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Florida State football, recruiting news: SEC schools continue to wrongly assume they can poach FSU's staff

There is no reason to believe Florida State defensive coordinator Charles Kelly would leave for the sinking ship that is the Gus Malzahn Auburn program.

By Bud Elliott
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Seen some chatter about FSU defensive coordinator Charles Kelly receiving Auburn interest after Will Muschamp left to become South Carolina's head coach. Kelly's defense is the only one since 2011 Alabama to hold every opponent under 25 points, and he has major Auburn ties, but I don't believe he is going anywhere, and neither do any of my sources on staff. Other sources say that Auburn can offer a lot, but not $1M and certainly not the $1.6M that Auburn was paying Will Muschamp. Auburn is also seen as a sinking ship by some in the coaching community, and Gus Malzahn enters the 2016 season on a very hot seat after going 14-12 in his last 26 games. No way would Auburn's athletic director let a coach on the hot seat sign a coordinator to some insane guaranteed multi-year deal.

Bottom line: Nobody on FSU's staff thinks Kelly is going anywhere. He's recruiting as normal and seems excited about coaching a super talented and more experienced defense in 2016. It's certainly not a surprise he is receiving interest, and as we discussed on the podcast a few weeks back, a raise could be in the cards.

NFL Draft Notes

Matt Miller has his NFL Mock Draft up for the first three rounds. Jalen Ramsey goes 8 to the Lions, no other Seminoles are listed in the top-100 picks.

Opponent notes

In that same mock draft, many players from FSU's opponents are listed. Ole Miss OT Laremy Tunsil at 2nd, Ole Miss DT Robert Nkemdiche 4th, UF DC Vernon Hargreaves 5th, Ole Miss WR Laquan Treadwell 10th, Clemson CB Mackensie Alexander 11th, Clemson DE Shaq Lawson 16th, Clemson S Jayron Kearse 29th, Florida DE Jon Bullard 48th, Ole Miss S Tony Conner 67th, UNC OL Landon Turner 79th, Louisville DL Sheldon Ranking 94th.

That is a ton of elite talent leaving FSU's opponents.

-Speaking of the ACC, some fine work here from Michael Bird of SB Nation on why the ACC won with its coaching hires (it was willing to think outside the box). I am a bit skeptical of Mark Richt being able to take Miami to the top because he lost 29 games in his last seven years in Athens, but there's no doubt in my mind that he is an upgrade over Al Golden.

The ACC's hiring teams showed themselves to be open to new ideas, whereas the Big Ten's and SEC's did not. All four of the ACC hires come from outside the league, which will mean an infusion of new ideas. Fuente, Richt, and Babers will bring new offenses; Mendenhall will bring a new defense. In contrast, none of the seven head coaches hired by Big Ten and SEC teams come from outside of those leagues, which creates the possibility that those leagues will grow stale without new concepts.

-Derrick Henry is going to win the Heisman, but Dalvin Cook was better. via SB Nation, Bill Connelly:

10.2

During the 2015 regular season, 42 FBS players (41 running backs and Navy quarterback Keenan Reynolds) rushed at least 200 times. Only one of these 42 ranked in the top six in both opportunity rate (percentage of carries gaining at least five yards) and highlight yards per opportunity (the yards you gain past five yards, basically).

Opportunity Rate
1. Wendell Smallwood, WVU (51.1%)
2. Elijah Hood, UNC (46.6%)
3. Christian McCaffrey, Stanford (46.4%)
4. Royce Freeman, Oregon (44.6%)
5. Ezekiel Elliott, Ohio State (44.3%)
6. Dalvin Cook, FSU (44.1%)
Highlight Yards Per Opp
1. Dalvin Cook, FSU (10.2)
2. Larry Rose III, NMSU (8.9)
3. Jeremy McNichols, Boise St. (8.5)
4. Sony Michel, Georgia (7.1)
5. Donnel Pumphrey, SDSU (6.8)
6. Jahad Thomas, Temple (6.8)

Henry was a nice mix of efficiency (43.7%) and explosiveness (5.5). So was LSU's Leonard Fournette (44.0%, 6.8).

But Cook was more efficient than both and was far and away the most explosive feature back in the country. He played through a hamstring injury for much of the season and still rushed for 1,658 yards, 7.9 per carry. After getting slowed by Boston College (No. 3 in Def. S&P+) early, he dominated all comers: 22 carries for 163 yards against Louisville (No. 22), 21 for 194 against Clemson (No. 6), 26 for 183 against Florida (No. 5). He was, on a per-carry basis, the best running back in the country.

The fact that he only managed 211 carries likely held him back in the voting, but his prowess is perhaps the biggest reason for not voting for Henry -- if you're not even the best at your position, should you win the Heisman?

-The Tampa community seems to be embracing Jameis Winston.

Recruiting

Florida State dropped in on Josh Ball last night. The visit went great, and Ball is keeping in awesome shape and that is a great sign for the four-star offensive tackle commit from Virginia. Florida State also dropped in on Josh Brown, Florida State's early-enrollee end/outside backer from North Carolina. More recruiting news Thursday in a podcast edition of The Nolecast.

Florida State RB commit Amir Rasul, a four-star from Coral Gables will officially visit UNC. I don't think there's anything to worry about here.

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