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Today’s Poll
Which FSU recruiting win this week would excite you most?
🏹 Welcome to The Chief Brief! 🏹
Happy Sunday, Seminole!
Official visit season is in the books. The camps are done. The handshakes have been shaken and the pitches have been made. Now comes the part that actually counts: decisions.
Several of Florida State's top remaining targets have commitment dates locked in this week, the recruiting board is buzzing, and a couple of familiar faces from the 2026 roster are worth putting on your radar as the season gets closer.
We’re doing something a little different today by just having three sections for you.
Let's get into it.
📋 In Today's Chief Brief:
🏈 The Decision Board: Where FSU's Top Targets Stand 🏈 — Sam LeJeune has a date, Ta'Shawn Poole is wrapping up in Athens, and several other commitments are coming fast. Full intel on every major remaining target.
🥎 An FSU Legend Drops a Truth Bomb on the Torres Transfer 🥎 — Florida State baseball Hall of Famer Doug Mientkiewicz didn't hold back, and the numbers behind his take are hard to argue with.
🏈 Two Players Who Could Define FSU's 2026 Season 🏈 — Ousmane Kromah and Darryll Desir both land in the top 10 of FSU's most important players list. Here's what the ceiling looks like for both.
Let's dive in. 🍢
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Official visits are over. The next wave of FSU recruiting news isn't coming from a campus trip… it's coming from a podium, a social media post, or a hat table. Here's where every major remaining target stands heading into what should be a very busy week.
🔒 The Imminent Ones
Four-star DL Sam LeJeune has his commitment date set: Wednesday, June 24th at 5:30 p.m. at his high school in Poplarville, Miss. He officially visited Auburn, Cal, Washington, and FSU, and told reporters after his FSU visit it was down to the Seminoles and Cal. All intel since then points to Florida State. Two Crystal Ball predictions already favor the Noles. This is the biggest commitment of the week.
Four-star S Ta'Shawn Poole is wrapping up his official visit at Georgia this weekend after FSU held the Crystal Ball lead coming out of his Tallahassee trip. The Bulldogs are a legitimate late threat, and Poole hasn't set a decision date yet — though the belief is one comes as soon as Monday. FSU is still viewed as the favorite, but Georgia's closing hard in-state.
Three-star RB Marquis Fennell announces Thursday, June 25th alongside a high school teammate. He took official visits to Colorado, Stanford, and FSU in that order, with Tallahassee as his final stop. FSU claims the only Crystal Ball prediction and is viewed as the clear favorite.
Three-star Edge Stevan Thornton III is on his official visit to FSU this weekend. A commitment during or immediately following the visit would not surprise anyone. One Crystal Ball prediction already favors the Seminoles. Things are moving quickly here.
📅 Decisions Coming By Month's End
Three-star TE Colton Johnson told Noles247 his decision is coming before the end of June, from the six schools he officially visited: Ole Miss, Purdue, Alabama, North Carolina, FSU, and Indiana. No Crystal Ball predictions and no public leader — FSU is in the mix but this one is genuinely open.
Three-star OL DaJohn Yarborough has July 11th circled on the calendar. He's visiting Washington this weekend before deciding between the Huskies, Cal, Mississippi State, and FSU. After his FSU official visit he called Tallahassee a "top-top priority," and the Seminoles remain optimistic. No Crystal Ball predictions yet, but there's real momentum here.
👀 Longer Timeline, Still Worth Watching
Four-star DL Karlos May moved his decision date up to July 18th. He's currently on campus at Ohio State and is choosing between the Buckeyes, Georgia, Auburn, and FSU. Georgia has moved to the front of the line according to most observers, but nobody should be counted out. May's communication with FSU remains consistent. No Crystal Ball predictions.
Three-star LB CJ Ohuabunwa arrived in Tallahassee late Friday night for a last-minute official visit. The Georgia native has already visited Louisville, Kansas, and Virginia Tech, and his recruitment has had some moving parts — the FSU official visit was on, then off, then back on in the span of a few days. There are no predictions and no clear leader, but the fact that FSU pushed to get him on campus is significant. Worth noting: FSU already holds two linebacker pledges from Jernard Albright and Olrick Johnson III, and it's not entirely clear they take a third. More on Olrick below.
Three-star LB commit Olrick Johnson III picked up an offer from Lane Kiffin and LSU just days ago, adding SEC intrigue to what looked like a locked commitment.
Johnson chose FSU over Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Nebraska, and others back on June 12th. The LSU offer came in on June 18th.
FSU was unable to get Johnson to take an official visit to Baton Rouge on short notice this weekend, which is a good sign. But an official visit to LSU during the season would be a real test of the commitment's durability.
How FSU's 2026 season starts: particularly against Alabama and early ACC games, will likely go a long way toward determining whether uncommitted and lightly committed recruits stay in the fold.
