Florida State football officially announced one of the most important hires in recent history on New Year’s Day. Deputy Athletics Director and General Manager of Player Personnel, John Garrett. He will replace Derrick Yray, who went to UCLA and made all FSU fans happy.
If that name rings a bell, it’s because he was at FSU a few years ago and played a large hand in assembling the 2022-2023 FSU teams, who went 23-4 and won the 2023 ACC Championship.
Help us welcome back @CoachJMGarrett as our first Deputy Athletics Director/General Manager of Player Personnel!
— FSU Football (@FSUFootball) January 1, 2026
John will lead a new organizational model designed to maximize competitive success in the evolving college football landscape
Learn more about John and our new… pic.twitter.com/OyKQwVJzrI
If you're wondering what this newly created role will be composed of via press release:
• The Deputy AD/GM of Player Personnel will lead all aspects of roster construction alongside Coach Norvell, including high school recruiting strategy, transfer portal acquisition and retention, scholarship allocation, and long-term personnel planning.
• The Head Coach and coaching staff will maintain full authority over player development, game preparation, culture, and on-field performance.
• Football NIL, player evaluation, and recruiting analytics will be centralized and integrated into a single operational framework to ensure alignment, compliance, and competitive efficiency.
Garrett spent the last two seasons at Duke, helping the Blue Devils construct a roster that won an improbable ACC Championship in 2025 and a win over Arizona State in the Sun Bowl. Duke went 18-9, 11-5 ACC over the past two seasons with Garrett at the helm for Manny Diaz.
Apparently, Garrett and Mike Norvell will work together on constructing the roster. Acquiring good talent hasn’t been the issue; it’s developing that talent to make a significant impact in games. Granted, most of the coaches from Mike Norvell’s original staff are gone, so we can’t say the current coaching staff, as constructed, can’t develop players. However, we’ve seen a glimpse of some player development with a few players from the 2025 recruiting class and a couple from the 2024 class, with Tim Harris as the wide receivers coach.
The transfer portal will open on Friday, January 2nd, and FSU's work in this portal recruiting window will play a major part in whether FSU succeeds in 2026 or not. Can Garrett work some magic to acquire significant players over the next two weeks? We'll reconvene then to see and assess.