FSU football: Impact of 5-star KJ Bolden flipping to Georgia

Impact

Listen, KJ Bolden is an elite talent and would have played meaningful snaps his freshman year at FSU. He could play multiple positions in the secondary and helped on special teams. While those positions are impactful, there are more important positions on the field, and FSU signed several talented defensive backs in the 2023 recruiting class. If you need an example of an elite guy having minimal impact, look no further than Derwin James in the 2017 season. Derwin James was the No. 5 player nationally and freshman All-American safety in 2015.

In his junior year, James had another excellent season, but FSU only managed to win seven games because they had poor quarterback play after Deondre Francois got hurt and was lost for the season. If there was a position FSU could withstand to lose someone, it was in the secondary. FSU signed the No. 3, No. 8, and No. 11 cornerbacks in the 2024 class(and Ricky Knight, another four-star defensive back). Again, while the optics are bad, it's not like Bolden would add an extra couple of wins per season or anything.