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“Florida State should be able to bowl over the Georgia Tech defense. It just needs to hold onto the football while it does that. It’s not expected to be a blowout—Georgia Tech is scrappy enough to deserve respect, like a cornered fox protecting its kits—but it will probably take a moderate to big turnover margin in the Yellow Jackets’ favor for an upset to materialize.”
Who wrote that?
What an idiot!!
Let’s go throw rocks at his windows.
I, of course, am the idiot. I thought Georgia Tech could beat Florida State in one of those weird, fluky college football games, one with red zone turnovers and missed kicks. I thought Florida State would outplay Georgia Tech, and that Georgia Tech’s opportunity would only arrive if it was born of chaos.
What happened instead?
Georgia Tech beat Florida State. They outgained the Seminoles by 2.0 yards per pass attempt. They outgained the Seminoles by 2.1 yards per rush attempt. Florida State played the cleaner game—Georgia Tech missed a kick; Georgia Tech gave FSU two opportunities to pounce on a loose ball in the backfield—and Florida State still lost.
Whenever a team beats a more athletic opponent—and I mean beats them, as opposed to merely sneaking out a win—eyes turn towards coaching. Who made the players play beyond themselves? True to form, that’s where the discourse headed in the aftermath of yesterday’s upset. Brent Key got his well-deserved love, and offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner’s reputation enjoyed yet another good day. The new star was Tyler Santucci, the first-year defensive coordinator who came over from Duke following Mike Elko’s departure for Texas A&M. It was a total team victory, and that applied to the coaches as well. It’s hard to find a unit within Georgia Tech’s roster which didn’t play well. The Yellow Jackets were prepared. The Yellow Jackets were motivated. The Yellow Jackets had the better scheme and the better gameplan. Most impressively, the Yellow Jackets found a way to slow the Seminoles down at the line of scrimmage.
This is the piece of the game that makes the least sense. How did Georgia Tech keep Florida State from gaining eleven yards every time they handed off the ball? On the first drive, Florida State’s backs were into the back of the front seven before Georgia Tech laid a finger on them. By the end of the game, Florida State’s running game found itself in quicksand. 10.8 yards per carry on the first drive of the day. 0.3 yards per carry on the last.
Was it conditioning?
What the hell happened??
On the FSU side, too much is going to be made of DJ Uiagalelei. This has been true for all 36 years DJ Uiagalelei’s spent in college, but some things never change. College football is not the NFL. Not everything comes back to the quarterback. (Not everything comes back to the quarterback in the NFL, either, but it’s even less the case in the college game.)
Did Uiagalelei play well? No. But he played his game. No one should have been surprised by DJ Uiagalelei’s performance (and Georgia Tech clearly wasn’t, stacking the box often and daring Uiagalelei to beat them deep). Our indications hold that Uiagaelei is a tough, poised competitor who isn’t that good at throwing footballs. He seems smart, and he seems like a fine young man, but he’s never become a pinpoint passer or anything that really resembles one.
Look at that final drive. The first fourth down attempt. 4th and 11, ten minutes on the clock, Florida State trailing by seven and staring down a disastrous opening to the season. Uiagalelei found the open man and threw it…behind him. Just a little bit. Not enough for the receiver to drop it, and not enough for the pass to be picked off. But the throw was a little bit errant. On the biggest pass of the game, Uiagalelei missed, and he missed in the one direction which could have possibly led to a pick-six or the ball being batted down. It worked out, but it was dicier than it needed to be.
That might be how it needs to go for Florida State this year. They’re still among the ACC favorites, and the ACC champion should make the playoff* and receive a first-round bye. But they might need to survive a lot of dicey moments.
*How about ESPN’s halftime show not knowing its own playoff format? For those still unsure, the highest-ranked Group of Five champion does NOT automatically receive the 12th seed. What happens is this: The four highest-ranked conference champions take the first four seeds. The fifth highest-ranked conference champion makes the playoff, seeded in order between 5th and 12th alongside the seven at-larges. Testing this backwards over previous seasons, yes, the Group of Five champion often receives the 12-seed. But that is not an automatic designation. In fact, the ACC stands a decent chance of sending its champion to that 12th spot. If the eventual champion is ranked behind a Group of Five champ, plus the Big Ten, SEC, and Big 12 champions, the ACC champion will not receive a bye. Not this year. If the eventual ACC champion is ranked behind *two* Group of Five champs, plus those of the Big Ten, SEC, and Big 12, the ACC team would need to make the playoff as an at-large qualifier, a team ranked in the top twelve themselves. This is unlikely, but it’s a possibility, especially after yesterday.
