Yesterday's St. Petersburg Times included a nice visual showing just how dominant Florida State's recruiting class is this year. This perspective categorizes the recruits based on how many recruiting services rank the player in the nation's top 100 for 2011. I apologize in advance for the unsophisticated scan job.

Since the color may not come across well scanned, I'll break it down. A recruit ranked in the nation's top 100 by all 3 services is shown as a blue chip recruit. A recruit ranked in the top 100 by 2 services is a red chip recruit. Recruits ranked in the top 100 by only one service is a green recruit.

Blue = 3 services (FSU: 5, UF: 2, UM: 1, USF: 0, UCF: 0)

Red = 2 services (FSU: 2, UF: 2, UM: 0, USF: 0, UCF: 0)

Green = 1 service (FSU: 4, UF: 3, UM: 2, USF: 0, UCF: 0

As you can see, FSU totally dominated the State. In fact, FSU had more blue chip recruits than all of the other Florida schools combined. FSU had five, the rest of the state had three (UF two and UM one). Had Traitor... I mean, Tony Steward not flipped to Clem$on, FSU would have doubled the rest of the state. FSU also had more ranked recruits than all of the other Florida schools combined. FSU had eleven, the rest of the state, ten (UF seven and UM three).

Notably, USF and UCF did not have a single recruit ranked in the nation's top 100 by any service. So much for the "Big 5" argument - at least in 2011 recruiting.

In addition, many of FSU's lower-ranked recruits are "sleepers." For various reasons, some of FSU's 2011 guys were not evaluated by the services until late in the game.

FSU's recruiting domination of the ACC has already been well documented here. However, what surprises me is the complete and utter domination of UF and UM. Some will correctly argue that FSU should have dominated UF and UM as both programs are in transition. In addition, they both had bad years on the field. However, these arguments fail to recognize that FSU had a vast majority of its recruits BEFORE Meyer quit and Shannon got canned. Realistically, the turmoil surrounding the rival programs should help FSU more in 2012 than 2011.

Please use this information liberally in conversations with Gata and Cane-vict fans. It's a good time to be a Nole.