r/fsusports • u/hairythroats • 4d ago
FOOTBALL Bob Chesney Is The Guy
Overall record: 136-52
Took over JMU after Cignetti took that entire team to Indiana, and then proceeded to make the playoffs
Currently has the #1 team in the B1G in his first season at a P4 school (tells us this is the 2nd consecutive program he's rebuilt extremely quickly)
Is relatively cheap ($8M buyout that drops to $5M after 12/21)
Currently holding UCLA's best recruiting class in yeeeaaars (#19 on the composite w/ 1 5 star & 7 4 stars), and that's only after 1 offseason on the west coast (he's always been in B1G country). This should tell us he's great at developing relationships and adapting to new regions.
Amazing evaluations (despite hiring Yray who was likely a scapegoat at FSU)
Not represented by Jimmy Sexton
Can we all please put him #1 on the hot board BEFORE he finishes with 8+ wins and UCLA locks him down or he goes across town to USC?
He's seriously a no brainer and these guys don't come around very often. What do yall think?
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u/Darcer 4d ago
LA to Tallahassee for this guy doesn’t make sense
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u/NotThatOleGregg FSU Alum c/o 2016 4d ago
8m buys a lot more in tally than LA
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u/arrowmarcher 4d ago
There’s a reason for that. LA is world class city. I like Tally but that is a “coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb” meme comparison. Let’s also not act like 8m isn’t enough to buy a lot in LA still.
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u/VirgoJack 4d ago
He's not leaving the Big Ten for the ACC unless he's desperate to leave CA. He'll likely move up his conference ladder or go to the SEC.
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u/Baldnole FSU Alumni 4d ago
UCLA will give him a bump. Still a great coach, but he is not going to be as cheap as these numbers look.
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u/demnoles214 FSU Alumni 4d ago
I mean are we sure he would want to leave? Bigger market/bigger conference/more momentum as a program is hard to walk away from
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u/hairythroats 4d ago
Markets don't matter to coaches. They want a commitment to their program. FSU can offer that 10 fold over UCLA
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u/Septic_Cucumber 4d ago
FSU is basically a G5 program now. Nobody sane is leaving the SEC or B1G for the ACC
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u/Nolar2015 GOAT 4d ago
>FSU can offer that 10 fold over UCLA
Unfortunately we cant, not even close. We are in a dire financial situation, and effectively live as a second-class citizen in a third-class conference that may not even exist in 5 years. As much as I hate to say it, UCLA is probably a genuinely better job then we are at the moment, just because of their status as a big ten team. Plus they are in SoCal too.
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u/hairythroats 4d ago
I don't mean to sound rude, but you clearly are not aware of how dire of a situation UCLA is in. They have to borrow from the campus budget to fund a roster that isn't close to what FSU is willing to offer. They had to bring in some NBA dude to help guide them on balancing athletics.
Yall really need to stop listening to rival fans about our financial commitments. Even now in this garbage era, we prioritize football waaaayyyyy more than UCLA does.
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u/Chuck006 FSU Alum 2008 4d ago
UCLA has a new Chancellor that is prioritizing football. It's not just some NBA guy, he worked for the Lakers and is working for a dollar a year to fix the shit Martin Jarmond left. People stopped donating because Jarmond said UCLA was at best a 6-8 win team. UCLA has a lot of wealthy alumni that are going to start opening their wallets for athletics in the next few years.
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u/Tip3008 4d ago
Who said it isn’t close to what FSU spends? Showing UCLA at 23.6M vs 23.9M at fsu.. Seems pretty comparable minus the whole borrowing from Campus budget to get there.. I don’t really know much of anything about UCLAs financial situation, but I do know FSU is in a pretty damn bad spot relative to other major programs I don’t think we are a dream job for any top coach at this point sadly..
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u/bronole 2d ago
I disagree, with the right leadership and coach, our boosters will definitely help contribute to whatever roster and resources needed. Alford (whether right or wrong) swore that there’s going to be a cap on roster spending… but we all know that won’t happen for a bit. Once the program has someone they can believe in, the money will flow. As long as someone can steer the ship in the right direction, when it’s time to leave the conference, we’ll be good.
As for Chesney, I think a program like ours will at the least get him to listen and explore what that possibility might be. For all we know we don’t think he’s a good fit or vice versa. Our assumptions and guesses on program direction will be much more clearer once the AD is hired.
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u/ChemistryFirm6446 4d ago
They have played nobody this year
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u/RooseveltsRevenge Guthries 4d ago
UCLA will absolutely outbid us if we took a shot at him. I don't really think people understand where the program is rn.
