Florida State started the season by losing Deondre Francois, and I have talked about how badly the injury has hurt them this season. They were clearly in trouble the second he got hurt, but I thought that they could recover if they could get their offense going again. They were not destined to compete for a title, but they could have been a decent team because they have such a good defense. I was wrong because they have lost their very next game in conference. We see now what Fsu has done. They hedged all their bets on Deondre Francois, and then they lost.
Knowing your risk
Florida State must have known that they were going to be in a heap of trouble if they based all their successes on one guy. Big programs like this usually have a lot more players to choose from, and they can start plugging people into their offense or defense where needed. You certainly cannot expect that your whole season can turn on the skills of a young kid who had not yet played in college. However, the Seminoles thought that they could get away with it, and they got very unlucky in their very first game.
The freedom a national title brings
Jimbo Fisher has been given a lot of freedom because he already won a national title. He knows that he can take risks and not get fired, and that is what he has done here.
He thought he could turn Francois into a superstar, but he has failed. This team was going to ride or die on the back of just one person, and everyone knows that that is a problem in college football.
The Ohio State lesson
The Ohio State national title team that lost Braxton Miller and JT Barrett rode Cardale Jones to a national title.
If you recall, they beat Wisconsin 59-0 and won both their playoff games going away. That is a team that was prepared to play on the biggest stage, and Urban Meyer did not put all his eggs in one basket. We have learned how important depth is in college football, but the Seminoles apparently missed that lesson.
How do they recover?
Florida State needs to change their recruiting strategy completely. They have a few great players, but they might not have enough depth on their roster for the future. That is a serious problem for a team that should be competing with Clemson to win the ACC. At this point, Clemson could beat them 100 times out of 100 simply because Clemson is deeper. Clemson moved seamlessly from one quarterback to another, but the Seminoles failed in this area because they tried to make Deondre Francois into their savior.
