At no point in the NIL era has Florida State seemed to have a firm grasp on the direction of the sport or the valuation of players. Behind athletic director Michael Alford, FSU was behind on fundraising, foolishly believed a revenue-sharing cap would be strictly enforced, and, behind Mike Norvell and general manager John Garrett, the football program whiffed dramatically on its quarterback pursuits this offseason.
With the looming specter of Norvell’s $50 million buyout, FSU tightened up the purse strings this offseason, but just because there were financial limitations doesn’t mean Norvell and Garrett did a good job spending the money they did have access to.
One of their big-money deals was for Texas transfer running back Quintrevion Wisner, and the early returns are - well - nonexistent. In Florida State’s must-win ACC home opener at Doak Campbell Stadium on Monday night, Wisner, whom the program reportedly paid $650,000 this offseason, didn’t play a single snap.
Yet, while he didn’t see the field, the impact of that overpay, which it feels safe to call that deal at this point, was on full display.
Florida State cheaped out at quarterback with Ashton Daniels and got what it paid for
Along with Daniels, Florida State also hosted Florida transfer DJ Lagway and UNLV transfer Anthony Colandrea on visits to Tallahassee this offseason. It seems that the lasting impression from both Lagway's and Colandrea’s camps was that Florida State largely wasted their time with non-competitive, low-ball offers for top portal QBs.
Lagway ultimately landed at Baylor, where he largely looked like the same oft-injured, talented thrower, with processing issues in Week 1. Colandrea found his way to Nebraska, where he’s still a mercurial talent at the position with a volatile play style. Neither player is perfect. Both are better than Daniels, who accepted the low-ball offer that is seemingly hovering somewhere between $800,000 and $1 million for the season.
Both likely would have also won that game on Monday night, as SMU did everything in its power to throw it away. The Daniels-led FSU offense went 2-for-15 on third down, and the highly touted and well-compensated wide receiver room, which is probably the most talented position group on the entire roster, combined for seven catches and only 67 yards.
Now, Lagway’s NIL package is somewhere around $2 million, and Colandrea appears to be somewhere between $2 and $2.5 million. So, Wisner’s $650,000 wouldn’t necessarily have closed that gap, but it could have gotten FSU into legitimate negotiations rather than being laughed out of the room.
Quintrevion Wisner’s money would be better spent anywhere on the FSU roster
If not on a quarterback upgrade, I can think of a lot of different places for Wisner’s $650,000 to be spent. At best, he was going to be part of a three-man time-share in the backfield with Ousmane Kromah and Samuel Singleton Jr. both returning, but since they’ve both seemingly taken a leap forward from last season, he’s already been forced out of the mix.
Portal misses are going to happen, but this one was fairly easy to see coming, and hard to stomach considering the limited deck FSU was playing with this offseason. Norvell and Garrett didn’t have much room for error, and now $650,000 is riding the bench against SMU while Kevin Jennings is pressured on just nine of his 39 dropbacks and not sacked once, and your right tackle addition, Chimdia Nwaiwu, is benched midway through his second game.
There are just too many holes on this roster, and that was true when the Wisner addition was made. And after a three-point loss in which Wisner didn’t see the field, even if it shouldn’t have been that close, that move feels like an egregious and costly mistake.
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