By MIKE BONTS
Jacksonville SportsDay
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The Florida State football program signed 18 recruits on Wednesday during National Signing Day that, along with the seven early enrollees already on campus, helped the Seminoles earn its fifth Top 3 finish in the recruiting rankings in Jimbo Fisher’s seven seasons.
"Very happy with the group we've got. Very proud of our coaches. I think our coaches did an outstanding job of building these relationships. A lot of these relationships are two, three, and four-year relationships. Spent a lot of time, a lot of hard-fought battles," Fisher said.
Florida State’s 2016 class ranks as the best in the nation by ESPN and second in the country by 247Sports and Rivals. According to Rivals, the 19 four- and five-star recruits for Florida State are two more than the second most in the nation (Ohio State).
"It's a very unique group and if you can go back and look at this class, it's 25 signees, 13 kids in the state of Florida,"Fisher added. "But we signed kids from 10 different states. So I think the brand of Florida State being able to be out there and people being interested in being part of our culture and what we do here and our winning traditions and championship traditions, I think speaks for itself."
Sixteen of Wednesday’s 18 signees are high-school seniors, while offensive linemen Landon Dickerson and Mike Arnold have already graduated.
Among the 2016 signing class, FSU signed 16 players in ESPN’s top 300, 247Sports, and Scout rankings. Three five-star players and 15 four-star players are among the 25 signees. The class also features 13 Under Armour All-Americans and four U.S. Army All-Americans.
Among the 25-man signing class are 13 players from Florida and nine other states. The position splits are 12 defensive, 11 offensive, and two specialists.
"I’m very excited about the future, and hopefully in time we'll see how things turn out. We've got to keep developing players, and our coaches do a great job of that as some of our highest draft picks and things that went on came from our even lower-ranked guys, so not only our higher ranked guys are panning out also," Fisher said. "So I think it's a great job and testament to our staff and how they're developing these guys once they get here in all phases. So very proud of this group.”