FSU Football: The bigger picture from ‘Noles team building exercise

FSU Football: The current and long term ramifications of Wednesday night’s team-building extravaganza.

The biggest stories coming out of yesterday’s interviews were the coaches and FSU football players talking about their team building festivities in Georgia. It was good for players to be with their teammates outside of the game. It was a scenario where they can be together without thinking about classes, injuries, COVID, and the rush toward an uncertain season.

In the macro and long term, to rebuild faith in the squad after the turbulent three years, and even more turbulent three months, is vital. To allow for a pause where a team can grow together and be reintroduced to a new staff that has faltered early and hasn’t been able to establish an individual culture is vital. Your best recruiters are your current players.

The biggest thing I have heard about when a recruit talks about a school, they talk about the atmosphere. They talk about “family feel,” and when they talk about the team, they talk about them being “brothers.” There cannot be a “family feel” if players are talking about distrusting the program and a disconnect between everyone and the coaches.

In a program that has had more coaching changes in the past three years than it had in the 30 years prior, stability and respect are crucial. In those three years, the reputation and brand of FSU have almost completely dissolved, and you can’t just sell “It’s FSU, come be a Seminole,” anymore.

Player Reactions

Now it’s an element that is still compelling, but it won’t flip an Alabama or Ohio State commit. We still have great players in our current recruiting class. I bet that if there was summer and 247 camps, Joshua Burrell, Kevin Knowles, Jackson West, and Joshua Farmer would all be four-star prospects.

But, to land a prospect like Terrion Arnold, a local, highly-touted athlete who Alabama is heavily involved with, you need to make sure you offer early playing time and buy-in. Arnold is close with a few players on the team who can say, with certainty, how the team feels about the new staff and how many people are getting after it for coach Norvell.

For a man who preaches building relationships in recruiting, building relationships in the team is massive. The players you have on the side now are the people who your recruits will room with, play with, and talk with on visits and when they decide.

Players posting about “brothers,” “brotherhood,” and “family,” emphasizes what Norvell preaches and makes people want to belong and entices people to remain in a recruiting class and on the team.

And this recent “love,” is paramount to show growth from the issue with Marvin Wilson in May and offset the criticisms from the last two weeks. This helps monetarily, because the boosters will contribute more, and this helps with recruits as commit days are moved up, and there won’t be a product on the field for another two weeks.