FSU football: Are elite facilities that important in recruiting?
By Kelvin Hunt
How Important Are Facilities To Recruiting?
I believe facilities are important. I mean, no player wants to play in an absolute dump, but I’m not sure they are as important as most fans or coaches would have you believe.
Going back to Jimbo Fisher’s time at FSU, people believe the university not moving fast enough to build the facilities he wanted was one of the many reasons he left for Texas A&M.
I have some thoughts on that.
Jimbo Fisher brought in the following recruiting classes while actively asking for new facility upgrades:
- 2014-No. 4
- 2015-No. 3
- 2016-No. 3
- 2017-No. 6
How is it Fisher didn’t have the facilities he said he needed but managed to have higherr-anked recruiting classes than Clemson, Oregon, USC, Texas, Texas A&M, and others?
The other problem Fisher had was he was underachieving, despite the amount of talent he signed every year in Tallahassee.
He beat Clemson in recruiting every year, yet Clemson won the ACC Conference from 2015-17(and every year since Fisher has been gone). Had he won more, I’m sure he would have had more leverage, just as he did he helped FSU football rise from the ashes when hired in 2010.
FSU football still doesn’t have the football facilities Jimbo Fisher wanted but has more momentum than most schools in the country on the recruiting trails, and certainly more than any team that’s well below .500 over the past three seasons.