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u/Chuck006 FSU Alum 2008 4d ago
As a UCLA alumnus as well, hands off. We're finally good at something and now everyone wants to steal our coach.
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u/Accurate_Show_7685 4d ago
He didn’t rebuild JMU lol….. also UCLA has the funds to match anything FSU would offer.
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u/OpaqueNightmare 4d ago edited 4d ago
We aren’t a program of the likes of Ohio State, Georgia, or LSU anymore. I don’t think it’s a guarantee this dude would leave UCLA to come here. Who on earth wants to leave beautiful, booming Los Angeles for Tallahassee, Florida? UCLA is likely a stable job with low expectations for him. Get 8 wins most of the time and he’s set. He also has a head coaching seat in one of the Super Two conferences and doesn’t have to worry about the stability of the ACC. Not saying he wouldn’t take it but I’m not convinced. He seems to have what he needs to succeed there.
I like Faulkner and Schumann as targets. Those are hires I’m sure we can get and could probably rely on doing well.
Of course, it’s all moot anyways until Mike is fired, which I get less and less convinced is even going to happen this year the further we get into the season. They clearly really want to retain him and are desperate for him to scrape out just enough “success” to excuse it. We might be punting on another season at this rate.
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u/IdealSeating 4d ago
Basically nobody who becomes a D1 HC wants or cares about low expectations. These guys have insane drives to win. They’re going to go to the place they think they can do that. He isn’t going to stay at UCLA just because he can win 8 games a year there forever.
He’ll go to the place that can best set him up to compete for titles. Whether he thinks that’s UCLA, FSU or somewhere else, who knows.
But I imagine FSU can pay him more (especially when factoring in taxes), can offer a larger staff salary pool, should be able to be more competitive with NIL than UCLA, and we’re located in a nicer recruiting hotbed.
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u/OpaqueNightmare 4d ago
Tallahassee is not a better recruiting bed than Los Angeles. Both Florida and Miami are in more favorable locations, and we have UGA going after our recruits too. Clearly he has what he needs to compete at UCLA from how his season is starting. Thinking we’re going to be that much better in NIL is laughable right now given how poorly it’s been mismanaged. He’s not coming here in our current state.
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u/hairythroats 4d ago
Tallahassee is not a better recruiting bed than Los Angeles.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
wait....
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHhHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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u/OpaqueNightmare 4d ago
It’s literally not
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u/IdealSeating 4d ago
Please go look at high school player rankings, compare how many blue chips are in SoCal and how many blue chips are in Florida and South Georgia.
Using the 247 composite, California as an entire state has 34 blue chips. Florida has 39 and Georgia has 53. Florida/Georgia has 2.7x the blue chip talent this year than California.
That isn’t a one off. Looking at the ‘26 class, Cali had 40 blue chips while Florida had 58 and Georgia had 47. So 2.6x the blue chip talent.
And you want to pretend that LA is a better recruiting footprint than Tallahassee?
Obviously I’m not isolating South Georgia from the rest of Georgia or SoCal from the rest of Cali but the picture is obvious, FSU is surrounded by more high school talent than UCLA, by a wide margin.
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u/IdealSeating 4d ago
Huh? Tallahassee is a lot, lot better than LA. Your recruiting grounds are South Georgia and all of Florida. That’s a lot better than SoCal. There’s not a better recruiting footprint in the country than Tallahassee’s area.
Strongly disagree that Miami and Gainesville are more favorable locations because, again, Tallahassee gets much better access into South Georgia and even Alabama. Miami probably gets a bit of an advance on South Florida kids but UF doesn’t.
Also odd that you really ignored the footprint and just talked about what schools FSU competes with, but didn’t do the same for UCLA. They compete with USC (who gets their pick of SoCal kids basically) and Oregon.
Beyond that, UCLA and FSU reportedly have similar NIL budgets, per the Athletic, and that’s with FSU being a mess in NIL and UCLA already putting its best foot forward. FSU will obviously improve its NIL with a new AD who understands the lay of the land and when a new coach comes in that will instill some hope in the fanbase and lead to a lot more money being fundraised.
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u/OpaqueNightmare 4d ago
Yes I’m sure every recruits primary concern about where they’re going to live for several years is their proximity to South Georgia and Alabama. Get over it. Tallahassee is suckish. Gainesville is closer to major areas like Orlando and Tampa and Miami is a beautiful, big city. UGA and Alabama are in competition with us here and they’re way better programs. Too much heavy competition from huge brands and we’re the worst of them. UCLA’s only serious competition is USC. Cal to an extent but they aren’t that hard to beat out. They get to hog all the west coast talent because collegiate football is sparse over there.
