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- Dec 22, 2011
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- 47,549
FSU did get "lucky" on some of their portal transfers over the last few years, but I wouldn't say Verse and Coleman were two of those guys. I don't know much about Fiske, but Verse and Coleman were absolute studs at their previous schools. FSU just happened to land them
This year was different for them. They really didn't land any proven great/elite players. They took a gamble on some big names (DJ, Marvin Jones JR, Malik Benson, Roydell Williams, Earl Little JR, etc...). None of those guys were even good at their previous schools. They just came from good programs. Couple that with terrible recruiting and the results speak for themselves.
Look at Miami this year. We landed 3 elite players (Cam, Martinez, Barrow) and all three have been playing at a high level for us. One could make the argument that those 3 are our 3 best players (not including X).
F$U got "lucky" in the sense that they did not have as much competition, but I give them full credit for identifying a number of impact players.
And let's be VERY clear about what is meant by "lucky" here.
When F$U got Jared Verse, they were not coming off a 10-win season like they were in the 2022-23 off-season. So F$U had very few victories, a recently promoted G5 head coach, and not much else besides "The Climb" to sell their school (it certainly wasn't a superior NIL program). And who knows, maybe Jared Verse had posters of Chris Rix hung in his childhood bedroom. But when F$U identified Verse (kudos), they did not have the same kind of Portal-offer competition from other schools. THAT WAS LUCKY, given their handicaps at the time.
Now, Coleman is different. F$U signed him coming off of a 10-win season (and a 6-game winning streak to close out 2022). Jordan Travis looked like he had turned the corner. I would NEVER call F$U "lucky" to get Coleman. You can understand why Coleman picked F$U.
But for MOST (not all) of the F$U Portal players who played in 2022 (10 wins) and 2023 (13 wins), F$U was lucky to have landed the guys they did, because there were not a ton of good reasons to pick F$U before November-December 2022. Except for high-quality shoulder massages.