FSU Football: Pre-Spring | Nole's News & Rival's Reconnaissance
The latest and most poignant Noles News over the past week while looking forward to spring camp. I also take a look at our rivals current situations as they are in flux.
Nole’s News & Rival’s Reconnaissance
re·con·nais·sance
Today | February 8th 2023
It is a special day for The Battle’s End Collective with your top rated player in the #Tribe23 Recruiting Class, high school or transfer, taking over their Instagram for the day!
Hykeem Williams - For the day - The Battle’s End Instagram Story
The Tour of Duty
The Tour of Duty is an annual military style strength and conditioning program held to test the new guys and build character and comraderie amongst the men. It’s talked about year round and is notoriously difficult and fulfilling. Chances are your coach said the same exact thing about his staff and their program.
Everyone would like to think all of those great things I pointed out were true but it’s a select group that is allowed that feeling. Mike Norvell is one of those rare guys and just keeps proving himself over and over again through hard work determination and most of all consistency.
Everyone you talk to over the past three years and counting about him echo the same exact sentiments. Both the Tour of Duty and Coach Norvell recieve rave reviews from the players themselves even. He is a ball of energy that settles for nothing but the absolute best for his players to whom he treats as if they are his very own flesh and blood.
Spring Camp
I have to admit this the most excited I’ve ever been for a spring camp. This spring is setting up to be the best and and deepest team we have had in close to a decade. With 90 legitimate scholarship guys minus a few late arrivals the Seminoles will have heaps of bodies along the lines of scrimmage and an assortment of riches at the skill positions. We could see two seperate teams that are better than the 2021 squad.
This spring will be all about getting one percent better every day and building report among the new players and their teammates. There will certainly be some intense position battles as players attempt to carve out playing time and reach the elusive two deep roster.
Their will most certainley be further attrition of five more players following spring practice but I’d imagine the final number closer to ten than five. This same battle will be raging at schools across the country and there will certainly be some quite amazing players hit the portal due to insane depth or simply picking the wrong one.
Bill Connely did an amazing article about returning production from the 2022 season and Florida State is at the very top of that list at 87% production returning. Enjoy this excerpt and know this is just the introduction to our Spring Football Preview and there is much more to come!
Returning Production
Brace yourself, friends: We’re going to be talking about the Noles quite a bit in 2023. After winning their last six games of 2022 to finish with double-digit wins for the first time in six years, Mike Norvell and Florida State have entered the offseason with the most returning production in all of the FBS.
At the moment, FSU returns 87% of last year’s production — 80% on offense (11th overall) and 94% on defense (second). The Seminoles lead the way in this year’s rankings, while other teams with exciting 2022 stories have plenty to be encouraged about as well.
Optimism is rampant in Tallahassee, and it’s not hard to see why. After a midseason funk left the Noles 4-3, they ignited down the stretch, and now they return virtually everyone responsible for that ignition, from quarterback Jordan Travis to running back Trey Benson, receiver Johnny Wilson, 3½ offensive line starters and almost every primary defender (including star edge rusher Jared Verse).
The Spring Game
With all the hype surrounding FSU Football this spring the Florida State administration showed their confidence scheduling the game right in the prime slot on the 15th. Miami and Florida opted Thursday and Friday with Clemson also choosing saturday but at 1pm.
Im expecting to see 40-60k fans and just big numvers all around as Nole Nation is desperate for a winner and this roster is just going to look different. We finally return to having a top ten level football team WITH depth. Outsiders and casual dont understand just how much better this 2023 squad is than the 2022 squad. It’s night and day. This will be our first peek at the possibilities and will surely farner millions of views.
Saturday April 15th 2023
Miami (of FL)
Criami has announced it will begin spring football practices at the Greentree Practice Fields on March 4th instead of their on-campus facility. Excuse me my producer just informed me that their stadium is not in fact on campus.
For the second straight year the Hurricanes will be playing their spring game at the Drive Pink Futbol Club Stadium. We are talking about a facility that can hold about half as much as Milton High School’s Haywood Hanna Stadium! Pretty impressive!
This particular team is experienceing a ton of issues this winter as soring camp rapidly approaches. They lost both coordinators in negative fashion after paying top dollar and boldy proclaiming their’s the best staff in the state. They just hired, Willie Taggart tree, coach Lance Guidry from Tulane after a great year with them.
Guidry helped Taggart get the USF job running his defenses at WKU before moving to Mcneese State when not retained by Taggart in the move. Taggart once again hired Guidry in 2020 as a safeties coach. That said Guidry left when not given the DC job and took that role with Marshall and then Tulane where he had a great 2022 season. How quickly can he get that group turned around? We will have to see.
Friday April 14th 2023 | DRV PNK Stadium
UF ( of gainesville)
The team to the East on I-10 is in phase 2 of their offseason program and will begin spring practice on March the 8th. Their spring game will be held two days before the Noles on a Thursday night at The Swamp. While there is certainly an extremely limited amount of sure information to be gleened from a short game, and glorified scrimmage this one will be quote informative for fans and rivals alike.
The Gators had a legitimate mass exodus following the season with over twenty five guys hitting the portal alone. When you add in age outs, medical disqualifications, and NFL declarations the Gators have flipped a good half of their roster right here in the 2023 recruiting cycle.
Thurday April 13th 2023 | The Swamp
The Clemson Tigers
Clemson is in an extremely precarious position as they tweeter on the ledge…. That’s exactly how i felt up until the hire of Garrett Reilly. This changes everything and makes this spring camp extremely important as they are to begin making the transition out of an Offense they have been running for over a decade.
What Reilly was able to do at TCU is extremely impressive and he has a totally different level of athletes to play with at Clemson. The offense will score points no matter what in 2023 but just how many points, and what about the defense. These are the questions heading into the year, and you can get a sneak peak from spring ball.
April 15th 2023 | Death Valley , SC
