Florida State enters tonight’s contest at Wake Forest with uncertainty at quarterback.
At least publicly.
Coach Willie Taggart declined to announce a starter earlier this week, and he didn’t divulge whether he’d go with a two-quarterback system for the road game.
To date, FSU’s quarterback situation has become hard to read...and that’s largely because Taggart has toggled between different ways of handling the position in the past month. James Blackman started the season well. He had his struggles and made some untimely misses in a road loss at Virginia, and we saw Alex Hornibrook integrated into the lineup as a rotational piece the next game against Louisville.
A system in which FSU spelled Blackman with Hornibrook was probably not ideal, but at least sensible -- it would give the defense a different look against a lefty who emphasizes the short game while allowing Blackman to get a periodic series to regroup. The situation became complicated when Blackman went down in the second half with a knee sprain.
Hornibrook started against NC State the following week, then FSU had a bye, and we then saw both quarterbacks rotate in at about a 2:1 ratio in favor of Blackman at Clemson. This comes a season after Taggart was almost loyal to a fault with Deondre Francois as his starter.
How FSU proceeds from here will be interesting to monitor. Did the Seminoles overcomplicate the most important position on the field or potentially start a QB controversy? Will they find balance going with both QBs? Do they go back to Blackman as QB1 and let him work through his growing pains? Or do they move on fully to Hornibrook and see what they can do to bolster the room next year?
These are the type of questions you ponder in the backseat of a 9-hour car ride from Tallahassee to Winston-Salem, N.C. (well, close to Winston-Salem).
Realizing that they are also questions that I simply don’t have answers to, I started thinking about way FSU’s QB room has been developed in recent years. Right now, going back and forth between two QBs comes off as Taggart searching for an answer at the most important position on the field. So, in talking with Nee while he drove and texting with Newberg and Zach, the topic turned to the lack of clarity at this spot and how FSU has just simply missed on too many potential building blocks in recent offseasons.
The conversation went to other positions as well, but we kept going back to QB.
That’s not to say that Blackman can’t develop. He’s a redshirt sophomore who’s had to work with five different play callers during his career, so he’s been dealt a bad hand.
The issue I keep going back to, however, is that FSU seems indecisive about whether or not Blackman is the answer. Is Taggart building for the future with Blackman in mind?
Regardless of that answer, Taggart has unfortunately seemed to back himself into a corner at QB. The Seminoles have yet to sign a prep quarterback in two recruiting classes under Taggart -- FSU is believed to be the only Power Five program to do so in that span -- and the future of the position is unclear. FSU did land transfers in Jordan Travis and Wyatt Rector to bolster depth at the position, and it has a four-star signal caller lined up in promising 2020 prospect Jeff Sims (plus FSU is also looking at Malik Hornsby as a way to replenish depth)...but the lack of clarity at QB is unsettling, both in the way Taggart has handled his current players and how he’s recruiting the position to date.
So, while making it to North Carolina, myself and the rest of the Noles247 staff went over the many misses at quarterback in recent years. This isn’t meant to pile on, but rather to reflect on why we’re seeing uncertainty at the position.
"many" - Google News
October 20, 2019 at 10:28AM
https://ift.tt/2MYKsLx
FSU's many misses at QB - 247Sports
"many" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2OYUfnl
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
No comments:
Post a Comment