Florida State Seminoles: Staggering $18 million NIL Fund Can’t Win Games

The Florida State Seminoles became one of the few teams in the nation with two losses Monday as they dropped their second game of the year to the Boston College Eagles.

Despite going undefeated through the regular season in 2023 and boasting an NIL fund of $18 million, head coach Mike Norvell and the Seminoles started the 2024 season 0-2.

The Florida State Seminoles have a top-tier NIL fund

The Seminoles boast one of the most impressive NIL collectives in the entirety of college sports. While “The Battle’s End” Florida State NIL collective is home to an $18 million fund, that fund is to be distributed across all the sports at Florida State.

While the distribution certainly isn’t even by any means, Florida State’s collective is ranked No. 7 overall in the country by On3’s Pete Nakos.

According to Nakos, “The Battle’s End” isn’t just one of the most well-endowed collectives, but it is also one of the most aggressive. The collective’s president explained that sentiment in the ranking article from On3.

“I’m not going to tell you that I’m John Ruiz, and I have unlimited money,” the collective’s president said at the time. “But I will tell you that we can be as competitive as we want to be in this space.”

Did the end of 2023 break the Florida State Seminoles?

Despite a roster with multiple NFL-ready players and an NIL collective that is just second-best in their entire conference, the Seminoles couldn’t get the job done against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and the Boston College Eagles.

While Boston College and Georgia Tech aren’t FCS-level cupcake games, they should’ve been easy victories for a team that walked through the ACC without a loss in 2023.

The Seminoles were favored by double digits over both teams, but they seemed lifeless in both games compared to last season. Even when the Seminoles lost starting quarterback Jordan Travis for the season ahead of the ACC Championship Game, they came out with fire against the NC State Wolfpack and capped off their undefeated ACC campaign with a strong defensive victory.

After that victory, the Seminoles were left out of the College Football Playoff in favor of an SEC Champion Alabama Crimson Tide team that was not undefeated. The Seminoles were a victim of what many consider to be one of the biggest travesties in modern sports. They did everything they could during the 2023 season and were denied an opportunity to compete for a championship.

Many fans lost rooting interest in college football as a whole because it appeared it was no longer a sport based on merit and record, but a sport based on viewership and bias. If Florida State went 13-0 and still was not allowed into the CFP, then what was the point?

The Seminoles wore the defeated sentiment on their shoulder when they trotted out to play the Georgia Bulldogs in the Capital One Orange Bowl. FSU was dominated by Georgia, losing 63-3. Even though Florida State had a staggering number of opt-outs, the nation could see their heart wasn’t in a bowl game that they thought they had no business playing.

That defeated body language and playstyle seems to have carried over into the 2024 season. While the College Football Playoff landscape is different now, allowing 12 teams in instead of four, the Seminoles still seem to be licking their wounds from the end of the 2023 season.

Losing guys to the NFL could be a large reason for their dropoff in success, but it is hard to ignore the lack of energy that comes from the 2024 squad. It could be a combination of everything that has defined the last eight months, including lawsuits, but there is a chance that leaving the Seminoles out of the 2023 CFP has permanently altered their program.

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