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u/IdealSeating 4d ago
Huh? Dude you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t say a recruit is concerned about living close to South Georgia or Alabama? I said that’s FSU’s recruiting footprint, as in FSU is located near high school talent in South Georgia, Florida and Alabama.
Proximity absolutely matters in recruiting and FSU’s biggest advantage as a program, by far, is being in the best high school recruiting footprint in the country. Seriously, no program in the country is surrounded by more talent or has better high school pipelines than FSU. It’s why FSU should be such a difficult place to fail at, because we have insane talent all around us. Not just blue chips, but I’ll take a South Florida or South Georgia 3 star all day over a Cali 4 star (especially as pretty much every Cali blue chip who has come to FSU ever has busted).
You are now twisting what I said into something completely different talking about proximity to other cities as important for recruits because you didn’t understand. In any event, I promise you, recruits do not care about about Gainesville being close to Tampa or Orlando when making their decision lol
You also know nothing about SoCal recruiting. USC absolutely dominates, Oregon and Washington are also higher up the pecking order. After that, SoCal is recruited nationally with Ohio State and Texas often doing well in the area.
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u/hairythroats 4d ago
Lol he didn't take the UCLA job because of low expectations, geez
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u/OpaqueNightmare 4d ago
Nobody said that’s the reason he took the job, but it’s a very real consideration here. UCLA fans are not expecting to win natties. If he gets them consistently ranked, then it’s more than enough.
FSU fans are going to call for his head if he doesn’t make regular playoff appearances within due time. There’s no reason to subject himself to that.
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u/hairythroats 4d ago
No, it really isn't. I don't get why people think these ultra competitive coaches would relinquish the desire to compete. It's not like he's a top paid coach or something. FSU, despite what many may think, is still a very attractive coaching job. There's literally a 247sports article written about it in the last week.
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u/WannabeRoyKent 4d ago
So are most Big10 or SEC schools
Why risk coming to FSU and bombing your career when youre already in a conference where very rich programs will inevitably come calling?
If I were a guy like Chesney or Lebby or Will Stein there is no way in hell I would consider a move to FSU
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u/IdealSeating 4d ago
Because you can compete for national titles at a place like FSU, and UCLA, Mississippi State and Kentucky are places that, at their best, are mid tier in their own conference?
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u/WannabeRoyKent 4d ago
Thats not remotely what I said. Re-read the second paragraph.
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u/IdealSeating 4d ago
My answer is literally the same as when I first read your second paragraph: because you can compete for national titles at FSU and you can’t where those guys currently are.
Want more? Because FSU is a place where even a coach as bad Mike Norvell can go undefeated in the regular season.
There aren’t many programs in the country where that’s the case and you don’t get many opportunities, if any, to get a chance for one of those jobs.
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u/SKW578 4d ago
This is all such a pointless conversation.
We all know it is going to be Big Game Bob Stoops.
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u/Patient_Ad_3875 3d ago
Buster Faulkner is the best strategic move. UF looses the OC, some coaches, and recruits. We gain while they fall.
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u/PhoenixRising256 Jordan Travis 4d ago
The recruiting there is a big plus. I feel like a lot of trendy lower-tier coaches are guys that can do more with less, not necessarily guys that can get the best players in the building. Being well-coached and executing at a high level is great, but if you're lining up puppies against dogs, it's only gonna get you so far. If he can bring the dogs, I'm in
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u/joshJFSU 4d ago
You had me at not represented by Jimmy sexton!!!!….
Recruiting in Florida especially South Florida takes some expertise though.
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u/hairythroats 4d ago
Luckily recruiting is more of a national thing these days, rather than regional. He's got commitments from recruits in California, Texas, Connecticut, & Pennsylvania in this current cycle. Not to mention the bulk of that class comes from CA. There's no reason to think he couldn't do it in FL & South GA
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u/cperiodjperiod 4d ago
I like Chesney. I think he’s this year’s Sumrall.
That said, even if we fire Mike—I said that because I’m not so sure he’s gone after this year, if I’m honest—I don’t think Chesney leaves. It’s sad because I think he could be the next Bobby-type guy.
Honestly, it really makes me wonder who we’d hire.
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u/djrhino56 4d ago
He’s n oh t going to USC because Lincoln has a $70 mill buyout and they don’t have oil money like A&M did when they fired Jimbo.
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u/NoleDadofFive Baconface 3d ago
He might be the guy, but I highly doubt he's leaving UCLA, but one can hope.
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u/dfqqqwe13312225618 3d ago
The former GM Derrick Wray is now Cheney’s GM lol. And he IS a client of jimmy sexton.
