Florida State/Clemson

[BobbyBlueChip]

Seminoles' concerns begin with Rix's play

By Josh Robbins
Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted September 28 2002

TALLAHASSEE -- If the Florida State Seminoles want reasons why they lost to unranked Louisville on Thursday night, they have plenty of options.Heavy rains from Tropical Storm Isidore could have negated the Seminoles' speed advantage and disrupted their passing game. The 38,109 fans assembled in Papa John's Cardinal Stadium might have inspired the Cardinals to overachieve.Or maybe the loss can be explained another way: a lack of capable players and coaches.Florida State's days as a national college football powerhouse may be over. Done. Finished. Dating to the 2001 Orange Bowl, the Seminoles have lost six of their past 18 games."I'm wondering why we don't make more plays than we do," FSU Coach Bobby Bowden said Friday.The two areas where the team struggled most last year -- at quarterback and on defense -- remain weaknesses.Sophomore quarterback Chris Rix completed just 14-of-33 passes for 173 yards against Louisville. Though he threw two touchdown passes, he also tossed an interception when the ball slipped out of his hand on the first play in overtime of the Seminoles' 26-20 loss."I see, as an offensive lineman, times where some of the guys will be open out there and he just takes three steps and tucks and the ball and runs," said center Antoine Mirambeau. "It's like we are running quarterback draws every time he's back there. That kind of irritates us as offensive linemen, knowing we are doing our job, but what's going on? Are the receivers not getting open?" The quarterback is the leader of the team. He's supposed to come out there and take control. I personally think he still needs a lot of work."Bowden said Friday that his confidence in Rix has not diminished. Bowden also said he never considered replacing Rix in favor of backup quarterback Adrian McPherson.Yet, when asked whether he will reassess his quarterback situation and consider using McPherson in FSU's upcoming game against Clemson on Thursday, Bowden said the matter probably would come up in today's coaches meeting."We'll discuss that," Bowden said. "We haven't had a chance yet. I think we landed at about 4 or 5 [a.m. on Friday morning], and I had to go make a television show and get home about 6. I'm sure we'll discuss all of that tomorrow, when we meet."Said offensive tackle Brett Williams: "Whatever the coaches feel [is] best, we are with it, but I think Rix will step up."The team's secondary also remains a concern.Cardinals quarterback Dave Ragone completed 13-of-19 passes for 163 yards and two touchdowns after halftime."The whole second half we were a totally different team than in the first half," cornerback Stanford Samuels said.After the game, Ragone said that he was surprised to see the Seminoles play so conservatively on defense."I know this," Bowden said. "We blitzed a couple of times last night and got burned. Our defensive backs were unable to stay with their receivers in that blitzing situation. People ask why we don't blitz more, and that's the reason."For FSU, it only gets more difficult from here. On Thursday, the Seminoles (4-1) face Clemson (3-1), a team that will enter the game with five more days of rest than FSU.That Atlantic Coast Conference game now carries huge implications for the Seminoles.A loss would eliminate FSU from the national title race and make it difficult for the Seminoles to win the league title.A loss to Clemson also would put FSU on its heels entering its Oct. 12 showdown against top-ranked Miami.Entering the season, Bowden said only two things could make him retire from football: declining health and losing.Bowden called the Louisville loss "gut-wrenching."Suddenly, it seems perfectly realistic that FSU will have lost

 

[BobbyBlueChip]

Shotgun helped the running game

By Josh Robbins
Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted September 30 2002

PRACTICE REPORT: FSU's ground game proved most effective against Louisville on inside handoffs out of the shotgun formation. Senior TB Nick Maddox, who received the majority of those handoffs, had his best game of the season with 59 yards on seven carries.There's a reason those runs were so successful. For most of the game, Cardinals Anthony Floyd and Curry Burns played close to the line of scrimmage in obvious running situations. The Seminoles simply could not block those extra bodies.When FSU went to the shotgun, the safeties played much further back from the line, giving the 'Noles more room to run."It opened up the running game a little bit more," Coach Bobby Bowden said of the shotgun. . . .

Redshirt freshman Willie Reid, who has been effective in limited action this year, did not play against Louisville on offense."He's been very effective and I'd love to see more of him, but Nick's been producing, too, and then the big guy [Greg Jones] has been producing," Bowden said. "It's just a case where we'd like to get him in there more, and I hope we can." . . .The Seminoles held a one-hour, 50-minute practice Sunday afternoon in preparation for Thursday's game with Clemson.

INJURIES: FSU sustained no major injuries against Louisville, but Bowden announced that junior DE Charles Howard would miss the rest of the season because of an injured knee that has bothered him throughout the season.

ETC.: There is a threat of inclement weather for Thursday's game. As of Sunday, the National Weather Service forecast for Tallahassee said showers and thunderstorms are likely Thursday.

