Noles Finally Focus On Clemson

FSU Sports Information Excerpts:

After eight months, FSU's new coaches finally opened up a week of practice with their focus on an opponent. The Seminoles practiced 22 periods in full pads on Monday and most of the practice was spent working against Clemson scout teams.

Practice opened up with extensive work on special teams. In field goal, Gary Cismesia was a perfect 6-for-6.

The team followed field goal with punt/punt block and position group work. The quarterbacks worked with the receivers and running backs.

For the first time in 2007 the gold jerseys came out as both the offense and defense got work in versus the scout teams. The two units worked on inside drills versus scout and then the ones faced off versus one another. The two best highlights were solid runs turned in by Marcus Sims and Jamaal Edwards.

In 1-on-1 Patrick Robinson had a pass break-up. D'Vontrey Richardson hit Greg Carr, Xavier Lee connected with Rod Owens, who made a great grab and Drew Weatherford completed passes to Richard Goodman and Bert Reed.

After more scout team work the ones came together for 7-on-7. Weatherford completed passes to Goodman, Preston Parker and De'Cody Fagg. Lee hit Reed, Damon McDaniel and Carr. Mister Alexander had an interception and Michael Ray Garvin recorded a pass break-up.

In pass rush Caz Piurowski and David Overmyer won multiple battles. Daron Rose and Shannon Boatman also recorded wins. For the defense, Letroy Guion got to the QB three times, Andre Fluellen twice and Paul Griffin, Budd Thacker and Eli Charles also got past their blockers.

The scout team then worked versus the offense and defense in 11-on-11. Edwards had another nice run versus the scout team. Weatherford connected deep to Fagg and also hit Goodman deep on top of another completion to Fagg. Lee and McDaniel hooked-up on a deep ball and Carr made a great catch on a Lee pass. For the defense Tony Carter had a pick, J.R. Bryant broke up a pass and Toddrick Verdell had a huge tackle for loss.

After 11-on-11 versus scout, the ones came together in a pretty uneventful session. The biggest play was a deep TD pass from Weatherford to Fagg. Lee had a nice scramble. Defensively Griffin had a sack and Everette Brown had a near sack but forced the QB into a poor throw.

Each first unit got a crack against the second team in goal line. The first team defense allowed two TD's. After Anthony Leon laid a huge hit on Antonio White, Letroy Guion and Benjamin Lampkin stopped Edwards short of a TD. On the next play Xavier Lee hit the tight end for a TD on a rollout and then Edwards plunged in around the outside. The first team offense went 2-for-4 also. The first snap resulted in a Weatherford to John Frady TD pass. Frady, FSU's starting center last season, made a great catch along the side of the end zone and got one foot in for the score. On the next play Antonio White barreled in. Emmanuel Dunbar disrupted the next play with a great burst off the snap causing a fumble and then on the final play Edwards slipped before he could turn the corner.

Defensive Coordinator Mickey Andrews
(on the Clemson game last season)
"We played fundamental football for thee and a half quarters. In the fourth quarter, we had a defensive back who made a mistake, one of several, and I let the play calling get away from me a little bit trying to do some persuasive instruction trying to get him to do his job a little bit better and I didn't get the call out quick enough to him. The lined up, hurried up and ran a running play and ran what -- 50-something yards or whatever it was. That was a coaching error."

(How capable is this group of stopping the run?)
"Up `till today, I thought we were good. We didn't play with enough effort, intensity and discipline today to be a good run defense. We wanted to tap people; we wanted to tag people instead of put the helmet and pad on them. That's not a good sign. We hadn't hit anybody or done any work for two days now. Since Saturday and that's wasn't much of a workout. We ran them a little bit. I'm a little disappointed in the way we came to work today. We'll have to be a lot better than that if we are going to be successful defensively against Clemson. They let the weather get to them a little bit. We had gone six periods and I looked over there and we had a safety in the tub over there cramping up because he didn't eat lunch. Cars don't run without gas. He didn't put any gas in his tank. He didn't get any better today. He didn't work. And there were three or four more."