. If he can create enough time to follow his progressions and just hit the clowns mouth, he will leave the fair with a gigantic stuffed Osceola.

Special teams ought to be good and bad. Golden Toe will be awesome, and I really hope we coach him to hit a bunch of 9 irons on the new kickoff line so that we can cover these kicks from 5 yards closer and really pin them back inside the 20. With all these new track guys in this freshman class and oh-so-slow Karlos Williams on kick returns, that is not a time to hit the hoppper (even if it only happens once a game). The bad might be punt coverage. We need to be patient with our new freshman punter as he makes his way through the season...Hopefully, we won't need him too much.

 In my preview last year, I said it felt like we were a 3 loss team that was a year away. I was a little off with the first part, and I hope I am dead right about the second. Go Noles!