Welcome to On The Bench. I'm Brendan Sonone. This is a rapid review. No wait, sorry, that's the wrong podcast. That's burping on a bunch. This is an instant reaction podcast for the news that just broke here on Friday evening.

Jared verse, the coveted Albany defense event committed a Florida state. Chris just posted the story now. It literally just happened. We only found out that it was going to happen.

Five minutes ago. So we're all very excited. Gentlemen, welcome to On The Bench. It's nice for nice things to happen to Florida state, huh? Yeah, yeah. Some people in the building needed this win.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. This was a big one after the sour taste of early signing period with the Travis Hunter debacle happen. But let's focus on happy good things right now.

So Jared verse commits to FSU. Chris, you got on the horn with Jared verse real quick. What went into decision there before we start analyzing this take for the semitals?

I said it was a tough one. It clearly was. He went dark on me after Monday when we talked and told me his decision would likely be Tuesday or Wednesday. He went dark and he'd always been very, very good with me. He talks more than your average transfer.

And he's really enjoyable to talk to his mature kid. He gets a processes stuff really well and he thinks about things a lot.

But I think that was sort of the issue for him with the decisions. He, you know, a little bit of a paralysis by analysis type of issue.

He truly was considering quite a few schools, especially FSU in Tennessee. I would say Miami was the next one up after those two.

And I think down the stretch, it was really difficult for him to essentially have to tell one of those. No. Why was it FSU?

Jermaine Johnson and Keir Thomas are the first primary reasons why it was FSU. Those are guys that were in his exact same shoes 12 months ago.

And now they're both getting fitted for tuxes to go celebrate the NFL beginnings, especially in Jermaine's case, ACC defensive player to year.

He met both of those guys during his official visit in mid December. And I think they were key for him and knowing that this was a place that fit what he's trying to become what he's trying to do.

And that these are guys that were in the exact same shoes. And I'm not trying to say he is either of those guys.

And I don't think he's trying to say that. But he's a dn who's trying to move up in the world, get more reps at a higher level play at a higher level show what he can be.

And he's a guy who can be really good. Now, the beautiful thing about him in comparison to those two we just mentioned. He's got three years to play.

He doesn't mean to be here three years, but he's got three years play play to it Albany, both in the same calendar year because they played a spring season.

And he's got to blew up nationally and, you know, he can almost name his school when he hit the portal. He's probably in my opinion, at least to this point on the best defensive lineman that was in the portal.

So in that regard, it's a huge win for FSU.

You know, any other reason he chose them, they got him on campus, that official in December really paid major dividends. One, because he met those two guys that we've referenced.

Two, he just liked the place he said it felt like home.

You know, I think the staff did a phenomenal job with him guys like Shane Burnham, of course, John Papuja, so I think is going to sleep a lot better tonight than he's probably slept in a few days.

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