It’s too early for us to give up on Florida State. They are probably not bad. They might not even be worse than Georgia Tech by the time December rolls around. Clemson opened last year with an upset loss to a surprising ACC upstart, one with a defense coached by Tyler Santucci. Clemson finished last year as a top-20 team, both in true quality and the final rankings. Their conference record was only .500, but all their other losses came by one score, and two came in overtime. Florida State could be this year’s Clemson, and if they get luckier than last year’s Clemson, they could still win the ACC.
Will Florida State give up on themselves, though? This is where culture becomes a question. Alabama opened last season about as terribly as you could imagine a Nick Saban team opening the season, losing by double digits at home before playing a miserable game in Tampa against South Florida. From there? They proceeded as you’d imagine a Nick Saban team would proceed. They got it together, won through some ugliness, played their best game of the year in one of the two contests which mattered most, and won themselves an SEC Championship. I don’t know that we don’t expect this positive a response from Mike Norvell’s program, but we don’t expect it, either. Florida State, the institution, is big on bluster these days. Bluster and finger-pointing. Maybe that doesn’t permeate into the locker room. The locker room’s probably an independent ecosystem. But the last time we saw Florida State get a chance to reaffirm themselves following an instance of widespread disrespect, a quarter of their players declined to play and they lost by 60 points.
How about Georgia Tech? What’s the path forward? Are they an ACC contender?
Yes.
If you watched SMU last night, you know that any ACC team who plays well should, at this point, be labeled an ACC contender. Had SMU throttled Nevada, the tune might be different, but SMU did not throttle Nevada, and the fact we’re looking at SMU as an ACC contender illustrates the point. I’m not trying to be mean to the ACC. What I’m saying is that there’s a big opportunity here for upward advancement, upward advancement for programs like Georgia Tech.
Clemson and Florida State will be competitive, but it would be an outright shock if either was national title caliber. The gap behind them is easy to cross. SMU was supposed to be in that mix, but that’s harder to believe after they looked like an arrogant mid-major in Reno. NC State, Louisville, and Virginia Tech are all teams you can believe in, but they shouldn’t be much better than the Yellow Jackets. Miami and UNC have bigger sails than most—a little bit of winning goes a long way in the reputation game—but even Miami, rather ballyhooed this year, would be overjoyed to find itself in Florida State and Clemson’s terrain. The ACC is ripe for new kings. Yes, Georgia Tech could certainly be among them.
My personal biggest concern for Georgia Tech is how they handle these next two weeks. Georgia State shouldn’t be very good this year, but State’s got tape on Tech, Tech doesn’t have tape on State, Tech’s coming off a transatlantic flight, State’s driving a couple miles uptown, and Tech would be in prime letdown territory even if this game took place in Atlanta or Tallahassee. It’s not that Georgia Tech might lose, but that winning might take a lot out of them. From there, they have to turn around and play Syracuse up at the Carrier Dome. Again, not necessarily a game where a good team would fall, but a game where a good team might have a hard time if they’re a little run down. Only after Syracuse does Georgia Tech get something of a break, playing VMI at home. It’s two tricky games, then a cupcake, then a trip to Louisville which should show us what these Yellow Jackets are really made out of. For a good team, it would be a tiring but easy 4–0 start. Is Georgia Tech a good team?
The thing Georgia Tech has going for it is that this is the type of stretch where culture shows up. Coaching matters when things get weird, and flying back from glory in Dublin to prepare for a lower-tier Sun Belt team is a weird situation. Our indications currently hold that Georgia Tech is a well-coached team. That’s the prevailing theory for why yesterday happened. Still, it’s not the easiest landing.
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There was other exciting football yesterday, but the national consequence was small. Delaware State hung in there surprisingly well against Hawaii. As we alluded to above, SMU played badly in Reno but still beat Nevada. Montana State shouldn’t feel great about their win in Albuquerque, but they got the job done and remain an FCS contender, and it’s hard to be upset with any FCS team after a road win against an FBS foe. The MEAC/SWAC Challenge was exciting, with Norfolk State giving Florida A&M more than we expected them to give. Tarleton State messed around a little against McNeese. It was a fun Week Zero, centered around a season-altering upset. An early referendum on the twelve-team playoff: Florida State’s loss matters less. Georgia Tech’s win means more.
