Florida State signed just seven players in December, a paltry amount and partly the result of the coaching transition between Jimbo Fisher, now at Texas A&M, and Willie Taggart, the new boss in Tallahassee.
A total of 14 players abandoned commitments to FSU after Fisher jumped ship, but there are several reasons why the Seminoles can make a fairly quick recovery in recruiting and on the field:
▪ The Seminoles are closing fast. They now have 14 players either signed or committed, including 10 who are four-star athletes. That includes two more commitments over this past weekend, and both of them are players Miami wanted — four-star defensive tackle Dennis Briggs, an urgent need for the Hurricanes; and four-star linebacker Xavier Peters.
Those two commitments lifted FSU from No. 23 in the 247 Sports recruiting rankings to No. 16, and they could move up even more by National Signing Day Feb. 7.
▪ The Seminoles have a streak of four consecutive recruiting classes ranked top-six in the nation. In other words, they have some leeway to still have a productive 2019 even if this class isn’t quite up to their normal standards.
▪ The Seminoles have built a coaching staff that is designed for recruiting success. How good this staff is on game day remains to be seen, but Taggart has put together a staff that is not only younger but also much more adept on social media than Fisher and his group.
“I think Taggart will do a very good job,” Charles Fishbein, a recruiting expert from Elite Scouting Service, told the Miami Herald. “Many of his recruits in this class are from the West Coast because those were the relationships he had when he was coaching Oregon. But if you look at how his 2019 class is coming along, there will