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<\/p>\nCorbyn Fordham, a top-ranked tight end, follows in his father’s footsteps to FSU, choosing legacy over Ohio State, driven by dreams of a national championship.<\/p>\n
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2014 In the mid-90s, the name Fordham was sprawled across the back of a Florida State jersey. Three decades on, that same name is back on the field with the garnet and gold.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve told them out of the gate, I said, look, you don\u2019t owe me anything to go to my, where I went to school,” former Florida State offensive lineman Todd Fordham said. “You have to choose a place for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
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After racking up nearly 870 yards and nine touchdowns at Bolles, Corbyn Fordham was ranked as the 12th-best tight end in the nation by ESPN and had offers from top-shelf programs like Georgia, Alabama and Ohio State, where he initially committed. But in the end, he couldn\u2019t pass up continuing the Fordham family legacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne night I was in my mind like, I don\u2019t want to go to Ohio State. I want to stay closer to home and follow in my dad\u2019s path,” Corbyn said. “I just want to keep up the last name Fordham and, like, don\u2019t doubt it, I\u2019m going to keep grinding every single day to hold the standard for my last name.\u201d<\/p>\n
That standard is pretty high. Corbyn\u2019s dad, Todd, was a captain at Florida State and was on the 1993 team that won the program\u2019s first-ever national championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, it was nice to be on a team that won a national championship. I was standing on the sidelines in that game more than anything, obviously that\u2019s fun, but it\u2019s the relationships and people that matter,” Todd said. “I love Florida State, loved everything about it, what it did for me as a man and our family, so I\u2019m excited that he\u2019s getting to go there and experience the things that I did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following his standout collegiate career, Todd spent 10 seasons as an offensive lineman in the NFL, starting with the Jacksonville Jaguars and he continues to pass every lesson he learned from his time in the league on to Corbyn.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe critiqued me after practice on, like, what I should do better, what my strengths are, and I think that\u2019s just a blessing to have a father who has been there and done the same thing you\u2019re going through,” Corbyn said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand it\u2019s hard, and I understand he\u2019s a freshman and the guys on the other side that he\u2019s going against are good players. So I try to encourage him more than I do tell him how they should do it or this is how I did,” Todd said. “I just give him some advice and then let him go. They\u2019ve got to go and earn it and figure it out on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n
From growing up going to Florida State games to now getting to play in his own, Corbyn has already accomplished more than enough to make Todd proud. But there\u2019s still one thing he\u2019s eyeing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came here to win a national championship, so I\u2019m going to come in here and compete with my brothers,” Corbyn said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be awesome, and they can do it. They could do it this year,” Todd said.<\/p>\n
Corbyn and Florida State\u2019s quest to win a national championship begins Saturday, Aug. 29, when the Noles host the New Mexico State Aggies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Corbyn Fordham, a top-ranked tight end, follows in his father’s footsteps to FSU, choosing legacy over Ohio State,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-385051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385051","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=385051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}