FSU football: 3 ways Lawrance Toafili’s commitment impacts Noles

FSU football met a need with the addition of Lawrance Toafili to the 2020 recruiting class. I discuss the impact he will have on the ‘Noles program.

FSU football added four-star running back Lawrance Toafili to the 2020 recruiting class late Wednesday.

He’s considered the No. 165 ranked player overall and No. 13 running back in the country and the No. 28 player in the state of Florida.

Knighton checks in at 6’0″ and 180 pounds and holds offers from schools like Ohio State, Auburn, Florida, Miami, Michigan, Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky, Notre Dame and a host of others.

FSU football now has 21 commitments in its 2020 recruiting class which is considered the No. 7 class in the nation which surpasses both Miami and Florida.

Toafili is the second running back commitment in the class. This is a big commitment for the Noles as he was always a big target at the running back position.

Let’s take a look at three ways Toafili impacts the Noles.

Momentum

Man, things were not looking great on the recruiting front a few weeks ago as the initial list of recruits attending the Saturday Night Live event started to take shape.

However, a slew of commitments at positions of need change everything in regards to momentum.

The cool thing is Willie Taggart almost always gets commitments in bunches, so having Toafili to announce solo sorta keeps that momentum train going a week after Jaylan Knighton announced his commitment.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago that the Noles were winning the battle to win the state of Florida. This commitment pushes the Noles past both Miami and Florida in terms of national rankings.

Knighton is the fifth 2020 commitment since in about a week and a half span and one of the highest ranked players in the class.

Recruiting Prowess

FSU coaches have made it a priority this recruiting cycle to lock down the state of Florida. In fact, 18 of the 21 commitments hail from the Sunshine state.

They have two from Georgia and another from Louisiana. Toafili is the ninth blue chip player in the class from the state of Florida with all nine in the top 300 composite rankings.

FSU continues to lock down the state of Florida with 14 of its 18 players from the state listed in the top 100.

The commitment says FSU is still capable of going up against the big boys like Auburn, Ohio State and Michigan and winning a recruiting battle even though they are coming off their worst season in four decades.

The other good news is landing a player like Toafili makes other blue chip players want to join the class, but there’s only about six or seven spots remaining.

That will allow the FSU football coaches to be extremely selective in who they want to fill those spots.

Position Of Need

The running back position is a position of need this recruiting cycle and getting Knighton and Toafili in the fold is huge as they were at the top of FSU’s recruiting board at that position.

FSU needed a minimum of two running backs in this class and got them both within a week or so of one another.

It was so bad a couple of weeks ago, FSU fans caused a commotion after it seemed like FSU’s top targets were heading elsewhere.

They literally sent messages to FSU running back coach Donte Pimpleton voicing their displeasure with running back recruiting.

However, Coach Pimpleton had the last laugh(again) Wednesday night on social media.

This commitment allows the Noles concentrate on the few spots remaining while possibly beginning to work towards 2021 and beyond.

This was another huge win for Coach Pimpleton and the coaching staff as running back was the last need not addressed at all in the 2020 class.

If they want to take another running back they can, but they don’t have to at this point. Great job by the coaching staff in locking up another in-state blue chip player.