FSU Football: Landon Dickerson latest recruiting disappointment from former coach

FSU football may see another top recruit head out the door, continuing a trend from the previous coach that gets ignored by those bashing the current coach.

For much of the last week and a half, the college football world has been talking about how the recruiting class for FSU football and their second year coach Willie Taggart fell below “expectations”. Losing out on several top recruits, and the flip last week of Nick Cross to Maryland, have the critics circling the wagons.

For the last two seasons, Taggart hasn’t had a five star recruit – with 2018 being a mulligan year since he was trying to put together a class in less than a month after the former “leader” of the Seminoles bolted for more money and I guess better cowboys boots out in Texas, leaving a sad Christmas tree in his dust.

Taggart, for his part, has owned what has gone on with the last two classes while pleading for there to be some patience from a group that still doesn’t quite get how bad the situation was when he took over – and how that 7-6 record in 2017 masked what was really the worst FSU football team in a while.

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Several of Taggart’s critics have pointed out all the great recruiting classes that were brought in by the previous administration – great classes when it comes to rankings, but not always when it comes to production on the field.

The announcement that offensive lineman Landon Dickerson was heading to the transfer portal – glad to see he was actually healthy enough to do something, cause it hasn’t been playing football of late – was the latest news this week that had critics up in arms.

Now, reports have surfaced that Dickerson may leave the portal and return to the Seminoles after the firing of Greg Frey as offensive line coach – which would be hilarious to think that someone who played in two games last season should have a say in whether or not a coach keeps his job.

The news about Dickerson, whether he stays with FSU football or not, has become the latest recruiting fail this decade from the now head Aggie.

How about “five star” players like Jeff Luc and Chris Casher? Remember all those great quarterback recruits like JJ Cosentino, Malik Henry and Bailey Hockman? What about offensive line “studs” like Dickerson, Josh Ball or Jordan Prestwood back at the start of the decade?

I get there are plenty of players who had their FSU football career sidetracked by injuries and those are part of the game, but the streets of Tallahassee are littered with players that the head Aggie told us were “can’t miss” that turned out to be hot garbage.

Now, the apologists for that former coach who do nothing but ridicule Taggart are going to respond by saying something along the lines of “well, there is no way to tell how they are going to do until the hit campus” – and that is a 100 percent true fact…but why don’t those same people want to give Taggart’s two classes a chance?

Heck, he’s only had one group who has actually seen the field so most of the players who were behind that losing season were from the previous administration…a fact that some people wearing garnet and gold don’t like admitting. The rules have to apply the same for all of those who have led the Seminoles – if the head Aggie gets a pass on his failures, so does Willie so far.

FSU football fans have every right to be upset with what took place last season on the field, but take a look at the whole picture before you put everything on the man who has been in charge for just over a year.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but the chaos and mess was left by a man who mailed in it long before officially leaving and there are plenty of recruiting failures to show for it – many far worse than Taggart not having a five star in his first two classes.