Florida State football hosted several talented prospects on campus this past weekend for its Junior Day event. The Seminoles are attempting to place a higher emphasis on high school recruiting.
With previous coaches on staff, they relied more on the transfer portal if a prospect did not trend in the Seminoles' direction instead of having backup plans with other interested recruits. With that said, the past is in the past.
Florida State will attempt to do its best when it comes to acquiring talent at every position. Of the coaches that were relieved of his duties, one of them was linebackers coach Randy Shannon. Coach Shannon was one that the fan base was not thrilled with his recruiting efforts.
Defensive ends coach John Papuchis has switched over to linebackers coach with Terrance Knighton taking over the responsibilities of the defensive line.
Papuchis has already secured a commitment at the position from three-star Karon Maycock from Miami Central High School in Miami, Florida.
Unfortunately, four-star target Izayia Williams pledged to the arch-rival Florida Gators. It looks like the talented defender is playing roulette with all of the times that he has committed where he has pledged to Syracuse and Florida State previously. We will see if the official visit with the Seminoles on June 20th will still take place or not with him committed to the Gators.
Nonetheless, there were times when the coaching staff was not pivotal to other options after highly-regarded targets committed to other schools. This often led to the Seminoles settling for one commitment and then pursuing options in the transfer portal to fulfill the need for the position.
That isn't the case during the 2026 recruiting cycle as Florida State is involved with five-star Xavier Griffin (USC commit), four-star Rodney Colton Jr., four-star Duyon Forkpa Jr., four-star TJ White, four-star Antoine Sharp, and unranked Noah LaVallee.