Since Everett Golson has joined the Seminoles football team of Florida State, murmurs have begun to increase at the possibility for the team to make a national championship run.
This reporter thinks definitely… NOT. We have to look at Seminoles football as a whole. The arrival of Golson at Florida State fills a hole for Seminoles, but that is only 1 of 29, or the number of players FSU has lost the past three seasons to the NFL Draft.
The argument isn’t about just the addition of Golson, but whether or not Jimbo Fisher can plug 28 more holes in his sinking boat. The Seminoles lineup come September will be quite unrecognizable.
Many people still ask can they contend? It’s funny because we joke about possibilities and we analyze the preseason polls and the incoming class, but come game day, our prediction is as good, or as useless,?as anyone else.
Yet we still want to forget about a team that just picked up a player that has nearly eclipsed the 6000 yard mark and 40 touchdowns.
Lets dig deeper into the Seminoles lineup. Jimbo Fisher’s team must replace seven starters on offense including Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston. While running back Dalvin Cook is?coming off a 1000 yard and 8 touchdown freshman campaign, the addition of four brand new lineman and no game-proven wide receiver or tight end might prove to be an insurmountable challenge.
I know?that Florida State fans are slowly chanting “Travis, Travis, Travis” and “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” but let’s look at the tandem of Travis Rudolph and Jesus Wilson. Travis Rudolph is coming off a freshman year campaign where he caught 38 balls and gained 555 yards?along with 4 touchdowns.
That means out of the 330 throws completed between Sean Maguire and Jameis Winston, only 11.5% of those completed tosses found the hands of Rudolph. Furthermore, his counterpart Jesus Wilson, who accrued a stat line of 42 receptions, 527 yards, and 4 touchdowns only accounted for 12.7% of completed balls, a combined 24.2 % between both players.
This is compared to 44.2% of balls caught by Rashad Greene and Nick O’Leary, both of whom have moved on to the NFL.
While the Wilson and Rudolph tandem should see a jump in targets, I wouldn’t expect for any breakouts to occur within the 12.7% line owned by the two.
It should also be noted that seven quarterbacks in the FBS tallied more than 20 turnovers. Both Everett Golson and Jameis Winston are on that list… But Winston is the only quarterback on the list to have?lead his team to double digit wins.
For Golson and the Seminoles to find their way into the national championship a lot of holes need to be filled by a faltering cast, but hey it’s college football isn’t it?
