FSU football: Will 2023 on field success parlay into elite 2025 recruiting?

FSU football coaches saw their best high school recruiting class sign last December. The Noles had 23 players, and 16 were blue-chip players and 70 percent of the recruiting class. It was the largest high school recruiting class in the Mike Norvell era (not counting the 2020 transition class when he was on the job for the final three weeks before the Early Signing Period). Mike Norvell has taken a smaller high school recruiting class in his first three years while becoming a pioneer of transfer portal recruiting. Norvell understood there was more value in recruiting transfer portal players to help FSU close the gap on the field quicker, which would improve high school recruiting.

He got criticized for the approach and the lower-ranked high school recruiting classes early on. However, in hindsight, it was a genius move that others have started to embrace. The approach has improved FSU's record each subsequent year. FSU has gone from 5-7 (2021), 10-3 (2022), and 13-1 (2023) over the past three years. Ironically, FSU's high school recruiting has improved with each passing year. Recruiting classes are a year ahead, so the seasons before impact those recruiting classes. The 2022 class saw the Noles for 5-7 in 2021. The 2023 class saw the Noles go 10-3. the 2024 class saw the Noles go 13-1(really 13-0). You get the picture. Let's talk about 2025 recruiting.