Mike Norvell is the real Portal King.

Even State of FloridaThe season ended with the bitter disappointment of being left out of the squad. College American Football PlayoffsThere’s no taking away from the team Norvell built a year ago. All of Florida State’s top prospects for 2023 were transfers, including the quarterback, who suffered a season-ending injury that led to the Seminoles’ rejection.

But as we watched Florida State get a 28-13 defeat at the hands of Boston College on Monday night (yes, you read that right), we now have to ask ourselves this question: Is being the Portal King what you want at a program that expects to compete for national titles?

In this new era of college football, where transfers and NILs are king, there are new ways to build a roster. Michigan, Washington and even Florida State proved a year ago that you don’t have to recruit like Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State to win it all.

But was last year the beginning of a new era or just a weird season? We’ll get the answer to that question as the years go by.

What is certain is this: A transactional program that relies heavily on the portal — and not on dominant high school recruiting — can possibly have a very good season. Maybe even a national title season. But it is not a recipe for sustained success from year to year.

It still amazes me that Norvell was able to find this Keon Coleman, Johnny Wilson, Trey Benson And Jared Vers and many others in the portal (Jordan Travis (transferred under Willie Taggart). It’s also impressive that most of those guys weren’t one-year hires. Florida State has done a good job of keeping many of those transfers on the roster for multiple years and developing them into top prospects.

But is what Florida State has become in 2024 worth it? Can the fan base of one of college football’s storied programs stomach having a transactional program, a program that sometimes has really good seasons but also gets really bad ones in return? Florida State is 0-2 in the ACC after Week 1. Unbelievable.

Florida State’s brand is better than relying so heavily on the portal. They’re a team that has won a national title in the recent past, made the College Football Playoff in the four-team era, and is one of the most storied programs in the history of the sport.

Norvell took over at a time when the Seminoles were in the doldrums. It’s understandable that he had to turn to the portal to turn the roster around. But shouldn’t the script have flipped to dominating high school football recruiting four seasons into his tenure at Florida State?

The best programs in college football will always recruit dominant classes. Now, they can lose players more quickly if they hit the portal for quicker paths to the field or big checks, but the core of those rosters will be hand-picked talent developed internally. Those programs will fill out already loaded rosters with portal additions that are luxury pickups, not necessities.

Why? Because the portal is really, really hard to master. The recruiting window often lasts for days, and in many cases there’s not much film. Unless you get a one-year hire who was already a top prospect at his previous stop — the Colemans of the world are rare — how good can your hit rate be year over year? How many times can Florida State use the portal to create a team like the 2023 iteration?

You’ll notice it’s taken quite a bit of time to even talk about quarterback DJ Uiagalelei despite the fact that he is now the talk of the internet. It is true that Florida State has put a lot of faith in the young man and it is very clear that he is not coming close to what his recruiting profile promised. There is no way around it. He is struggling.

If Uiagalelei was a top prospect, would Florida State have been blown off the field by BC? Probably not. But DJU didn’t play defense, as BC successfully ran through the teeth of the Seminoles defense when they desperately needed stops. This isn’t just a DJU problem, especially considering Florida State’s offense lacks consistent playmakers. This is a roster problem.

If you look back at Florida State’s top 10 rankings heading into the season and expect this season to be a revenge tour for a 2023 season that was stolen from them, that whole thought process is just ridiculous.

How can Florida State be elite by replacing Travis, Coleman, Wilson, Verse, Benson and so many others while failing to recruit elite classes? Did we expect the Portal King to achieve national title-like success with this roster-building plan?

Norvell is a good coach. He’s done a great job with Florida State in his time there. In fact, he was a candidate to replace Nick Saban at Alabama during the offseason.

But Florida State, despite being a blue blood and being in one of the most talented states in the country, has yet to sign a top-10 class under his leadership. In fact, they’ve been outside the top 20 in those cycles three times. They signed Travis Hunter in the 2022 cycle, but lost him to Jackson State on National Signing Day.

High school recruiting wasn’t enough. That’s what got us here today and that has to change.

If you’re the Portal King, you won’t get far.