The best Florida State football recruit may be a surprise to Noles fans.
Which recruit Florida State football has landed in the last 20 years stands out among the rest?
The Florida State Seminoles may be in a bit of a rebuilding phase under new head coach Mike Norvell, but it shouldn’t be that long for the ‘Noles to be back on top in the ACC. Keep in mind they won their most recent national title only six years ago. My how times have changed for the ACC blue-blood down in Tallahassee. The quickest way to rectify this is to simply recruit better.
Since the early 2000s, the best recruit Florida State has ever landed actually came from within the jurisdiction of the Florida state capital of Tallahassee. Yes, we are talking about linebacker Ernie Sims. The five-star recruit from North Florida Christian School in Tallahassee was the No. 1 prospect in the 2003 high school graduating class, according to the 247Sports Composite.
Sims netted a perfect 1.0000 rating from 247Sports, edging out other outstanding prospects from that recruiting cycle, including five-star tight end Greg Olsen from Wayne, New Jersey and five-star running back Reggie Bush from La Mesa, California. Olsen and Bush may have been better pros, but keep in mind how dominant of a program Florida State was at the turn of the century.
Sims had five official offers back in 2003 but only made one official visit. It was right down the road to Florida State on Jan. 31, 2003. He committed to Florida State on Feb. 5, 2003, over the Auburn Tigers, the Florida Gators, the Georgia Bulldogs and the Miami Hurricanes. Sims enrolled on the Tallahassee campus on June 30, 2003.
Florida State football has had players with more accomplished college careers than Sims, but he’s the highest-rated recruit to ink with the Noles, according to the 247Sports All-Time Rankings. Sims edges out Mario Edwards, Lorenzo Booker, Cam Akers, Derwin James, Travis Johnson, Chris Davis, Fred Rouse, Karlos Williams and Myron Rolle in the top 10.
For reference, Jameis Winston, who won the Heisman and helped lead Florida State to a national championship as a redshirt freshman, is the No. 35 all-time recruit in FSU football history.
Ernie Sims is the best recruit in Florida State football’s modern history.
Sims picked Florida State over in-state rival Florida. The fact that his mother and father both were student-athletes at Florida State University probably helped make his decision even easier. Sims would play three seasons with the Seminoles before entering the 2006 NFL Draft. After playing in a reserve role as a true freshman, Sims had his best college season as a sophomore in 2004.
Sims was named Second-Team All-ACC and a First-Team All-American by ESPN. He finished second on the team in tackles, as his versatile playmaking abilities were on full display that season. Despite lofty expectations in 2005, Sims did not live up to them. He had an altercation with his then-girlfriend that led to him being arrested. Sims went pro after the 2005 season.
In the 2006 NFL Draft, Sims was the No. 9 overall pick by the Detroit Lions, a team where he would play the first four seasons of his NFL career. Sims played five more years in the NFL with four other franchises before being out of the league after the 2014 season. He finished with 623 career tackles over those nine NFL seasons before retiring.
Overall, Sims showed flashes of the great promise he had coming out of high school. Though he did dominate in high school, maybe there was some merit to him dismantling the opposition at the lowest classification level in the state of Florida? Keep in mind the Florida State program began to fade under Bobby Bowden when Sims played for him. Plus, the Lions are usually bad.
Though he didn’t set the ACC on fire, Sims’ did have a perfect rating coming out of high school.
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