While Florida State heads into Monday night’s matchup with No. 18 SMU and Heisman Trophy candidate Kevin Jennings as a 3-point underdog, we wanted to take a look at the overall roster strengths of the two teams and how Rhett Lashlee, in his fifth year, and Mike Norvell, in his seventh, built their rosters.
Roster construction is a very timely topic in the NIL/portal era and Lashlee has recorded a 31-10 record (22-2 ACC) the past three years, with back-to-back appearances in the ACC Championship game, and a CFP appearance in 2024, so it feels informative to see how he constructed the roster FSU will face.
Any easy place to start is with 247Sports’ comprehensive ranking of rosters, which has the Seminoles ranked No. 21 in the nation and SMU ranked No. 31 based on evaluations coming out of high school. Take it for what it’s worth, but the Seminoles on paper have 85 players on their roster who were ranked by 247, compared to 74 SMU players. Thirty-one Seminoles earned a 4-star or higher rating compared to 23 Pony players.
Here are year-by-year rankings and number of transfers by school:
Recruiting Rankings
Year FSU SMU
2026 20 38
2025 21 32
2024 14 123
2023 18 75
2022 27 83
Number of Transfers
Year FSU SMU
2026 23 17
2025 23 20
2024 17 21
2023 12 26
2022 12 17
Total 87 101
When we studied the two programs, we noticed that Lashlee hasn’t been able to sign many four-star players coming out of high school, landing only nine by our count. Instead, the majority of his higher-ranked players came through the portal.
Lashlee has relied on Texas talent, especially from the Dallas area — which he deems the best high school talent in America — with 54 of his 105-man roster from the Lone Star state, including 11 transfers who came home. Kevin Jennings is a 3-star prospect from Dallas that Lashlee mined, and he’s one of only three high school signees starting on offense. The other eight starters on offense are transfers. Eight of SMU’s defensive starters are transfers, too.
The highest rated players on the SMU roster include two five-star players, Jordyn Adams, a UNC transfer and prep OT Dramodd Odoms, a Texas native. Among the 4-star players, the highest rated are Jalen Hale, an Alabama transfer WR, PJ Williams, a transfer lineman from Texas A&M and Jayvon Thomas, a 4-star cornerback from A&M. Those 4-star players are Texas natives.
Of the 22 players on offense or defense who will start for SMU on Monday, only 27.27% were signed and developed at SMU, compared to 45.83% of FSU’s 24 starters.
Nine of SMU’s 16 transfers joined the team in 2026, five in 2025 and one each in 2024 and 2023. Of the 13 transfers who started for FSU against New Mexico State, 10 arrived in 2026, two in 2025 and one in 2024.
As college football programs continue to try to write the handbook on how to build winning rosters in an unprecedented era, it’s important to remember that many roads lead to Rome.
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