FSU coaches
believe James Blackman’s fumble Saturday will be a learning experience.
TALLAHASSEE — Florida State quarterback James Blackman ripped the buttoned ends of his chin strap off his helmet in frustration and walked to the sideline after the biggest turnover of his young career.
Waiting for Blackman, dropped to one knee after the ill-timed miscue, was Fisher, who already began talking to his true freshman about the play that eventually cost the Seminoles the game.
Blackman, during a quarterback read play in pistol formation, inadvertently pulled a handoff away from fellow true freshman Cam
Akers and let the football slip out of his hands during the botched run play, allowing Louisville to recover the football and later secure a 31-28 victory in the final seconds at Doak Campbell Stadium last Saturday.
“He does [blame himself ], totally,” Fisher said Monday of Blackman’s miscue. “It matters to him. You know why?
“I don’t mean it in a rude way to him, [but] he’ll remember that forever. That’s a learning experience.”
Fisher and the Seminoles knew starting Blackman, the first true freshman to start at quarterback for Florida State since 1985, would come with ups and downs after Deondre Francois suffered a season-ending knee injury in September.
Blackman has shown signs of tremendous upside and accuracy, leading fourth-quarter comebacks in four of his first five starts. During his fourth quarter push during FSU’s loss to Miami on Oct. 7 and another fourth-quarter rally during FSU’s win at Duke on Oct. 14, Blackman completed 27 of 31 passes for 319 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions.
But turnovers have become an issue for Blackman, who has thrown two interceptions in each of his last three games, along with the decisive fumble against Louisville. Blackman finished 16 of 28 for 248 yards with two touchdowns against the Cardinals.
“We’ve moved the ball extremely well, but you’ve got to take some chances in there in what he does, and sometimes with a young guy, it’s going to be a poor decision or a poor throw,” Fisher said.
“But those are going to happen because you’ve got to go, you gotta stretch the field at times. You’ve got to do that. Hopefully they don’t happen. But you need to coach them so they don’t.”
With players like Francois and running back Jacques Patrick entering their third years with the program, Fisher never envisioned being so dependent on true freshmen like Blackman and Akers to carry the offensive load.
While the experience could bode well for the future, Fisher and the Seminoles must deal with the growing pains in the interim, especially with Patrick sidelined for the rest of the season due to a knee injury he suffered Saturday.
Fisher says he has a “tremendous relationship” with Blackman because “he has the same kind of passion I do. That’s why it’s fun to coach him.”
Just because the Seminoles are sitting at 2-4, however, does not mean Fisher plans to loosen the reins on his play calling. He wants to put his players in the best position to succeed, especially with bowl eligibility at stake, without demoralizing the players’ spirits if plays do not pan out as expected.
“You have to understand, again, it’s always not what you want to do, it’s what you can do and where they are in their development that allows them to make certain plays and you’ve got to pick your moments to do thing,” Fisher said. “… That’s the thing I think that makes [us] feel so bad because we’re right there on the cusp of those young guys being able to handle all this. We’ve just got to get them to make that one play at the right moment.”
For now, Fisher wants Blackman to master the running back handoff, placing emphasis on having his elbows bent, knees bent, eyeballs down, and putting the football right on the belly button in practice.
Fisher wants Blackman to continue to put his head down and go to work with the hurt of the Louisville loss inspiring him for the rest of his career.
“That will be the thing that will push him,” Fisher said of his young quarterback, “because I know his mindset pushes him to be an even greater player.”