Recruiting Reality: The next seven days might be the most important recruiting stretch of FSU's entire 2027 cycle. LeJeune on Wednesday, Fennell on Thursday, Poole likely early in the week, and Thornton potentially before the weekend is out. If the Seminoles run the table on the big ones, this class takes a massive leap. One or two misses won't derail things but closing strong here matters. Stay close to this one. 🍢
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The Isa Torres conversation was already complicated. Then Florida State baseball Hall of Famer Doug Mientkiewicz stepped in and made it more honest.
🗣️ What Mientkiewicz Actually Said
Mientkiewicz posted publicly that if Torres was truly the Player of the Year, she should have been a difference-maker when it mattered most and suggested her father essentially confirmed she preferred being a complementary piece rather than a leader.
It's a take that would've gotten dismissed as sour grapes if the numbers didn't back it up. They do.
Torres batted .365 against the teams that mattered most this season, well below her .530 season average. Against UCF in the Tallahassee Regional with FSU's season on the line, she went 1-for-7 with an error across two games.
She also went 0-for-6 against Texas Tech in the 2025 Super Regionals, and 1-for-5 in two games against Oklahoma in 2024. Three consecutive postseason exits, and Torres went a combined 2-for-18 in her final three NCAA Tournament games.
📚 What This Doesn't Change
Torres had one of the most statistically dominant individual seasons in college softball history. That part is real, and it doesn't disappear because of what happened in May.
Her father was also clear that coaching and culture were never the issue at FSU. This was about wanting to be closer to home and believing Texas gave her the best shot at a title.
Florida State tried to match Texas financially. This wasn't a money decision. It was a championship decision, which is actually the more uncomfortable truth for the program.
Reality Check: Mientkiewicz's take stings because it's not entirely wrong. Torres was a generational talent in the regular season, but she wasn't the player who carried FSU through its hardest moments. Whether that's on her, on the program, or just how college softball works at the highest level is a fair debate. What isn't debatable is that FSU has to get back to Oklahoma City. Lonni Alameda is already moving; the portal additions of Ella Dodge and Nicole Edmiaston show a staff that isn't waiting around. Now the work begins. 🍢
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🏈🔥 Two Players Who Could Define FSU's 2026 Season 🔥🏈
With the season ten weeks out, 247Sports has FSU's 40 most important players list rolling into the top ten. Numbers 9 and 8 landed this week, and both are players whose ceilings could have an outsized impact on whether 2026 looks like a step forward or more of the same.
As a true freshman last season, Kromah carried for 408 yards at 5.7 yards per carry and added 167 receiving yards and a score. His Missed Tackle Rate of 40.3 percent doubled the national average for freshman backs, and his 4.11 yards per carry after contact ranked fifth nationally among first-year runners. The talent is real.
The question in 2026 is consistency. The rotation at running back was frustratingly unpredictable last year, and Kromah himself has acknowledged needing to clean up his tracks and become a more reliable receiver after some costly drops.
FSU expects to run a more run-heavy offense under Ashton Daniels, and Kromah's high school background as a slot receiver makes him a natural weapon in two-back personnel sets. If the Seminoles can use him in space the way his skill set suggests they should, he becomes one of the most dangerous playmakers on the roster.
The ROI component matters too. FSU invested heavily in keeping Kromah after he chose the Seminoles over Georgia and Auburn out of high school. The program needs to see that pay off this fall.
One half of the Desir twin duo, Darryll projects as a potential starter in FSU's even-front sets this season. His true freshman campaign was uneven, but the upside moments were legitimately exciting — most notably a dominant outing against NC State late in the year where his pass-rush win rate hit 27.8 percent.
Per PFF, Desir posted pass-rush win rates above 25 percent in two of his final three games. That kind of burst and power from a young edge rusher is exactly what FSU's defensive staff is building around in Tony White's scheme.
FSU went out of its way to retain both Desir twins this offseason when other programs came calling. The expectation of return on that investment is explicit. Darryll specifically has a unique combination of speed and power that doesn't show up often at edge rusher, and the Seminoles need that to translate consistently in 2026.
The caveat: the Florida game last season showed how far the inconsistency can swing the other way. A 9.1 percent pass-rush win rate against the Gators is the floor FSU needs him to eliminate.
Why It Matters: You could make an argument that Kromah and Desir represent two of the clearest before-and-after stories of the Norvell era; both homegrown or heavily recruited pieces who are now being asked to deliver. If Kromah becomes the running back FSU needs him to be and Desir takes a real sophomore leap, this team has the pieces to exceed expectations. Those are two big ifs, but they're also two of the more exciting players to watch when the season kicks off August 29th. 🍢
And that’s a wrap!
As always, thank you for making The Chief Brief part of your Sunday.
It's been a summer full of momentum on the recruiting trail, and this week the rubber meets the road. LeJeune on Wednesday, Fennell on Thursday, Poole and Thornton potentially before you're done reading this. Whether the Seminoles close out this stretch or not will shape how the 2027 class is remembered when signing day arrives. We'll be here to cover every move.
Go Noles,
– The Chief
