Dalvin Cook Could Strike Oregon Football’s Achilles' Heel

Would overcoming a 9.5-point spread be Herculean? If you took the pulse of sports opinion, then you’d view a possible win for the Florida State Seminoles over the Oregon Ducks as an improbable story straight from Greek myths. You’d be led to believe that only a crazy person could believe Florida State has the slightest shot.

That hypothetical person would start to sound less crazy given a chance explain themselves. As they start telling you that the Oregon Ducks are 50th in FBS rush defense, as they go on about how there isn’t too much film on Dalvin Cook. How Cook has been a feature back for only three games, and even if he’s the backup, third-down back in the Rose Bowl, it could still be a nightmare scenario for Oregon.

If you’re asking “who is this Dalvin Cook guy?” Then maybe you’re the crazy person.

The primary back and the emerging back are merging into one identity for the Florida State Seminoles. Karlos Williams began the year as the Seminoles’ top back, but as Florida State needed to become more dynamic to overcome evolving defensive schemes, Dalvin Cook emerged and soon eclipsed Williams’ output. Cook finished the year with 905 yards rushing and averaged 5.8 of those yards per carry.

Jimbo Fisher knows all about strengths and weaknesses; in fact, he even tracks his players’ on-field mileage via GPS to sort through the noise of fatigue through repetition. The man is thorough, if not over-the-top, and you can bet he knows exactly what can hurt Oregon. The Ducks have been beaten, and the winning elixir exists, yet we’re talking about them as if they’re the team coming into this game 13-0.

If the contests turned out how they were presented on paper, then the pursuit of sports would solely be an academic one. There are no coefficients for variability within the arithmetic world of odds-making. What can happen on the field when two well-coached teams set aim to each other’s defects cannot be modeled by a curve.

What really gets the possibility of upset brewing is that planning for Dalvin Cook is difficult. Florida State’s explosive and unique freshman has a penchant for sneaking up on teams: putting 110 yards and two touchdowns on the Louisville Cardinals on just nine carries, and posting back-to-back 140-plus-yard games against the Florida Gators and Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, two games in which he was the feature back. In fact, in three “feature back” games, Cook has surpassed 100 yards each time.

Yes, Oregon gives up extra yards in garbage time — but more subtly stated, Oregon hasn’t been forced to play a complete game since October. If there’s one thing you can’t take away from Florida State, it’s that they’ve had their share of do-or-die moments in the second half — winning when they knew they had to, and in essence, practically every single one of Florida State’s games has been a playoff game.

A gifted running back can change a team tremendously. Not to compare apples to oranges, but look at what DeMarco Murray has done for the Dallas Cowboys. Again, I stress, not to compare apples to oranges, but a running back like Dalvin Cook could have Florida State coming up roses.

Jerry Landry is a writer for www.RantSports.com. “Like” him on Facebook, follow him on Twitter at @Jerry2Landry or add him on Google Plus.