Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Fisher getting more effort
Jersey tactic was used to motivate FSU
TALLAHASSEE — Jimbo Fisher, often in search of new ways to deliver a message, made sure his players were able to grasp his latest coaching tactic before spring practice.
During Florida State’s offseason conditioning program, also known as fourth-quarter drills, Fisher had players wear distinctly different colored jerseys so they would know the type of effort the coaches felt they produced on a given day.
Garnet practice jerseys were presented to Seminoles who gave “championship effort.”
White jerseys were given to players who gave average effort.
“That may mean you took two plays off, boom, you’re average,” Fisher said.
Lastly, players who were “not giving any kind of effort at all in things, [which] we think is ridiculous, you wear orange,” Fisher said.
Why orange, coincidentally the primary color for FSU rivals Clemson, Florida and Miami?
“That’s not always a good color around here, is it?” Fisher said with a smile Monday before the team’s first spring practice.
As Florida State returns at least 17 starters for another season of championship expectations, Fisher hopes his team can ride momentum from a successful finish to the 2016 season.
With Alabama and Miami in two of the first three games on the schedule next season, spring practice is no time for the Seminoles to regress.
“We’re trying to educate the kids on the effort, the discipline, the toughness, all the things we want to do and how we want it done, and define it — definitively,” Fisher said.
The Seminoles lost to Louisville and North Carolina during their first five games last season and their loss to Clemson in October ended any aspirations for achieving the program’s first Atlantic Coast Conference championship game berth since 2014.
But Fisher was able to get his team to buy into his coaching and the Seminoles finished the season with five consecutive victories, including a thrilling Orange Bowl win over Michigan.
In order to ride the momentum, Fisher employed the jersey tactic to provide players with a sense of accountability and dependability among each other.
Previous tactics Fisher has employed include having the players sign IOUs to “bring effort, enthusiasm and pride” last October, and making the Seminoles walk down a makeshift yellow brick road to the practice fields before the 2015 season.
At the end of the offseason drills last week, Fisher said about 85-90 percent of his players wore garnet jerseys with no bad oranges in the mix.
“It speaks for itself,” standout safety Derwin James said. “It lets us know what the coaches what from us, and it’s a gift to be here. Not everybody has the opportunity to put on the Florida State helmet and we need to represent it the best way we can, and give all our efforts.”
Craig hired
Dameyune Craig, who played quarterback at Auburn from 1994-97 when Fisher was the position coach, is now a quality control coach/offensive analyst with the Seminoles, the school announced to media shortly after Craig walked into Monday’s spring practice session.
“He’s another set of eyes of how I like to do things, growing up in the system his whole life,” Fisher said. “It’s huge getting him back.”
Craig was fired after one season as LSU’s receiver coach following National Signing Day and reportedly was looking to join another school as an offensive coordinator.
Instead, Craig returns to FSU, where he served as a quarterbacks coach from 2010-12 and is credited with recruiting Jameis Winston to the school.
McFadden out
Fisher said starting cornerback Tarvarus McFadden, who led the nation with eight interceptions last season, will miss spring practice after having surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder.