Word leaked out of Tallahassee on August 11 that linebacker Matthew Thomas was declared ineligible at Florida State for the 2015 season — putting a dent in FSU’s linebacker depth for the fall.
The former 5-star recruit out of Miami’s Booker T. Washington High School was already staring at a substantial loss of action coming off offseason shoulder surgery, which forced him to miss action during the spring. But now he won’t appear at all for the Seminoles this coming season.
Thomas appeared in four games for FSU in 2014, missing action for a suspension, and then getting ejected for a “targeting” penalty against Boston College in November. He was suspended for the first half of the following week’s contest against Florida. He finished his redshirt freshman season with 26 tackles and 2.5 tackles for loss.
According to Warchant.com, the FSU coaching staff hasn’t ruled out the possibility of Thomas returning to the team in the spring of 2016. He has two remaining years of college eligibility.
Shoulder injuries have been a recurring problem for the South Florida talent, who was ranked by Rivals.com as the No. 15 overall player, regardless of position, in the class of 2013. He was forced to redshirt the 2013 season with shoulder ailments, which required surgery that fall. Head coach Jimbo Fisher revealed in May that Thomas would likely miss as much as half the 2015 season after a second shoulder surgery earlier this year.
Thomas’s departure from the 2015 Seminole roster will put more pressure on current FSU linebackers such as Terrance Smith and Reggie Northrup — who is coming off major knee surgery himself — to try and stay healthy this fall. But it could provide more opportunity for largely unproven commodities, such as sophomores Ro’Derrick Hoskins and Tyrell Lyons, as well as highly-touted true freshman Sh’Mar Kilby Lane.