Florida State fell as far as any program in the country did last season to a record of 2-10. However, with that being more of the trend he sees in Tallahassee, Joel Klatt can’t even consider them as a sleeper for the CFP.

During his show on Wednesday, Klatt looked at this season’s sleepers to make the College Football Playoff. When je got to the ACC, FSU was including along with Louisville, Duke, and his eventual pick of Georgia Tech. He wondered about the Seminoles but, in further looking over nearly the last decade for them, specifically the past five years under Mike Norvell, Klatt reconsidered their candidacy when it came to this.

“Thought about Florida State,” said Klatt. “I know that’s crazy. And it’s like, hold on. Aren’t they going to revert back to, like, the upper echelon team? That was my mindset. And then you just start doing any bit of research about Florida State and you realize that the 10-win seasons are actually the anomaly, the sub-.500 seasons are actually the rule. That’s problematic.”

“While I considered Florida State? I look at the five seasons under Mike Norvell. I see two ten-win seasons, I see three losing seasons,” Klatt noted. “I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all.”

Over the last eight years since 2017, Florida State has three winning seasons in total, two of which have come under Norvell when they went 10-3 in 2022 and most notably went 13-1 in 2023 but didn’t make the College Football Playoff. Combine those other five seasons with that, though, and the ‘Noles are just 51-47 (.520) since ’17. Again, as Klatt put it himself, those two double-digit win records really stand out as outliers rather than all the ones where they’ve finished around .500 or less when looking back nearly a decade now for FSU.

With that, Klatt has no reason at the moment to think those trends won’t continue for Florida State. First of all, the Seminoles already have the 2-10 record, losing those 10 games by an average of 19.0 points, to respond from anyways. He then, secondly, doesn’t think the program is even building through recruiting, having classes ranked 20th or lower in six of the past seven cycles since 2019 per Rivals, in a way that can consistently be successful today, as they take and lean more on those from the portal than the preps.

“I look up? They lost, last year, I believe it was nine games by 10 or more,” said Klatt. “This is not a team that was, like, snake bit, close games. They were getting their doors blown off, and it was a Top-10 team to start the year. I don’t love the thought of them jumping back in.”

“Plus, I don’t think that they’ve got the level player that people believe that they have. Everyone thinks that, ah, you know, they’ve been good. No. Actually, they’ve just lived in the transfer portal, which I don’t think makes you a contender and that’s been proven out by the last two national championships – Michigan builds from within, Ohio State built from within. Doesn’t mean they didn’t have transfers. It’s just not where they built,” Klatt added. “Florida State has leaned all the way into the transfer portal. Why have they had to do that? Because their high school recruiting has not been very good and not been very good at all…That doesn’t scream upper echelon or elite at all. So, if you’re wondering why Mike Norvell has had to live in the transfer portal, it’s because of that. The expectations are outpacing their recruiting. That’s a problem.”

Florida State was still, despite missing the playoff, trending as well as they had in years coming out of 2023. That said, coming out of 2024 and now into 2025, Klatt still has too many concerns to consider them for the playoff, even when it comes to sleepers.

“I did not pick them here,” said Klatt.