Moving on to our promised look at who ended up where, here’s the full list of new FBS coaches this season. Current interims are marked with an asterisk.
| Team | Coach |
| Alabama | Kalen DeBoer |
| Arizona | Brent Brennan |
| Boise State | Spencer Danielson |
| Boston College | Bill O’Brien |
| Buffalo | Pete Lembo |
| Duke | Manny Diaz |
| Fresno State | Tim Skipper* |
| Georgia State | Dell McGee |
| Houston | Willie Fritz |
| Indiana | Curt Cignetti |
| James Madison | Bob Chesney |
| Louisiana-Monroe | Bryant Vincent |
| Michigan | Sherrone Moore |
| Michigan State | Jonathan Smith |
| Middle Tennessee | Derek Mason |
| Mississippi State | Jeff Lebby |
| Nevada | Jeff Choate |
| New Mexico | Bronco Mendenhall |
| New Mexico State | Tony Sanchez |
| Oregon State | Trent Bray |
| San Diego State | Sean Lewis |
| San Jose State | Ken Niumatalolo |
| South Alabama | Major Applewhite |
| Syracuse | Fran Brown |
| Texas A&M | Mike Elko |
| Troy | Gerad Parker |
| Tulane | Jon Sumrall |
| UCLA | DeShaun Foster |
| Utah State | Nate Dreiling* |
| UTEP | Scotty Walden |
| Washington | Jedd Fisch |
| Wyoming | Jay Sawvel |
Additionally, among the FCS powers, North Dakota State has a new head coach in Tim Polasek.
You can think of coaching changes as happening for two reasons. One is that the previous coach left because he did something well. The other is that the previous coach left because he did something poorly. There’s variety within each, and there are some which don’t neatly fit either category. But it’s a helpful dichotomy.
Of the 13 Power Four programs with a new coach this year, six fit the first category, programs sad to lose their coach but left in a good place:
- Nick Saban left Alabama to retire.
- Jedd Fisch left Arizona to move up into the Big Ten.
- Mike Elko left Duke to move up into the SEC.
- Jim Harbaugh left Michigan to move up into the NFL.
- Kalen DeBoer left Washington to move up to Alabama.
- Lastly, Jeff Hafley left Boston College to take the Packers’ defensive coordinator job. He wasn’t doing as well as any of these other five, but he was doing well. We’ll include him here.
Alabama, Arizona, Duke, Michigan, and Washington are still all rebuilding, to various extents, but it’s a different kind of rebuild. There’s still momentum around football within these athletic departments and these booster ecosystems. There’s momentum at Boston College as well, but Boston College faces more unusual headwinds. I’m guessing we’ll talk more about Boston College next Monday, when they get a standalone game against FSU.
The other seven…
- Houston fired Dana Holgorsen.
- Indiana fired Tom Allen.
- Michigan State fired Mel Tucker over a sex scandal.
- Mississippi State fired Zach Arnett.
- Syracuse fired Dino Babers.
- Texas A&M fired Jimbo Fisher.
- Chip Kelly fled UCLA to take the Ohio State offensive coordinator job. He wouldn’t have been fired had he stayed—in fact, UCLA’s administration stuck its neck out by keeping him, only to then see him go—but he wasn’t doing very well. We’ll include him here.
For these seven schools, the rebuild is more pronounced. In some ways, that’s nice. It’s a fresh start. In others, it’s scary. Houston and Syracuse are not secure in their high-major status. Their new hires need to work. Indiana and Mississippi State are always at risk of cellar-dwelling, and it’s easy to see Michigan State or UCLA falling into that territory. Texas A&M is a weird beast. It should be a full rebuild, like these others, but expectations are still high, like they are at Alabama and Michigan.
(For our FCS fans: North Dakota State is in territory similar to Alabama’s. Although…well, more on North Dakota State on Thursday, before they play Colorado. North Dakota State probably needed to move on from Matt Entz.)
We were going to try to track quarterback movement in here as well today, but that was back when we believed Florida State would bowl over the Georgia Tech defense. We’ll roll that into our upcoming Heisman preview instead. Frankly, that’s a better place to look at the position. A lot of college quarterbacks are, for broad intents and purposes, interchangeable. We’ll focus on the ones who could pop.
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We’ll be back tomorrow with the start of our season preview.
Bark.
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