When you're my age and you're writing about Florida State football recruiting, it's hard to not offer some perspective when the Seminoles have a weekend like they just had.

Oh, they landed some four-star linemen?

Go back and look at what they did in 1993 or 1996 or 2000 or 2003 or 2011 and tell me how exceptional this class is.

This is Florida State after all. Big-time recruiting classes are expected around here.

But I'm not going to be that guy in this column. I'm not going to be screaming at clouds and telling you young folk to go play somewhere else while I watch a Warrick Dunn highlight video on my VCR.

Because what Mike Norvell and his staff have done in one month -- ONE MONTH -- of actual in-person recruiting is incredible. And astounding. And he has this class on the verge of doing something that is almost unprecedented in recent years.

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In the last 10 years, there have been only two teams who had losing records and still landed a Top 10 recruiting class the following February. Weirdly, they both happened in 2014, when Florida finished with the No. 8 class in the Rivals.com rankings after going 4-8, and 5-7 Tennessee finished fifth.

That's it. That's the list.

And yet here we are, almost in July of 2021, and Florida State, after it's Commitment Bonanza this past weekend, sits in third place in the Rivals rankings. Third.

After a season in which, in case you forgot, the Seminoles finished with a record that had three more losses than wins.

This isn't normal.

Not even at a place like Florida State, with so much tradition and history and trophies, do you expect a second-year staff to do something like this. It's supposed to be more gradual. Maybe a Top 12 class. Then a Top 8. Then a Top 5.

But Norvell has decided to ignore gradual speed and jump straight to ludicrous speed.

Again, remember, this guy has been able to recruit, to actually recruit kids and host visitors and talk to them face to face, for one month. And all he did was land six commits in June alone, including five massive linemen over the weekend.

I don't know how any Florida State fan, even the most cynical among you, can't be super impressed by what Norvell has done so far. Because no Florida State coach, since Bobby Bowden, has had the obstacles to overcome that he has.

He took over a program that just had one head coach bolt for oil money and another one sink the program even deeper into an abyss in almost record time. He took over a locker room and a fan base that was wounded and skeptical.

A 3-6 season in Year Zero didn't help matters, either.

But then came the transfers.

And now, apparently, here comes the cavalry.

This recruiting class already has one five-star in Travis Hunter, who happens to be the No. 2 player in the country, and seven more four-stars already committed.

And again, we're in the middle of the summer. This isn't a case of one team jumping out to a lead in the recruiting rankings because it has 15 three-stars committed in late February while the rest of the teams in the country have two commits.

We're in July now essentially. Players, really good players, are committing all the time.

And Florida State has vaulted to No. 3 in the country.

Now, this is the section of the column where I have to point out all the qualifiers: Yes, Signing Day is still more than five months away. Kids change their minds all the time. And yes, other programs will land bigger fish and maybe vault FSU in the final standings. And yes, if FSU struggles on Saturdays, then some of the players in this class might struggle to stay committed.

Recruiting is a fickle mistress (that's a saying, right?). We all know that.

So, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that a No. 3 class in late June will still be a No. 3 class in December.

Who can know?

But here's what I do know: Other recruits are paying attention. And maybe a kid that's on the fence about joining a program that's been down in recent years will be convinced when he sees how many other top-flight players are jumping on board. That No. 3 ranking, even in the middle of the summer, is meaningful.

And here's what else I know: Mike Norvell has his own timetable. He had to wait for 15 months to recruit like he wanted to recruit. For more than a year, he wasn't allowed to even host official visitors.

So, when June came, and the dead period was lifted, it's like he became Dr. Frankenstein's monster (He's alive!!!! Alive!!!!!). He's making up for lost time at a frantic, frenzied, all-gas, no-brakes pace.

The result was one of the best months of recruiting in recent Florida State history, culminating with an all-time weekend to close it out.

I get skepticism. I get being cynical. Heck, I consider myself a master practitioner of both.

But in this instance, I think it's 100 percent justifiable to be excited about what Mike Norvell has done so far with the Class of 2022. Because it truly is incredible.

Contact senior writer Corey Clark at corey@warchant.com and follow @Corey_Clark on Twitter.

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