FSU football: Noles land Oregon transfer RB Trey Benson

FSU football is slowly finishing up its 2022 recruiting class. They already have 21 members enrolled this spring but have a few more spots left to fill between now and the spring semester ends.

It looks like the majority of those spots will go to players in the transfer portal, with the latest addition coming from Oregon.

Oregon running back Trey Benson entered the portal on January 12th, and a lot of smoke appeared on social media with former teammate and current FSU wide receiver Mycah Pittman.

Despite the announcement taking longer than most thought, Benson announced intentions to transfer to FSU with a commitment Tuesday via his Instagram account.

The former three-star running back from Mississippi was a part of the 2020 recruiting cycle. He had 22 offers, including a few ACC, SEC, and Big 10 schools, but ultimately went with Oregon.

However, Benson tore everything in one of his knees on December 1st, 2020, after not appearing in any games his freshman season. He had surgery to repair the injury and appeared in 10 games this past year. Benson had six carries for 22 yards and one touchdown.

Thoughts

It wasn’t clear if Benson was the guy everyone was excited about on social media last week. However, I mentioned if the smoke pertained to him, I wasn’t a fan of it. I don’t understand why FSU coaches would take a guy coming off a serious injury with so little production.

Former FSU offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham probably co-signed his recovery since he’s been at Oregon over the past month as their new coordinator. Benson does have three years of eligibility remaining and likely wouldn’t be a contributor in 2022.

However, I believe the coaching staff could have gotten a better option with patience. I doubt many teams were lining up to take Benson with the injury history. However, Mike Norvell has a history of taking running backs with an injury history.

Jashaun Corbin came to FSU after suffering a season-ending hamstring injury. He played decent in 2020, but it wasn’t until the 2021 season that he looked like he had the explosion he had coming out of high school and became an All-ACC player.

Benson has had a full year to recover from the injury and will have nearly another year before suiting up for an FSU game this fall. He looks OK in the video clips above, but my stance is more about the quality use of a scholarship than anything.