FSU Football: The Portal is officially open
Monday, December the fifth the transfer portal fully opens for FBS scholarship athletes. Learn what this means for Florida State and more!
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Portal Prowess, A New Path
What a ride it has been since Mike Norvell arrived in Tallahassee at the end of 2019. While the transfer portal was technically introduced in 2018, Norvell’s coaching staff arrived in Tallahassee as the portal was on the precipice of it’s mainstream explosion!
Evrything changed in 2021 when the NCAA football scholarship athletes along with baseball, and basketball were granted the ability to change schools using the portal one time, penalty free.
Previously, absent an NCAA waiver, a player transfering schools was subject to a one year NCAA suspension / loss of eligibility. The “one-time” transfer rule is now in place for transfers across all sports and subdivisions with varying portal dates, dead periods etc.
Mike Norvell and the Seminoles have been true pioneers in this new free-agency era and NIL landscape of college football. They didn’t simply answer calls to graduate-transfers in search of a new home or scour the Juco ranks. The Seminoles coaching staff attacked the portal as if it were just as important as high-school recruiting or any other means of roster building and it has paid dividends as we sit here on December fifth, 2022. A nice field trip is scheduled for Orlando in three weeks as one reward!
2020 was a Covid-plagued exception of a season in more ways than I can begin to explain. Despite all of that, this initial group of transfers set the stage for a bright future for Norvell and staff. Guys like Jammie Robinson and Dillon Gibbons and even the one year for Jermaine Johnson laid the groundwork for the portal movement to Tallahassee and they epitomize the #CLIMB mindset.
The 2021 season concluded with eight All-ACC selections from the Florida State Football team. Seven of those eight players were originally transfer portal players. All the Noles did in 2022 was nearly double that number to fifteen All-ACC selections, including several repeat members like First Team All ACC Safety Jammie Robinson and eleven of the fifteen selections being Transfers. This stat pointed out by Brendan Sonnone of Nole’s 247 is absolutely indicative of Norvell’s recruiting and evaluation prowess!
With the portal finally open for business the Noles coaching staff is surely burning the midnight oil and the approximate forty off field assistants, coaches are working furiously at identifying, evaluating and eventually recruiting the transfer portal as things heat up. Keep track of top targets as they become clear here at The Renegade Report’s portal target tracker here.
The foundation for Norvell’s Florida State program has been set. It’s officially his roster through and through. The culture has been flipped and set. The Noles 2023 high-school class currently has 16 commits with nine possible HS spots remaining. Caziah Holmes is the lone Nole added from the portal thus far. How will the staff fill out the rest of the roster and who will be the next big time target for the Noles?
I will leave you with my top four positions of need, keep it locked at the Renegade Report for all your Noles news and portal headlines!
OT - CFB’s unicorn. You can never have enough tackles period. (Keyshawn Blackstock? OG?)
TE - Though heavy in number a quality Pass catcher is needed. (Morlock?)
DT- Depth and big time players at this position are crucial. Play in 2022 with and without Fabien Lovett made this fact clear (Braden Fiske?)
CB- No depth pieces needed here. The Noles will look at possibly adding a body ready to come compete for a job immediately.
The Renegade Report 2022 - @cerberusgeorge George Georgiades
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