FSU Football: The Coach Ham rebuild template for football

Leonard Hamilton created a brand of FSU basketball by establishing a hard-working defensive team that will press, dive deep into the bench giving second or third rotation players massive amounts of playing time and building one of the tallest teams in the NCAA with multiple seven-footers playing through the lineup.

It’s a brand Hamilton developed after struggling early through his FSU tenure. The recruits Hamilton goes after can envision themselves playing in this system, see where they’ll fit, how they will be used, and what the team atmosphere will be like upon their arrival.

These factors correlate to the New Blood status the program is enjoying and their notoriety amongst highly touted recruits.

This image also comes with the recent success, but these elements have allowed FSU to outkick our coverage and sign recruits like Jonathan Isaac, Malik Beasley, Dwayne Bacon, Scottie Barnes, Matthew Cleveland, and Jalen Warley.

Now, for FSU football, the days of getting the top players are in the past right now. The biggest thing for FSU football is to establish consistency so that a winning brand can be re-established. All the talk about “does the FSU name not hold any weight anymore” is naive.

The current pool of players this staff has to recruit from probably barely remembered Bobby Bowden, if at all, and were in middle school during the 2013 championship season.

These recruits have dealt with the infighting and toxicity of the Fisher era, which left an uphill battle for Willie Taggart. The incompetence of the Taggart locker room was exasperated, which left FSU devoid of results and culture for recruits to see themselves and players to buy into.

The fanbase needs this staff to establish a culture and consistency so recruits from the JUCO, high school, and transfer portal ranks can see where they will fit in the locker room and on the field, and that renovation is already underway.