Fun facts to know and share about FSU, Louisville

LSU vs. Florida State was billed as David vs. Goliath from a perceived “talent” standpoint. So who has the “talent” edge this week as the Seminoles head to Louisville for an odd Friday night game?

The tale of the tape, if you use the Rivals' ratings system as your guide, points to the Seminoles.

FSU’s and LSU’s two-deep rosters are dominated by three-star players. Of the 46 players FSU lists in its two-deep, 31 came in as three-star prospects. Louisville lists 44 players in their two deep and 28 were three-star prospects.

Where there’s an appreciable difference in talent is the Seminoles have 13 four- and five-star players in their two-deep, compared to just six for the Cardinals. More telling is that UL has 10 players who were rated two or fewer stars.

The Seminoles have one two-star player, Wyatt Rector, a tight end and special teams captain, who walked on at FSU as a quarterback. FSU also has a player who finished high school unranked. Surprisingly, his name is Jared Verse, a transfer from the University of Albany, where Verse focused just on defense to become the conference defensive player of the year in 2021.

Verse was a key factor in FSU’s win over LSU with two sacks and a blocked field goal. He is the proverbial needle in the recruiting haystack: the hen’s tooth.

You may be asking yourself, how did Verse fly under the recruiting radar?

Verse played football, basketball and ran track at Central Columbia High School in Bloomsburg, Penn., where his 4x100 relay team won the state championship. Best I can figure, no one identified him because he had a pedestrian 20 receptions and 16 tackles combined during his sophomore and junior seasons, with no sacks. Neither Rivals nor 247Sports rated him. Max Preps rated Verse but they put 5,096 players ahead of him nationally, 196 in Pennsylvania alone.

"To me, honestly, the coaches always told me I belong at this level,” Verse said of his recruitment. “They told me I should have never been at a lower-level school, I should have always been playing the best of the best. But then I guess here was my chance to actually show them that I can make it in the FBS and be a very big factor."

The two-deep rosters of these teams are loaded with transfer players, with 26 players of the 88 or so in the two deep coming to their respective school through the transfer portal.

The Seminoles' roster features 16 transfers in the two deep, including 10 first-year transfers. Three of the transfers came from Louisville — Jordan Travis, defensive tackle Jarrett Jackson and defensive back Greedy Vance — and each of them will play key roles in this game. Louisville has 10 first-year transfers, including former FSU cornerback Jarvis Brownlee, a four-star prospect who left FSU right before spring.

Tiyon Evans, a Tennessee starter and the No. 1 ranked juco running back, is a punishing back that will test the FSU front. And then there’s another guy with some bad history with FSU. FCS All American Nicario Harper, a safety, was on that Jacksonville State team that came back to beat FSU in the closing seconds of that nightmare that just won’t go away. Another player from a familiar foe is Dee Wiggins, who appeared in 27 games at the U.

While 22 of the players on Louisville’s 99-man roster hail from Kentucky, the Cards' roster counts players from 24 states, including 18 from Georgia and 17 from Florida. Of the Sunshine State kids seven are from Miami, five from Broward and Palm Beach County and a handful from the remainder of the Sunshine State. Sounds to me like the Cards can run.

By contrast the Seminoles count 64 players from Florida on the roster and 18 from Georgia, with 15 other states represented.

Both teams employ an Aussie punter from Melbourne, Australia.