FSU Football: Jaiden Woodbey named ESPN Freshman All-American

FSU football was able to land Jaiden Woodbey in the 2018 recruiting class by chance it seems and it has already paid off in a big way.

FSU football landed the highest rated recruit of its 2018 class because of one post on social media.

The former regime wasn’t paying much attention to the five-star recruit out on the west coast and left without ever offering him a scholarship.

Now, one could say it wouldn’t make much sense to spend a lot of time recruiting a defensive back on the west coast when there are tons of good players in the state of Florida.

However, if a five-star rated player says he’s interested in your program you should at least listen right? Well, that’s what new head coach Willie Taggart did after Woodbey tweeted the infamous:

Less than a month later Woodbey was an early enrollee at FSU and the rest is history. Woodbey had a great freshman season but it almost ended before it got started as he injured his shoulder in the season opener against Virginia Tech.

I remember seeing him leave the field thinking FSU football had lost him for the season. However, he played all 12 games with the injured shoulder while being tied fourth on the team with 58 total tackles.

He also had 4.5 TFL, one sack, 7 passes defended and one forced fumbled to earn FSU Freshman of the Year honors as the team’s banquet.

Plays like the one below stand out as to why Woodbey was so important to the defense as a true freshman playing a position he wasn’t recruited to play.

The Noles are lucky to have a young player like Woodbey who excels on and off the field while doing all types of work in the community.

The key to Willie Taggart’s success is finding more Jaiden Woodbey types in the upcoming recruiting classes.