Transfer Portal will be key for FSU football turnaround in 2025

FSU football head coach Mike Norvell is no stranger to using the transfer portal. He was among the first coaches to take smaller high school classes and concentrate on maximizing the transfer portal to close the gap among competitors on the field. FSU has been great at evaluating talented players with untapped potential. Jermaine Johnson, Johnny Wilson, Trey Benson, and Jared Verse are all guys who were relatively unproven before becoming stars at FSU and eventual NFL Draft picks.

FSU may take its smallest high school class in the Mike Norvell era in the 2025 recruiting cycle, and will likely lose a large number of players from the current roster to the portal or others may declare for the NFL Draft.

That means FSU could take 25 or more players from the transfer portal. FSU took between 12-14 players from the portal in 2021, 2022, and 2023. However, the 2024 class was the largest portal class at 17 but arguably the most underwhelming.

It would seem that 25+ players is rare, but that's not the case. Here's a list of teams who took 25 more players from the portal in the last recruiting cycle:

• Ole Miss(25)
• Texas A&M (28)
• Colorado (43)
• Washington (28)
• Louisville (32)
• UCF (28)
• Indiana (31)
• Arizona State (30)
• Houston (27)
• Arizona (26)
• Cincinnati (25)
• Memphis (30)

The interesting thing is that most of these teams are having better seasons in 2024 than in 2023. Texas A&M, Colorado, Indiana, Arizona State, and Cincinnati fit the bill, while Ole Miss used the portal to maintain its level of play. It's all about filling needs at key positions for Mike Norvell. If they can maximize the portal again, there's no reason they can't have a massive turnaround in 2025.