TALLAHASSEE — Paul Johnson and his triple-option offense won’t be appearing on PBS’ Antiques Roadshow, but both certainly qualify as relics of the past.
The Yellow Jackets gashed rival Georgia for 399 rushing yards in last weekend’s 30-24 overtime victory and is bringing the nation’s third-best rushing offense into Saturday’s Atlantic Coast Conference title game against Florida State. The game, which kicks off at 7 p.m. CST, will be held at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C.
FSU, which is third in the College Football Playoff rankings that will be updated Tuesday night, finished the regular season 12-0 and 8-0 in ACC play to win the Atlantic Division. Georgia Tech finished 10-2 overall and 6-2 in the conference to capture the Coastal Division crown.
The Yellow Jackets carried the ball 70 times against Georgia and attempted only 16 passes, a disparity that may conjure mental images of Oklahoma’s wishbone offense in the 1980s or Tommie Frazier orchestrating Nebraska’s option in the mid-1990s. Programs have gravitated to the passing game more and more since the turn of the century, and Johnson has few contemporaries willing to stick with a run-oriented, smashmouth attack.
“They do an outstanding job on offense,” FSU coach Jimbo Fisher said. “They can move that football. They’re very dynamic. … They have that fullback dive inside, and the quarterback (Justin Thomas) reads that thing well. He reads all phases of that option well. Some of those quarterbacks can’t make those decisions consistently. Thomas is the key to making them go.
“That fullback dive, they lined up against Georgia and ran the same play eight plays in a row … and went straight down the field. Thomas can read all the different options and pitches and is very dynamic.”
Zach Laskey, a 6-foot-1, 218-pound senior, rushed for 140 yards on 26 carries and scored three touchdowns against Georgia. Synjyn Davis added 94 yards on 16 rushing attempts, and three other players — Deon Hill, Charles Perkins and Thomas — added more than 30 yards apiece. The Yellow Jackets used eight different players to carry the ball.
Teams have trouble preparing for Johnson’s offense for several reasons. Chief among them, virtually no teams aside from the nation’s military academies make use of the scheme, let alone have it installed as the primary offense. Johnson, a former national coach of the year, has been tweaking and adding wrinkles to his system since he was a first-year head coach at Georgia Southern in 1997.
Another challenge facing FSU’s defensive front four is the battle against fatigue. Five opponents — Oklahoma State, The Citadel, Clemson, Miami and Boston College — carried the ball at least 40 times against the Seminoles this season. Aside from Clemson, each of them rushed for 94 yards or more as a team in the second half. Of those teams, The Citadel, an FCS team, was the only one to use an option offense similar to that of Georgia Tech’s.
Fisher said he expects Johnson to try to shorten the game by possessing the ball for long stretches and keeping the Seminole offense off the field. Fisher noted that FSU had respective scoring drives of 15, 13 and 11 plays against Florida last Saturday, and those kinds of drives would shorten the game even more.
“Efficiency is going to be very critical,” Fisher said.
FSU quarterback Jameis Winston endured his worst performance of his college career against the Gators. He completed 12 of 24 passes for a career-low 125 yards, but most alarming were his four interceptions, the most in his two seasons as a Seminole. Fisher credited Florida’s defense for two excellent plays resulting in interceptions, but he said Winston made poor decisions on his other two turnovers and didn’t make the plays that were available.
“It’s easy to be great on defense consistently than it is on offense,” Fisher said. “There’s going to be a day on offense … where those putts don’t go in the cup. Sometimes you’re shooting the basketball and it’s in and out of the rim. In baseball a guy can go 0 for 3 with three strikeouts and the next day hit three home runs.
“There’s rhythm and timing when you’re a skill guy. Usually (Winston) can get back into the groove. This game he didn’t get into it as well. Sometimes it happens. It’s just a bad game. It is what it is.”
Fisher noted that FSU has faced five of the top 15 defenses in the country. Clemson ranks first, followed by Louisville (sixth), Florida (ninth), Boston College (12th) and Miami (15th). The Yellow Jackets currently are ranked 58th nationally and have surrendered 388 yards per game.
“We’ve faced some pretty dadgum good defenses as a football team,” Fisher said.