FSU football: Noles make top 10 for 5-star Charles Lester III

FSU football coaches caught some heat a few days ago with the five-star recruit Desmond Ricks situation.

However, I spoke about that on the latest podcast and today’s news is further proof I was likely right about that situation.

2024 five-star defensive back Charles Lester III announced his top 10 list of schools via his Twitter account Saturday afternoon.

The Noles made the cut:

Charles Lester III ranks as the No. 22 player and No. 3 cornerback nationally, hailing from Riverview High School in Sarasota, Florida. Lester lists at 6’1″ and 171 pounds and has been on FSU’s campus a ton of times, similar to Desmond Ricks.

He was on campus several times before FSU officially offered in January 2022. He has often mentioned the Noles on social media, just like Ricks, and below you’ll find some examples of what I mean:

Thoughts

Lester is a national recruit and has already visited several of the top programs in the nation multiple times. It is interesting Miami didn’t make the list. Is getting him on campus that often a good thing for FSU football?

Sure, and they will need to continue to get him on campus. However, winning football games this fall is the only thing that’s going to give them a chance to make a move here.

Even then, it’s going to be an uphill climb unless he wants to be a Nole and help turn this program around. It’s a good sign from a perception standpoint coming off of the Desmond Ricks situation too. It probably would be more bad publicity had they not made his top 10 after getting him on campus so often.

The biggest difference is there hasn’t been the perception he was close to committing to the Noles.

So good job to the coaching staff, but if it becomes clear this one is going in another direction? Hopefully, they will have more control over it than they did in the last situation.