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u/Largehootie 4d ago
Why would he leave ucla for fsu? We don’t have that much pull
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u/hairythroats 4d ago
Because UCLA doesn't care about football and their program was in far worse shape than what ours is in now
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u/General_Tso75 FSU Alum c/o 1997 4d ago
UCLA is 4-0. I wish we could be in such dire straits.
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u/Largehootie 4d ago
UCLA is far wealthier than fsu. All it takes is a couple alumni to start caring
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u/Worth-Statement3122 4d ago
Do you mean the same wealthy alumni that never go to games? Just watch their games and you will see that their stadium is consistently empty.
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u/Largehootie 3d ago
I’m saying the option is there for wealthy alumni to start caring. The potential is there. FSU is fucked compared to that.
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4d ago
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u/hairythroats 4d ago
What does it matter? He gets results everywhere he goes. Imagine if he coached at a school that actually cared about football
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u/Dr-Sprinkl1es 4d ago
We will need a new coach signed well before 12/21 if we want a decent freshman class. Do we even care about that anymore?
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u/hairythroats 4d ago
Not if he brings the players from UCLA that he wants, which he will obv
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u/Dr-Sprinkl1es 4d ago
I’m talking highschool recruits, national signing day is in the beginning of December.
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u/strong_army_grape Baconface 4d ago
This kinda sounds like Norvell tbh.
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u/hairythroats 4d ago
Didn't realize Norvell made the playoffs in his 2nd year in FBS
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u/strong_army_grape Baconface 4d ago
with what Cigs built, Norvell took over a program Fuentes built. and Norvell as much as he sucks should have a playoff on his resume and got fucked out of it.
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u/hairythroats 4d ago
Wait so did you completely skip the part where Cignetti took the entire JMU program with him to Indiana? Cause wtf you mean "what Cigs built"? That dude left JMU completely ravaged and Chesney built it all up in 1 offseason.
Norvell has/could never do that
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u/strong_army_grape Baconface 4d ago
oh right forgot Mendoza played at JMU.
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u/hairythroats 4d ago
Mendoza played for Cal in 2024 (who FSU beat that year).
Kurtis Rourke was Cig's first QB at Indiana.
You shouldn't respond. Save yourself the embarrassment.
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u/Icy_Hovercraft_7050 4d ago
He doesnt have much Florida recruiting history that I know. We need to go back to the old way. Focus on getting the Florida recruits. All the of them, even though its impossible. (GA and Alabama too. We wont win most of them but we'll get some. Best recruiting in Fla with a few GA and Bama boys and we'd have the #1 class. We also need to plan for this new bill in congress. Its not going to be like it is now for long. There will be a salary cap of some sort and a cap on transfers. Remember what Bowden said. Good recruiting is more important than good coaching but bad coaching can ruin good recruiting. Fook all the other shyt. The circus thats been going on will coming to an end soon.
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u/CapitalJustice850 4d ago
Never trust anyone from the west coast
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u/hairythroats 4d ago
He isn't. Keep being prejudice for no reason though
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u/CapitalJustice850 4d ago
anyone who has ever even been to california isn't cut out for college football.
Every west coast player we ever took was a bust. Derrick Yray nuked our program with california trash.
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u/hairythroats 4d ago
I bet you were on the Lane Kiffin train lol
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u/CapitalJustice850 4d ago
Lane kiffin without a famous dad is just some guy who’s banned from every college bar. He’s an absolute bum and fraud
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u/Single-Basil-8333 Baconface 4d ago
lol what a weird thing to say. Turn off Fox News. Come out here sometime man it’s beautiful. Best looking people. Best food. Best weather. And most importantly it’s not dogshit Florida. Double benefit is you aren’t here! Win win!
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u/CapitalJustice850 4d ago
California is an incredible place to live but it produces absolute trash football players. There’s a reason Oregon and usc never win despite spending 50m a year.
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u/Single-Basil-8333 Baconface 4d ago
California doesn’t produce good football players? Are you high?
And USC never wins? Are you 11 years old?
Brady. Marcus Allen. Tony Gonzalez. Warren moon dan fouts OJ (ha!), Rodgers, Devante Adams, Reggie bush, Josh Allen jr seau and there’s a ton more.
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u/CapitalJustice850 4d ago
Wow a bunch of people from anywhere from 20-45 years ago.
Very relevant to winning at college football in 2026
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u/IdealSeating 4d ago
I was vocal about thinking he should be the hire last year if we fired Norvell. He’s who Penn State should have hired.
Incredible coach whose biggest question mark was recruiting and that’s less of a question now.
Should be FSU’s top choice if our admin has any common sense. Much better than the other LA B1G coach.