George Henshaw, who coached for two decades in the NFL as an offensive coordinator and position coach and also worked at the college level -- including seven years under Bobby Bowden at Florida State -- will offer insights to Warchant.com readers during the 2018 season.
Last week, Henshaw spoke about the NCAA's new redshirt rule and how different coaching staffs may use it. In this week's conversation with Warchant.com managing editor Ira Schoffel, Henshaw discusses the challenge of coaching in a season opener at a new school, and how well a coaching staff really knows its team after training camp.
Warchant: Willie Taggart has been at FSU for nine months now, but this will be the first time he leads the Seminoles into a game against a real opponent. As a first-year head coach going into a situation like this, how certain can you be of what you're going to see from the team overall and the players individually?
Henshaw: The thing you don't really know as a new coaching staff is how guys are going to play when you start keeping score. With the evaluation process that you’ve gone through -- the off-season program, spring practice and what you did during the summer -- you have an impression of what you’re going to get. And generally speaking, most guys will play about the same way that they practice, the way that they prepared. But there will be some that won’t. They won’t play nearly as well as they do in practice. I’m sure most of the people reading this will be able to relate to that because a lot of people play golf, and they can go out there and hit it great on the practice range when they’re not keeping score. But all of a sudden, you go play and keep score, and they can’t hit it a lick. So that part is going to be different for some guys.
I'll tell you this: The coaches are going to have an entirely different impression of some of these players on Tuesday morning, compared to what they have right now. And the players also are going to have an entirely different opinion of these coaches. The advantage that Florida State has right now is that Virginia Tech is not sure what Florida State has. The disadvantage is that Florida State doesn’t know what Florida State has, either (laughing). And until you get out there and start playing the games, you don’t know for sure. Virginia Tech knows what they’re going to do. They are going to play Virginia Tech football like they have for the last 20-something years. So you know what you’re going to get with them.
Warchant: So in general, do coaching staffs have a very good idea of what to expect when they come out of training camp?
