Mike Norvell discusses importance of balancing recruiting, transfer portal

The new prominence of the NCAA transfer portal has forced college coaches across the nation to delicately balance recruiting high school prospects and transfer portal ones as well. Florida State is included in this balancing, and head coach Mike Norvell recently spoke about how the Seminoles have been strategizing.

“You always operate with what you know, and the projections of what could or what might, I mean every day’s an evaluation of where we are, who are we recruiting. There’s some really good high school players we’re on that we have an opportunity to get here to Florida State, and that’s why I want to continue to build this program,” Norvell said. “We’ve had some great players that have come in and you see the development, you see the growth, but there are some positions where if you can maybe get a little bit more experience or to be able to bridge a gap in where you have great youth and you also have some guys that are a little bit older.”

Norvell’s strategy surely worked this season for the Seminoles, as he used the defensive end position as an example following a breakout season from Albany transfer Jared Verse and redshirt freshman Patrick Payton.

“That’s all kind of part of it, I mean you look at our defensive end position. I think that’s one that’s really over the last couple of years, you’ve got Jared Verse this year who’s one of the top vote getters in all ACC, and then on the flip side you have a redshirt freshman that’s a defensive rookie of the year. And so you’re about to bridge that gap a little bit for guys as they continue to develop, we’ll keep talent base at a very high level and you just kind of look at that though all positions,” Norvell explained.

Norvell was also asked if there was an answer to if recruiting elite, high school talent was necessary to build a championship team or can the transfer portal can fulfill all of those needs.

“It’s still the right fit, you look at the roster you have, the guys that are returning, where you’re at, I mean that’s how I approach it,” Norvell said. “I want to get the best fit for Florida State, guys that can come it and grow and develop within your culture. Whether it’s guys that come in and it’s one year and they’re a part of still building the culture, it’s more of where we are and where we ultimately want to go with the guys that are available.”

Norvell also predicted that some teams will become extremely reliant on the transfer portal this upcoming offseason, but it sounds like he’ll use a little bit of both moving forward as the Seminoles recruit this offseason.

“And if I can get a great high school player, some of them will come in ready to play and some of them will not, but it’s still the process of growth. There’s gonna be some teams, I wouldn’t be shocked to see some teams take 40 guys this year, that’s gonna happen. With the NCAA rules it’s absolutely gonna be possible this year so you’re gonna see some mass transitions in rosters and everybody’s gonna approach that a different way so we’ll see how it all goes,” Novell said.