Seminole Wrap: Spring game recruiting recap, 2023 FSU targets with NoleThruandThru

Florida State had its largest recruiting turnout for an event since, well, at least a year, with dozens of dozens of the top prospects in the country heading to Tallahassee for the Seminoles’ spring game.

With all the hooplah surrounding the weekend, only one commitment emerged — is that a problem? And in that commit, what kind of player is Florida State getting? As 2022 kicks off into high gear and 2023 picks up the pace, who are the names you need to know?

We’re joined by David Stout (NoleThruandThru) to break down those questions and more on the latest Seminole Wrap.

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You can find a brief transcript of initial conversation below:

SW: This past weekend, Florida State had nearly 100 recruits on campus during the dead period, a time where the coaches could not have any contact, we heard all kinds of talk about how they were talking to former players about what they can and can’t do. And so for us, it really had to be on their on their P’s and Q’s making sure they were following the rules. But at the same time putting on an event was just a massive amount of kids showing up. So I guess what I wanted to kind of start off with Dave is how do you how do you feel like the event went even without having coaching contact? How do you feel like this went for the Florida State program?

NT&T: We really had our eyes on this, right, because this was going to be Mike Norvell and his staffs first real huge event with a lot of recruits there and I know that a lot of fans kind of still had that sour taste in their mouth from the previous staff. And you know, when they had large recruiting events, you would hear things about recruits standing there with nothing to eat nobody to talk to or being locked out of the building. So I think there was a sort of natural apprehension, right, when we kind of approach this thing, but oh my gosh, was this a rousing success. And you know, I put this in the recruiting thread, something that really struck me is, you hear the feedback from a lot of the commits, and you know, it’s gonna be positive naturally. But then you start hearing the feedback from the guys who weren’t committed, or maybe the guys who FSU might not have been in their top group. And you start hearing how positive the whole thing went. And you’re starting to think, man, this went this well, and none of the coaches could talk to these kids. So just imagine what it’s going to be like when the coaches can actually talk to these kids. I mean, it’s incredible to me that so many of them reference, you know, the family environment, and how well things are done. And they’re not talking with any of the coaches yet. It’s so cool to me, that tells me a couple of things. It tells me that Mike Norvell has hired a great support staff that really is taking care of these kids in a lot of different ways and their families and everything. But it also tells you that the current commitments who are recruiting for FSU are doing one hell of a job because they’re able to kind of pass along the mission, you know, all the different things that the coaches want kids to hear. But at the same time, these recruits, the Travis Hunters, the Nicco Marchiols, they’re making legitimate connections with these guys. And some of them are going to work out, some of them are not going to work out. But another thing that you have to think of is with this transfer portal coming into play now. Just because some of these top guys may go elsewhere doesn’t mean that they might not come available again.

Travis Hunter reminds us of, you know, back when Jimbo Fisher turned the tide, he landed Jeff Luc and Lamarcus Joyner in that short amount of time. But I’ll tell you, as good of recruiters as those guys were, I don’t think they were as vocal and as out there as Travis Hunter.

SW: What’s Florida State getting in Rodney Hill?

NT&T: Oh, what a cool story. Right? I mean, you hear about Rodney Hill and, you know, he gets the FSU offer and his grandma just goes absolutely bonkers. His grandma had told him a while back, “you love Florida State, you’re eventually going to end up at Florida State. I have no doubt in my mind.” And then he gets the offer.

He’s a prospect out of Georgia. So again, it’s good to see FSU active in Georgia. Stands about six feet tall about a buck 85. So he’s not one of those skinny waterbug types. He’s definitely got some meat on him and it’s good weight.

What you what you see when you watch his film, really, really fun to watch. I mean, he’s dynamic in space, he once he gets the ball in his hands, you don’t know which way it’s gonna go. It’s like a joystick kind of a thing. But when he runs the football, he’s a strong runner. He has really good field vision.