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Recruiting Retrospective: Florida State's Football Signing Class of 2003

For the next several weeks, we will take a look back at the Seminoles' past recruiting classes, explore which ones exceeded expectations or fell short, and dig deep into how these signees' careers played out +both at FSU and into the pros.

The decline of Florida State football during the so-called lost decade was largely a result of missteps in recruiting. In the second of our ongoing series reviewing past classes, we take a deep dive into the group of recruits that signed with the Seminoles in 2003.

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Florida State's 2003 Football Recruiting Class

Class Ranking: No. 20 / Number of signees: 18
Four-year win-loss record: 34-17 / ACC Championships: 2 (2003, 2005)
First-Team All-Americans*: 1

* Includes first-team All-Americans listed by major outlets (ESPN, AP, Camp, FWAA, AFCA)

Looking back, the 2003 recruiting class signaled the beginning of the end for Florida State as a dominant national program. Despite being just a couple years removed from playing in three straight national championship games, FSU lost numerous recruiting battles down the stretch, were light on numbers with just 18 signees, had four non-qualifiers, and the class finished ranked below both in-state rivals Florida and Miami. In fact, under the direction of Ron Zook, the Gators had a massive haul that year, signing eight Rivals100 members and five five-star recruits.

In addition to FSU undersigning and being out-recruited by its nearest competitors, most of the players in this group massively underachieved. That was especially the case at offensive line, where Mario Henderson might have been the only serviceable lineman during his final season, starting 13 games. In fact, only one of the 12 linemen who signed between 2001 and 2003 made even the ACC honorable mention list (Cory Niblock in 2006).

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