{"id":117598,"date":"2026-01-14T10:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T10:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/117598\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T10:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T10:09:11","slug":"florida-state-lands-duke-safety-makhi-jones-out-of-transfer-portal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/117598\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida State lands Duke safety Ma’khi Jones out of transfer portal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida State landed another productive defensive back out of the transfer portal on Tuesday as former Duke safety Ma\u2019khi Jones<\/a> decided to become a Seminole.<\/p>\n

Jones played in all 14 games for the Blue Devils as a true freshman in 2025. He had 35 total tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, a sack, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery.<\/p>\n

Jones is originally from Grayson, Ga., before moving to Montvale, N.J., to finish his high school career at St. Joseph\u2019s Regional.<\/p>\n

Out of high school, Jones was a three-star recruit. According to the Rivals Industry Rankings, he was the nation\u2019s No. 137-ranked safety.<\/p>\n

According to Pro Football Focus, the new Florida State DB had a tackling grade of 72.5, a coverage grade of 59.3, and a run defense grade of 78.1 as a freshman.<\/p>\n

Jones will come to Florida State with three years of eligibility remaining and with a redshirt to use.<\/p>\n

The Seminoles have been stacking defensive backs in the portal recently. Jones adds to a list of cornerback Neimiah Chandler<\/a> (South Alabama), nickel corner Karson Hobbs<\/a> (Notre Dame) and safety CJ Richard<\/a> (Illinois State).<\/p>\n

Warchant.com\u00a0provides just what passionate FSU fans expect: Market-leading coverage of Seminole athletics and recruiting.<\/p>\n

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Talk about this story with other die-hard Florida State football fans on the Tribal Council.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida State landed another productive defensive back out of the transfer portal on Tuesday as former Duke safety…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,59249],"class_list":["post-117598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-makhi-jones-25-st-joseph-regional"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}