Florida State football coaches received some positive news on Sunday when four-star Jernard Albright flipped his commitment from South Carolina to Florida State. It was the second recruiting win over an SEC program in the past week or so. Â
Albright hails from the Peach State, and that’s an area that Mike Norvell has done fairly well in high school recruiting, despite the overall class rankings not finishing in the top 10. Albright flipped his commitment while on campus for his official visit, and gave a surprising quote to Noles247:
"FSU is most definitely ten steps ahead of South Carolina."
That's a bold statement from a player committed to South Carolina for the past five plus months. Often, current players can be the best recruiters for coaching staffs, and that’s what seemed to be the case with Albright. He referred to the team’s culture as something that stood out. Honestly, that’s something that hasn’t been as strong since the 2023 undefeated regular season.
Florida State lost a ton of leadership from that team and never recovered from that mass exodus of talent and leadership. However, it’s not like South Carolina has had much success in recent years, so that’s probably a low bar to exceed.
Albright is a good win on the recruiting trail for Ernie Sims. FSU needs to keep this momentum going into next week's official visits.
Albright, flipping from South Carolina, was a surprise to the subscription recruiting services and is a good example of those guys not knowing a whole lot about the staff’s recruiting board or who’s a priority or not. Albright visited Florida State for the Kent State and Miami games last season, but committed to South Carolina on Christmas Day, about a month after visiting South Carolina.
He holds offers from some heavyweight hitters and is the highest composite-ranked player (No. 169 nationally) in the 2027 recruiting class. It sounds like he has shut down his recruitment after flipping, which is a good sign for FSU. It tells me they agreed on financial terms to everyone’s liking.
FSU seemed to make some progress in building its 2027 class this weekend. We’ll have to wait and see how much progress, depending on whether some other guys who took official visits announce commitments to FSU or not. Â
Florida State’s recruiting class ranks No. 53 nationally with eight commits. They need to make some serious moves over the next week if they want this recruiting class to be anywhere near the top 25 by the time the season starts in a few months.
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