QUOTE: "I think they probably have more skill than anybody we've played yet. He's like us: He's got a bunch of receivers. A couple of them are good sprinters that we tried to recruit." -- Bowden, discussing Clemson, which is coached by his son, Tommy Bowden

 

[BobbyBlueChip]

Simmons eager for trip home to play Seminoles, visit ill mother
By KEN TYSIAC
Staff Writer

Clemson The most touching football family reunion in Tallahassee, Fla., this week won't involve the Bowden coaching clan as Clemson quarterback Willie Simmons prepares to start at Florida State for the first time.
Simmons, who grew up 25 miles from Tallahassee in Quincy, Fla., hasn't seen his mother, Phyllis Simmons, since she was hospitalized after suffering a diabetic coma two weeks ago.
Phyllis is back home now, undergoing daily dialysis treatments as she also battles kidney failure and waits for a transplant. She has been looking forward to Thursday's game at Florida State for a long time.
"I'm coming along," Phyllis said. "I'm hoping I will feel well enough to be at the game."
Just being able to see his mother will be a treat for Simmons. After Phyllis was hospitalized, she asked people not to tell Willie how sick she had been because she didn't want Willie to rush home.
Clemson's distance from Tallahassee was one of the reasons Phyllis endorsed Willie's college decision. She and Willie are extremely close, and Phyllis wanted Willie to go beyond the shelter of her apron to learn to be a man.
But Phyllis' illness has made that distance a difficult barrier, and Phyllis knows Willie worries about her.
"All the time," Phyllis said. "He calls me just about every day."
If Simmons could be home today, he wouldn't believe the excitement in Quincy over him. Phyllis said people in Quincy tell her that they want Florida State to win, but they are looking forward to seeing Willie shine.
It's a meeting for which Willie was eager even when he was visiting Florida State as a high-profile recruit. According to Simmons, Florida State was always the last school to call him, and his final official visit was taken there.
By then, he had decided he would attend either Clemson or Georgia Tech.
"For my interests and for everything I wanted to do in my football career, I felt that playing against (the Seminoles) would be just as good as playing for them," Simmons said.
During the recruiting process, Simmons said, he felt like Florida State was "big-balling" him -- neglecting him because the staff took his commitment for granted since he was a hometown boy.
Simmons would love to show the Florida State coaches that they made a mistake. He also is eager to hear what kind of trash talk Seminole cornerback Leroy Smith, a former high school teammate, will come up with this week.
"Ever since I've signed I've been looking forward to this game," Simmons said. "It's finally here."
Simmons is off to a decent start as a junior after spending three seasons as a reserve behind Brandon Streeter and Woodrow Dantzler. He has completed 56.6 percent of his passes for 771 yards with four touchdowns and three interceptions while leading the Tigers to a 3-1 record.
But his biggest test, perhaps of the season, will come Thursday against the 11th-ranked Seminoles. Although Florida State lost 26-20 in overtime at Louisville on Thursday, a different Seminole team is ingrained in Simmons' memory.
Simmons visited the Florida State locker room at halftime as a recruit, when the Seminoles almost always were ahead. One of his visits was on Oct. 17, 1998, when Florida State hammered Clemson 48-0 at Tallahassee.
"You never got a chance to see how they reacted to being down," Simmons said. "You could see, just the look in their eyes, that they were going to go out and dominate."
In 2000, Simmons witnessed that domination from an opponent's point of view as he replaced Dantzler late in a 54-7 loss at Florida State. Simmons didn't find out until shortly before the game that he wouldn't be starting even though Dantzler was fighting an ankle injury.
That team was Dantzler's. This one is thriving under Simmons' leadership, and playing in his hometown will be much more fun as a result.
"We were just trying to get out of there alive," Simmons said of the 2000 game. "But now we feel really good going into the game, and a lot of that is going to rest on my play. How well I play is going to go a long way as far as determining the outcome of the game."
The rest of the weekend will be sweet no matter what the outcome. Phyllis Simmons said Willie has told her that he just needs to see her to feel comfortable that she is OK.
Phyllis hopes to be able to visit Willie at the team hotel Wednesday night and said Willie will be allowed to stay behind after the team leaves to visit with her until Sunday. That time will be precious, and so will the opportunity to see her son play quarterback, if Phyllis can just feel well enough to attend the game.
"She is going to do everything in her power to make it to the game," Willie said. "We're just praying that God is willing that she can watch me play in front of my hometown."

 

[BobbyBlueChip]

Tigers' FSU Gameplan: Stop the Run, Force the Pass

by Dan Scott Print Article | Email Article
Correspondent
CLEMSON - Daring a team such as Florida State to throw the football would have been the next best thing to suicide for Clemson the past couple of seasons.
Think about it. Even focusing on the Seminoles passing game the last two seasons couldn't stop FSU from throwing for "what seems like a thousand yards," Tigers' head coach Tommy Bowden said Sunday.
Yet in a perfect world this Thursday in Tallahassee, Clemson's defensive focus will be trying to shut down the running game, making Florida State a one-dimensional offense by forcing it to - hang on to your hats - throw the football.
"I think any defensive coordinator goes into most any game and wants to stop the run first," Bowden said following the Tigers' practice. "That would be our plan Thursday, too, even though you really wouldn't say that about the past three seasons."
In reality, there really is no other gameplan to consider.
By stopping any team's running game first, it allows a defense more freedom in how it plays the opponent's passing game. Without the threat of the run, the play-action pass no longer threatens the safeties, which gives a defensive coordinator more options along the lines of coverages and blitzes.
But stopping FSU's ground game will be easier said the done. Tailback Greg Jones, a Beaufort native, has uncommon size for a player at his position. At 6-foot-1, 248 pounds, he outweighs virtually every Clemson linebacker and member of the secondary, not to mention one or two linemen.
"We recruited him pretty hard, so I've seen a lot of film on him," Bowden said. "You've got to get more than one hat on him. Trying to tackle him one-on-one normally doesn't work."
Meanwhile, Bowden said of all his injured players, only defensive tackle Nick Eason (sprained knee) is "highly questionable" for Thursday's game.
Running backs Bernard Rambert (tendonitis) and Chad Jasmin (groin), defensive tackle Todd McClinton (ankle) and defensive end Khaleed Vaughn (ankle) and linebacker Eric Sampson (bruised thigh) all are expected to play.