Spring Fever (cont.)

Clausen (7) and Young (74) heeded the advice of Weis to bulk up. David Bergman/SI

The spring workouts were also marked by a feistiness that was noticeably absent during last year's 3-9 debacle. Fights broke out at one practice, and the spring game featured a highly charged scuffle. "When you're worrying about screwing up, it's tough to play as a group and be nasty," junior guard Eric Olsen says of last season. "There's a whole different tone here this year." -- Mark Beech

GAINING GROUND: Florida St.

During an April scrimmage backup quarterback Christian Ponder stepped to the line, scanned the defense and spotted a weakness in coverage. The sophomore checked out of a running play and threw a touchdown pass to wideout Greg Carr. Later Ponder told reporters that last season he probably wouldn't have seen the soft spot, much less have had the nerve to change the play.

When those comments got back to offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher, he cracked a smile. "When you haven't had success, you're scared to do anything," says Fisher, who was hired from LSU before the 2007 season to resuscitate an offense that had flatlined. "You don't want to make a mistake." Apparently Ponder and other Seminoles have finally gotten over that fear.

Fisher hopes the newfound confidence will carry Florida State into the end zone more often. Though the offense produced 3.2 fewer points a game than departed coordinator Jeff Bowden's 2006 unit did, the Seminoles gained 38.9 more yards per game and Drew Weatherford cut his interceptions from 11 to three. Still, the team went 7-5, then lost to Kentucky in the Music City Bowl. That's far below expectations at a program that ended each season from 1987 through 2000 ranked in the top five.

Fisher's top threat is Carr, a 6' 6" senior who can create matchup problems. Also counted on to be a playmaker is hybrid receiver-tailback Preston Parker, whom Fisher plans to use in the manner that Florida plays speedster Percy Harvin, but Parker's arrest last week on gun and marijuana charges raised questions about his future with the program.

Even without Parker, the Seminoles should have more big-play potential than they did in '07. They'll need it early on, when at least six key defenders serve three-game suspensions to open the season in the wake of last year's academic scandal. --Andy Staples

CULTURE SHOCK: Michigan

The announcement did not inspire confidence in the Wolverines' offense. "We're on schedule mentally," coach Rich Rodriguez stated, following his team's rain-drenched final scrimmage. "Physically, we're behind." In other words: We know what we're supposed to be doing. We're simply incapable of doing it.

Earlier RichRod had sat in his office recalling the first day of spring practice. "If you don't know where you're supposed to go," he had informed his new charges, "then just run in place.... I had a hundred guys running in place."

With his bridge-burning exit from West Virginia in December, Rodriguez, who replaced the retiring Lloyd Carr, brought his ballyhooed spread offense with zone-read principles to Ann Arbor. Four months later there's the realization that his new team is ill-suited to run that attack.

Among the missing from Michigan's roster are athletes like Noel Devine and Jock Sanders, the diminutive but lethal-in-space weapons Rodriguez left behind in Morgantown. Three offensive linemen bailed out of the program, including returning starter Justin Boren, who transferred to Ohio State (and is known in the maize-and-blue blogosphere as Judas), and highly touted quarterback Ryan Mallett, who bolted for Arkansas after only one season. What's more, Terrelle Pryor, the top dual-threat quarterback in high school last fall, chose to play in Columbus over Ann Arbor.

Thus did the Wolverines' spring quarterback battle boil down to a pair of unproven pocket passers. Steven Threet, a redshirt freshman who transferred from Georgia Tech last fall and is learning his fourth offense in two years, finished slightly ahead of sophomore walk-on Nick Sheridan.

If Sheridan looked very much at home, slinging a 17-yard completion on his first pass in the final scrimmage, that may have been because he was playing on his old high school field. With the Big House under renovation and the practice field a muddy construction site, Michigan scrimmaged at nearby Saline High.

That wasn't the only reason the play seemed high school caliber. While both quarterbacks made some nice throws -- several of which were dropped -- there were many tipped passes, interceptions and fumbles.

"This offense would've been tailor-made for me," said a fiftysomething spectator -- former Wolverines All-America Rick Leach, a dual-threat quarterback before dual-threat quarterbacks were cool. During one slapstick interval featuring three picks and a fumbled pitch, Leach showed that, among his other gifts, he is diplomatic. Next fall, he said, "the defense is going to have to really step up." --Austin Murphy