FSU football: High school recruiting IS NOT why FSU fell off in 2024
By Kelvin Hunt
FSU football is experiencing one of the greatest falls in one off-season in our lifetime. They are the first team in the last 70 years to go from undefeated in the regular season to only having one win through its first eight games in the next season.
It's crazy because the expectation was the Noles would continue rolling after losing 10 players to the NFL Draft. FSU had been doing a solid job balancing high school recruiting and filling needs from the transfer portal.
They used the same formula in its 2024 recruiting class that got them from an 8-13 record in Mike Norvell's first two seasons to 23-4 over the next two.
The issues FSU has experienced over the first eight games have been a collection of problems. However, a lack of talent isn't one of them.
A popular narrative going around is FSU sucks in 2024 because they haven't had top 10 high school recruiting classes under Mike Norvell. They say he has relied on the transfer portal too much.
Well, I will prove to you how off-base that line of thinking is, and I will use the Miami Hurricanes as the prime example. Pundits love to talk about how great of a recruiter Miami Hurricane head coach Mario Cristobal is and how they have lapped FSU in high school recruiting.
The funny thing is nothing could be further from the truth. I know folks love to look at recruiting rankings without doing research. Let's do a deep dive.