Norvell is a good coach, but he's the type of coach that'll consistently get you 7-9 wins with the occasional 10+ win season when things go right. Right now, things are going right, and he hit on his transfer targets. He was definitely the first to recognize how valuable the portal was and benefited from that tremendously. However, like you said, it's going to be much much tougher. A lot of schools recognize the value of the portal now. To sustain their current level of winning, they'd need to nail 15-20 high-quality guys in the portal. Possible, but not probable. Their HS Talent also hasn't been great, their last three classes were ranked 23rd, 20th, and 19th. Not close to good enough to sustain what they're doing right now. They do have the #3 class right now, so we'll have to see how well that sticks.
They should've kicked our ***. If we got the safety and the ball back or the hold was better on the missed FG, it could've been much different. Don't let them lie.
I think their fans are genuinely surprised this game was close. They beat the **** out of us last year. This year we had a True Freshman QB in his first road start, a bunch of True Freshman playing on O and D, and some terrible matchups, particularly at WR/DB. They expected a blowout. Not to mention their team is better than last year. The word "dominant" (even if the CFP apparently used it) doesn't describe our game. We were evenly matched on the stat line.
The bad hold and terrible call cost us 5 points. It's a very different game in the 4Q if we're down 25-27 compared to 20-27. Would change our offensive playcalling and gave us a chance to win the game outright with a FG. But it's a big if, plenty of ifs could've gone their way too.
They'll land portal guys but they won't be Travis, Coleman, and Benson level.
They hit the jackpot with those guys. Don't think it'll be happening, to that level, again. Add that to their subpar recruiting the past three years (23rd, 20th, and 19th ranked classes), and they'd have to nail 10-15 really solid players in the portal to sustain success. That's assuming injury luck and them panning out.
Completely agree. If Washington wins this weekend against Oregon St., I think they will leapfrog FSU for #4. It'd be short-lived though. Lucky for FSU (on top of the insane amount of luck they've had all year), Michigan or OSU is dropping from the Top 4 once that game is played. If they win, they're in. If they lose to UF or Louisville, they're out. They'd go to a really good NY6 bowl, but they'd probably have a ton of guys sit it out.
It also doesn’t matter how bad they raid the portal.
The bill always comes due. Their last three classes were ranked 23rd, 20th, and 19th. No amount of raiding the portal can cover that up. They do have the #3 class this year, but lets see how it sticks. All in all, they're losing basically their entire offense and losing a bunch of guys on D. Their fans don't know it yet but they're going to have a massive dropoff next year. At minimum they'll be 11-2 after this year. They're a 7-5 team next year (they've also got a pretty decent schedule).
