miami and florida state

Neither Florida State or Miami has won more than 7 games in either of the last 2 seasons, and can you think of a program with a rapid decline comparable to the current Hurricane slide? Amazing that only in 2003 Miami was a play away from back-to-back national titles, and Florida State is far gone from their 14 consecutive top 5 finishes run.

No two things exemplify their falls from grace more than Wake Forest's 30-0 shutout of the Noles in 2006 and Miami's humbling defeat in their last game at the Orange Bowl, 48-0, at the hands of an average Virginia Cavalier team.

So what's the problem? Undoubtedly the offense.

Do the names Chris Rix, Xavier Lee, Brock Berlin, Wyatt Sexton, Kyle Wright, Kirby Freeman, or Drew Weatherford ring any bells? All of those were highly rated quarterbacks that more or less fell flat on their face while leading mostly terrible offensive attacks. Of course they're not the sole problems, but there are stories behind almost every one of those players that don't bring smiles to fans of those programs.

New offensive coordinators stepped in at both places last year as Jimbo Fisher left his post from LSU to coach under Bobby Bowden (and is now the apparent heir to Bobby's throne) and Patrick Nix took over in Coral Gables as the offensive coordinator.

Fisher was apparently one of the most sought after offensive coordinators in the country coming from LSU, but I never quite understood why. His offenses were steady at LSU, but there's a reason the Tigers were able to win the national title while allowing a whole touchdown more last year than they did on the defensive end in 2006. Gary Crowton took over with a ton of personnel turnover and led a better offense than Fisher ever did in Baton Rouge.

I always point to the 2005 season where LSU had first day NFL draft picks aplenty on the offensive end in Jamarcus Russell (1st overall pick), Joseph Addai (1st round), Dwayne Bowe (1st round), Craig David (1st round), and Early Doucet (3rd round) and still couldn't score 30 points per game. In fact, they were 60th in total offense and 43rd in scoring.

With a young, thin offensive line and not as much talent as Fisher had to work with at LSU, I still think Florida State has at least another year before they can field a viable offensive attack, and at least a couple more to approach a level that will bring them back to being one of the best programs in the country.

Don't get me wrong as I think Fisher is a solid offensive coach, but I think FSU could have done better.

Nix was a hire I never understood. I'm not sure if Miami went after former coach Arizona State coach Dirk Koetter, who I admit to having a crush on, but where did they find this guy? The only thing Nix was known for at Georgia Tech was keeping Reggie Ball at quarterback for 4 years. He was unquestionably one of the worst quarterbacks ever that started as many games as he did over his career.

Nix by the numbers as GT's OC (national and ACC rankings):

Total Offense
2006: 67th (332 YPG) 3rd ACC
2005: 78th (349 YPG) 9th ACC
2004: 80th (346 YPG) 8th ACC

Rushing Offense
2006: 35th (162 YPG) 2nd ACC
2005: 49th (153 YPG) 3rd ACC
2004: 49th (162 YPG) 5th ACC

Passing Offense
2006: 91st (169 YPG) 10th ACC
2005: 89th (195 YPG) 8th ACC
2004: 86th (184 YPG) 7th ACC

Scoring Offense
2006: 54th (25 PPG) 5th ACC
2005: 103rd (18 PPG) 10th ACC
2004: 85th (22 PPG) 7th ACC

2007 with the Hurricanes...

Total Offense: 110th (315 YPG) 11th ACC
Rushing Offense: 65th (145 YPG) 3rd ACC
Passing Offense: 108th (169 YPG) 12th ACC
Scoring Offense: 101st (20 PPG) 11th ACC

Not much positive you can say, except the running game has been consistently solid by ACC standards.

Like I said with Fisher, Nix needs time to prove himself as he's a young coach and inherited a terrible situation. Both teams were terribly, terribly coached on the offensive end prior to their arrivals.

It will be interesting to see what the second year numbers will look like for these guys.