FSU Football must get back to recruiting South Florida in 2019

FSU Football had an off year when it came to recruiting the three counties in South Florida – something that can not happen in the years to come.

On any given Wednesday, Thursday or Friday night during the high school football season, some of the best talent is on display in the tri-county area in the southeast corner of Florida – an area that FSU football knows very well as it has produced some of the best players to ever wear the garnet and gold over their history.

Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties are a three county territory that has more talent than any other three county area in the entire country. It’s an area that has sent Davin Cook, Devonta Freeman, Lamarcus Joyner, Kelvin Benjamin, Stanford Samuels, Brian Burns and more to Tallahassee and the Seminoles – and that is all just within the last decade.

Of late, FSU football has started to recruit their way out of the area despite the success it has always had recruiting even when the hometown Miami Hurricanes were a relevant team decades ago. Former head coach Bobby Bowden made recruiting South Florida a priority and was willing to battle the Canes for players, winning more than his share several years.

Of late, the numbers have had a noticeable decline. Under a previous coaching administration that started recruiting the area heavy at the start, their last six recruiting classes had just 17 out of 134 players from the tri-county area. While two of those were going against a Miami program that started emphasizing the area again, FSU football seemed to forget South Florida at time.

At one time during the 2017 football season, FSU football had five verbal commitments from players ranked in the top 42 by renowned expert Larry Blustein – with just one of those players (Fort Lauderdale’s Asante Samuel Jr.) sticking with the Seminoles out of a group that included those who chose Georgia (James Cook), Miami (Patrick Joyner) and even South Carolina (Rosendo Louis).

While some of the 2018 struggles in the area can be tied to the Hurricanes having their best season in a decade and a half (along with beating the Seminoles for the first time in eight meetings) and having a coaching staff wanting the area, some of it has to do with the abandonment from the previous FSU football coaches and the transition to Willie Taggart.

There is no doubt that Taggart and his staff will recruit South Florida in 2019 and beyond – he did so while coaching at USF, bringing in such players as Miami Northwestern’s Quentin Flowers, while new tight ends coach Telly Lockette was the head coach at Miami Central for both Freeman and Dalvin Cook before they came to play for the Noles.

Next: Three takeaways from National Signing Day 2018 for FSU

It’s an area that has been very good to FSU football in the past – and an area the Seminoles must get back to recruiting heavy if they want to keep being one of the nation’s top programs year in and year out.