By Mark Pszonak
The transfer portal is here to stay, and with it comes the good and the bad. Nobody knows about that more than Florida State, which enjoyed all its positives in 2023 and now all of the disappointments in 2024.
It feels like beating a dead horse at this point, but the 2024 season has been a complete disaster for the Seminoles and Head Coach Mike Norvell. Nothing has gone right, and with games against Clemson, Miami-Florida and Notre Dame quickly approaching, it will only get worse. But why did the Seminoles come crashing down so quickly after their impressive 2023 season?
It is because of their almost complete strikeout in the transfer portal during this cycle. While last season’s roster was littered with productive and important transfers, they are almost all gone and what replaced them is not nearly good enough.
And it wasn’t just last year’s transfers that made an impact. Several of them had matured through the program, established themselves and then thrived. Players like QB Jordan Travis (Louisville), RB Trey Benson (Oregon), WR Johnny Wilson (Arizona State), LB Tatum Bethune (UCF) and DE Jared Verse (Albany) were all invaluable and spent more than one season in Tallahassee.
Then the Seminoles strengthened their roster further through the 2022/2023 portal cycle by adding DL Braden Fiske (Western Michigan), WR Keon Coleman (Michigan State), TE Jaheim Bell (South Carolina), OL Casey Roddick (Colorado) and OL Jeremiah Byers (UTEP) to the roster. Only Byers remains.
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During this off-season, the Seminoles thought and hoped that they would be able to replenish their roster through the portal again, and while they did that in quantity, they didn’t do in with the quality they needed.
D.J. Uiagalelei isn’t Jordan Travis, Roydell Williams isn’t Trey Benson, Malik Benson isn’t Keon Coleman, Cam Riley isn’t Tatum Bethune, Marvin Jones Jr. isn’t Jared Verse, and the list goes on and on.
This is the issue with programs that become too reliant on the transfer portal. You never really know what you will end up with from season-to-season. It happened at Michigan State with Mel Tucker, who got lucky during the Kenny Walker season before the roof caved in, and it happened last season at Colorado when Deion Sanders created a roster overflowing with transfers. And it’ll continue to happen.
And once you go heavy into the portal, it becomes a continuous cycle that is almost impossible to get out of. Florida State will again have to dive deeply into the portal during the upcoming window to try and fix their massive issues. Will it work? Everyone will quickly find out, as the Seminoles start the 2025 season with a home game against Alabama.
There are other programs that have also become portal reliant, such as Ole Miss, Arkansas, Florida, Louisville, Miami, SMU, UCF, USC and obviously Colorado. Establishing consistency on the field becomes difficult from season to season as the roster turnover grows. And because of that everyone will see more “one hit wonders” like Michigan State.
So, enjoy the special seasons when they come because the next one isn’t guaranteed, just ask Florida State.
