Clark Column: More plays? More points? More fun? Yes, please
For my first Warchant column, I figured I’d start with a bizarre stat. One that I researched myself -- because that’s how much I care about you, dear reader. As you’ll soon find out, I’m always willing to go the extra quarter-mile for you guys.
And since I have a Georgia public school education, you best believe my research is 100 percent accurate.
So here goes: Over the past three years, Willie Taggart’s offenses possessed the ball for a total of 6,846 seconds less than Jimbo Fisher’s offenses. That equals 114.1 minutes. Which is almost the equivalent of two full football games.
And yet, despite having the ball for essentially two hours less than Fisher’s offenses during that span, Taggart ran 179 more plays and scored 258 more points.
That, my friends, is what excites me most about this regime change.
There are plenty of other reasons to feel a bolt of energy from what’s transpired the last two weeks -- as a media member, Taggart seems like a fun guy to deal with and his program should be much more accessible than what we’ve experienced here this decade (how could it not be?) -- but more than anything, I’m just ready to watch a fun, fast offense again.
* ALSO SEE: Warchant Roundtable -- Grading the Taggart hire; Fisher's ugly exit
Long before I became a college football writer, I was a college football fan.
And frankly, other than the great Dalvin Cook and the soon-to-be-great Cam Akers, what we've watched over the last three years was a whole bunch of ... not fun.
That should never be the case at Florida State. Ever.
This fan base grew up on double-reverses and 'rooskies and Fast Break offenses with Charlie Ward. It’s in the DNA around here.
The Seminoles weren’t just always good. They were exciting.
In 2015 and 2016, the 'Noles were still pretty good. But they weren’t very exciting. And then this year, they were neither. Which is why so many people are excited that Willie Taggart is wearing garnet today instead of green.
Now, I didn’t start this column with the intent of criticizing Jimbo Fisher. I did that enough over the last few months at my previous shop anyway.
Plus, I think he is a very good football coach. We’ll find out if he’s great if he can turn that Texas A&M program into one that actually wins things. But no matter how that plays out, he did some incredible things in Tallahassee, and he was also quite generous to me with his time over the years.
So no hard feelings, big guy. Seriously. Go Get 'em. Or Gig 'em. Or Gash 'em ... whatever it is Aggies do.
But holy smokes am I ready to see an offense that actually has some pace to it. Bet you are, too.
But I’m also not sure people understand just how different it’s going to be. So I did a little more research. Because I’m awesome like that.
Over the last three years, Fisher’s offenses averaged snapping the ball once every 28 seconds. That’s slow. This year specifically, the Seminoles snapped the ball once every 29.7 seconds. That’s incredibly slow. Like three-toed sloth slow -- if the sloth lost two of his toes.
Meanwhile, Taggart’s offense at Oregon snapped the ball once every 23.6 seconds. So 6.1 seconds faster for every play. If you extrapolate that out for a full game -- assuming for the sake of this exercise that each team gets the ball for roughly 30 minutes -- that’s an extra 16 plays per game for Taggart’s offense. And this was his first season at Oregon.
In his final season at South Florida, Taggart was snapping the ball every 22.5 seconds.
This is partly why his teams have scored so many more points and run so many more plays than Fisher’s, despite having the ball for two hours less.
I mean, this season alone, Florida State ran 141 LESS plays than Oregon. That’s incredible. That’s the equivalent of playing two fewer games. Part of that is because FSU had so many three-and-outs in 2017, and part of it is because the games were always shortened by having so many time-consuming, meandering, stare-at-the-sidelines-until-the-play-clock-is-running-down-and-you-have-to-hurry-up-and-snap-it drives.
Those days are over.
Thank heavens.
Because FSU will now play fast, fast and faster.
It might not always be pretty -- there’s nothing worse than a three-and-out that takes 22 seconds -- but when you have more talent than the other team, which FSU has pretty much every Saturday, it makes sense to run more plays. Not less. You want the game to be longer, not shorter, so your talent and depth can take over as the game wears on. And one-score games can become three- and four-score games before the clock hits zero. That’s the idea anyway.
OK, one last stat before I end this bad boy.
Over the last three years, Florida State has averaged scoring a touchdown every 6.9 minutes of possession time. Over the last three years, Taggart’s offenses have averaged a TD every 5.1 minutes. That’s a significant difference, I think.
He plays faster and, unless Jameis Winston is at quarterback and there are NFL players all over the field, he scores quicker than anything we’ve seen around here in a long time.
(By the way, I looked up the numbers for that insane 2013 FSU season. Because why not? And that Winston-led offense scored a touchdown every 3.9 minutes of possession time, which is … just absurd. But you already knew that offense was pretty good, right?)
The question is: Can Taggart bring the big-play, quick-strike offense back to Tallahassee?
The answer is: Yeah, probably.
Over the last two years, his offenses ranked in the top 10 in the nation in points per game, yards per rush, rushing TDs, points per play, yards per play, points per minute and total touchdowns.
The only categories where Fisher’s offense ranked in the top 10 during that span were screams-at-QB per game and tunnel screen incompletions (darn it, I’m really not trying to take shots at the guy, I promise!).
There’s no way to truly know if Taggart will be a huge success here. I think he has a chance to do well, because I think he’s going to load up this roster with serious talent.
But he’s not a sure thing. Nothing in this sport is -- other than Florida State making a bowl game.
Plus, Taggart really does have some big shoes to fill.
Jimbo Fisher did some great things for Florida State. But after 11 years of the same thing, I think we're all ready for something different.
And this offense is going to be a whole lot different than what we’re used to.
Contact senior writer Corey Clark at corey@warchant.com and follow @Corey_Clark on Twitter.
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Talk about this story with other Florida State football fans in the Tribal Council