FSU Football: Departures of Amir Rasul, Naseir Upshur raise depth concerns

FSU football saw two more players say goodbye to the program after they entered the transfer portal and decided not to return to the Seminoles’ roster.

In what has been an offseason where the FSU football team has been in the spotlight from plenty of people who want to be critical of the Seminoles and head coach Willie Taggart, those people are back at it with the news that two more players who were one time top recruits of the former “leader” are now out the door.

First reported by Warchant and 247 Sports, running back Amir Rasul and tight end Naseir Upshur – both four star recruits when they were members of the 2016 recruiting class – are fulfilling on their promise after entering the transfer portal and will not be returning to the Noles next season.

Now, for Upshur this is something that seemed to be in the works for a while. One of the top recruits at his position out of high school, he committed early to FSU football over other top schools but never seemed to fit into the offensive gameplan for either the former coach or under Taggart last season.

His departure is not the end of the world for that fact, as it isn’t like Taggart and offensive coordinator Kendal Briles have to change the whole game plan around. The Seminoles still have several young players at that spot, namely Cam McDonald and Alex Marshall, to go along with starter Tre’ McKitty.

At the running back spot, the departure of Rasul has the potential to be worrisome when it comes to depth as the Seminoles wait to see if Khalan Laborn can come back from his knee injury suffered last season. If he is close to 100 percent, the departure gets a little easier to deal with.

If Laborn is not back close to what he was before, the Noles will be dealing with a running back room that has rising junior Cam Akers and…well, there is rising senior Blaik Middleton and rising sophomore Anthony Grant after the Seminoles didn’t sign a back in this class.

Coming out of high school just minutes from the campus of the University of Miami, Rasul was a stud four star recruit who had the bad luck of starting his career with Dalvin Cook and Jacques Patrick in front of him and ending his time in Tallahassee time with Patrick and Cam Akers there. I watched Rasul play and am biased toward South Florida talent, but he wasn’t going to beat out any of them.

Now, the question is what does FSU football do now at those spots – neither one which was addressed during signing day because they didn’t think it would be needed. Do they raid the transfer portal themselves? Do they stick with what they have?

It surely hasn’t been any easy road for Taggart in his first 15 months leading the Seminoles, but the Noles have worked their way out of bigger issues before – but these departures will be noticeable until a solution is figured out.