The Florida State football team may have more growing to do as the season progresses in some phases of the game, but one player has grown in many phases since arriving in Tallahassee four years ago.
That player is senior running back Sam Singleton, who displayed many of his abilities as a football player on Saturday night against New Mexico State. Singleton is now a developed and fully formed product as a college football player, with his noticeable size and speed and improvement in pass protection.
“The versatility which he brings, we want him to impact in every way that he possibly can,” FSU coach Mike Norvell said. “With Sam and all of the things he’s able to do, I definitely think it makes it easier and I was glad to see him execute those things within the moment tonight.”
The 34-17 victory over the Aggies may have left many FSU fans with much to be desired when it comes to the football team. Singleton, however, is a ready product and is now one of the feature backs with immense talent. As a runner, he is smooth and knows where he wants to go. Some running backs like to dance around in the backfield, while some go head first into the line. But the 5-foot-11, 205-pound Singleton is a cut-and-go runner who knows where he wants to go and knows what he’s doing.
The fluidness of his running style looks smooth and polished at this point in his career, and he will only get better. Many touchdowns and big plays will be on his highlight reel at the end of the season, and by judging his performance on Saturday night, he’s only going to get better once he gets into a rhythm of playing every Saturday.
The talented senior finished the night with 160 all-purpose yards, including 64 yards on two kickoff returns. Singleton rounded out the stat sheet with nine carries, 54 yards and one touchdown while hauling in four catches for 54 yards and a touchdown.
Singleton isn’t just a running back, he can catch the ball out of the backfield and can sometimes split out wide as a receiver. Singleton's kickoff return ability is also something that adds to his versatility.
“Kick returning, I was always confident in that,” Singleton said. “I love returning kicks, so I took a goal and just worked on that and everything just fell into place.”
Singleton didn’t just back into his talent and work ethic by accident, he had to work extremely hard in the offseason to fine tune his craft as a runner, receiver and returner.
“I figured out what I needed to work on and just built off of that,” Singleton said. “For me, it was mainly (pass) protection first because that's where I feel like that was the area where I could work on more and after that, everything just fell into place.”
If Florida State wants to be successful this year, Singleton is going to have to be a huge part of the plan. The patient and prepared senior is too talented to not get a chunk of opportunities in order to make this team successful in the run game. Having sophomore Ousmane Kromah and senior Quintrevion Wisner gives FSU a versatile group of backs to share the load.
Having a trio of running backs is nothing new to coach Norvell, who has consistently used a rotation of three quality running backs in the past. Singleton has all the tools to take over games once he gets into a rhythm. His vision, size, speed and work ethic will go a long way this season and his production against New Mexico State is likely just the start.
Singleton had just one catch a year ago, and he’s already shown to be capable of far more through one game in 2026.
The Seminoles next welcome SMU to Doak Campbell Stadium for a Labor Day showdown, which marks the beginning of ACC play and a pivotal game for the program. Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. on ESPN.
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