Florida State football will be conducting its Junior Day event for a variety of prospects. The Seminole fan base has been locked in on the transfer portal window since the date to enter ended yesterday (Friday, January 16th).
It is understandable since the program has only secured seven wins in the past two years, and the fan base wants to see Florida State hoist championship trophies again. They have brought in and have retained quality pieces in the portal, but we see that other elite programs in college football right now prioritize high school recruiting to build their foundation.
As we saw with the Desir Twins, if those recruits turn out to be good, teams across the country will try to offer them more money, making it a wild West to keep them.
Florida State will be hosting quarterback Wonderful "Champ" Monds IV for Junior Day
As I mentioned earlier, the Seminoles will be having their Junior Day event. The coaching staff needs to establish these relationships for the prospects in the 2027 recruiting class, especially in the trenches. The 2025 and 2026 recruiting classes are solid building blocks to have for the roster.
However, as we saw with the 2024 fold, it can go sour quickly if you don't evaluate properly, because more than half of the class is out of Tallahassee.
Nonetheless, we cannot look back at the past. We can only focus on the now and the future. The Seminoles have been going to the transfer portal for the past three offseasons and want to develop their own guys. They still have Kevin Sperry and Jaden O'Neal on the roster, who they grabbed out of high school, but they never seem to trust those evaluations and play them over getting transfers.
However, this could change as Class of 2027 four-star quarterback Wonderful "Champ" Monds IV from Vero Beach, Florida, will be visiting Florida State this weekend. Wonderful Monds IV is such a creative name that I know would have fans buying his jersey.
This is an important recruitment because Monds is also focused on looking at the arch-rival Florida Gators. According to Max Preps, during his freshman year of high school, he had 2,234 passing yards with 23 touchdowns and five interceptions while also accumulating 502 rushing yards and nine touchdowns.
Throughout the Mike Norvell era, he has not connected with high-quality high school quarterbacks. They have all not panned out to where he has relied on Jordan Travis and transfer portal guys who didn't work out in Tallahassee.