Florida State’s roster problem in the NIL era is bigger than one interview, one general manager, or one offseason debate on social media.
The Seminoles are trying to build in a college football landscape that barely resembles the one that existed even a few years ago. The old model of piling up depth and stashing talent everywhere on the roster has been blown apart by the transfer portal and NIL. Now, programs have to make hard choices about where their money and attention go, because the future is far less predictable than it used to be.
That’s the backdrop for John Garrett’s first offseason in Tallahassee. Hired away from Duke to handle roster management, Florida State’s new general manager understands exactly how the sport has changed. The issue is less about his idea and more about how he sells it.
Garrett laid out his thinking in an interview with Noles247’s Kolby Crawford on Monday, two days before Florida State opens fall camp for the 2026 season. His approach is straightforward: spend heavily on the players who are actually carrying the load.
“It’s important to make allocation for your players who play a lot in the game,” Garrett explained with a heavy dose of facial expressions and a borderline condescending smirk. “It’s a 105,” he said of the roster, “there’s 11 starters on offense and 11 starters on defense.
That’s 22. Times two, two-deep,” he continued his math equation, “that’s 44.”
Florida State GM John Garrett talks his roster resource allocation strategy pic.twitter.com/URfRIzTWHX
- Kolby Crawford (@kolby_crawford) July 27, 2026
The math is hard to argue with. In this era, you can’t treat roster construction like it’s still the old stockpiling game.
Programs used to build for the long haul by burying talent down the depth chart and waiting their turn. That’s not how this works now.
Players who aren’t seeing the field can leave, and NIL gives them a reason to do it.
That shift has flattened the sport. The giant rosters that once separated Alabama, Clemson and Georgia from everyone else don’t really exist in the same way anymore. Even now, schools like Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M and Ohio State are spending in the $40 million to $50 million range on rosters, but the depth still isn’t what Alabama had through the 2010s or what Georgia assembled during its back-to-back title run in the early 2020s.
The reason is simple: elite recruits are getting on the field sooner, and the players they pass are more willing than ever to move on for a better chance and a bigger paycheck. The portal and NIL changed the math at every level.
For Florida State, that reality is even more urgent. Mike Norvell’s slow start in the NIL era left the Seminoles behind the programs they think they should be chasing, and Garrett’s job is to help close that gap.
His first recruiting cycle has reflected that urgency. In 2026, Florida State took 34 high schoolers.
So far, the Noles have 17 commits, and it doesn’t look likely to grow much more, if at all.
That’s the part Garrett seems to understand best: quality matters more than volume right now, especially when the head coach is sitting on the hottest seat in the country.
Still, the public reaction to him has been rough. Some Florida State fans have gone after Garrett in the replies to Crawford’s post, and the criticism appears aimed less at the substance of what he said than at the way he said it. His demeanor did him no favors.
Maybe Garrett is the right person to help steer Florida State back. It’s too early to know that.
But if he does it, it’ll probably happen behind closed doors - through sharp evaluations, smart portal bets and a better eye for overlooked high school talent. It probably won’t happen through interviews that build trust with a fan base already looking for reasons to doubt.
In Other News...
Florida State Just Made Another Crucial Portal Bet Up Front
Florida State kept working the portal to shore up its offensive front, adding another experienced piece with a track record of starting at two Power Four stops. The move gives the Seminoles a lineman with multiple years of eligibility left and the kind of background that can matter immediately, whether the staff plugs him into the lineup or uses him to raise the floor of the room.
The appeal here is obvious for a team trying to stabilize the line: this is not a developmental flier, but a player who has already handled meaningful snaps in different roles. Florida State now has another option up front as it sorts out how the best five will come together, and the next question is how quickly he can fit into that competition once spring and summer work ramp up. [Read more 🡒]
FSU Gets An Uneasy Verdict On #Tribe27 For One Big Reason
Florida States 2027 recruiting picture has a little more shine after landing six four-star prospects, but the overall verdict is still uneasy. Even with 17 verbal commitments in the fold, the Seminoles remain outside the national top 40, a reminder that blue-chip additions alone have not yet pushed the class into the kind of territory the program usually wants to occupy.
The deeper concern is the lack of breadth behind the headline names. Only three of those commitments are ranked in the top 200 nationally, which leaves the class looking thinner than the raw commitment count suggests and keeps the pressure on Florida State to add more impact talent as the cycle develops. For now, the early returns suggest the Seminoles have work left to do before this group starts looking like a true national contender on paper. [Read more 🡒]
Florida State Finally Has An Offensive Identity Fans Can Believe In
Florida State spent the offseason talking about balance, and the early outline of the offense suggests that is more than just coach speak. Offensive coordinator Tim Harris Jr. and head coach Mike Norvell have described a system built around a sturdy run game and enough variety in the passing attack to keep defenses guessing, with transfer quarterback Ashton Daniels and All-ACC receiver Duce Robinson positioned as central pieces in that plan. The staff also wants the freedom to mix and match personnel, a sign it is trying to build something more adaptable than the Seminoles have had in recent years.
Norvells return to playcalling adds another layer to the reset, especially with the offense now taking shape under a coach who knows the pressure of making it work. Daniels gives Florida State a quarterback with a different kind of dimension, while Robinson offers the kind of matchup problem that can change how defenses line up before the snap. The bigger question is how far the Seminoles can push that flexibility once the games start and whether the new structure can turn a promising blueprint into something opponents have to account for every week. [Read more 🡒]