Earlier this week we noted how former Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston, along with former Baylor quarterback Bryce Petty, met with current Michigan and former San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh for a little advice in preparation for the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis that begins today.
As part of that trip to Ann Arbor for the personal one-on-one with Harbaugh, Winston and Petty also got a peek at UM’s football facilities. To say that Winston was impressed with what he saw would be an understatement.
And to say that FSU officials will be less than thrilled with his take would be even more of an understatement.
“These guys don’t know how blessed they are to have this kind of facility,” Winston said in comments from a video piece transcribed by SBNation.com. “I mean, Florida State, we’re a very prestigious school, we have nice stuff, but we don’t have this. I’m sorry, I love Florida State. Go ‘Noles til the day I die, but they’re so much [more] advanced than us.”
In other words, step your facility game up, FSU. And be prepared to have Winston’s comments used against you on the recruiting trail until you do.
In fairness to Winston, he wasn’t the only one awed by what he saw on the visit.
“This is bar-none the best one that I’ve seen,” Petty said. “We’ve got great ones in Waco, you know I love what we had at Baylor, and so it’s cool to kind of see other places, and this is definitely by far one of the best I’ve seen.”
It’s at this point in the program where we’re compelled to remind the readers that, in the five seasons after UM opened its new facilities in 2009, the Wolverines went 38-26. FSU, meanwhile, went 58-11 and won a national championship in that same span.
Still, Winston’s words have to leave a bit of mark-- especially for a football program that just completed a facilities upgrade in 2013.