Deion Sanders names the biggest reason for Florida State’s recent struggles
By SDS Staff
Published:
In Jimbo Fisher’s first seven seasons at Florida State, the Seminoles went 78-17. All but one of those seasons (2011) featured 10 or more wins for the Noles. Things went off the rails in Fisher’s last season, as FSU was just 5-6 at the time he departed to take the Texas A&M job.
FSU has struggled in the post-Fisher era as well. In 2018, Willie Taggart inherited a team ranked No. 5 in the nation on the 247Sports Team Talent Composite. Taggart’s first team went 5-7, snapping FSU’s record-long postseason appearance streak. FSU went 6-7 in 2019 and is off to a 1-2 start in 2020.
On Wednesday, FSU great Deion Sanders visited “The Paul Finebaum Show” to discuss a variety of topics, including the state of his alma mater. Sanders said the problems in Tallahassee all start with recruiting.
“It starts out with recruiting; it starts out with the type of kids,” Sanders said. “We’re chasing 5-stars and 4-stars, and we’re not measuring the heart. It’s no way to detect the heart. It’s no way to understand that. Instead of looking at the made-up highlight tapes, hey man, let’s go look at practice. I want to see a kid practice. Show me the practice tape. Games are the best possible plays he can have. There’s no way a guy was great for three straight minutes.
“Show me how he practices and sometimes we’re losing the understanding because we’re into rankings. We want to say we have the number one class in the nation from that year, just because we acquired several five- and four-stars.”
Current FSU head coach Mike Norvell appears to be following Sanders’ advice of not chasing 4- and 5-star players. The Seminoles currently have 16 players committed for 2021, with a majority 3-star prospects (11).
[H/T 247Sports]
Saturday Down South reports and comments on the news around the Southeastern Conference as well as larger college football topics.
