FSU is desperate. Mike “Sinbad” Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel details how:

Urban Meyer and the Florida Gators routed the Florida State Seminoles 34-7 in the regular season and then last week Meyer went on a recruiting spree we haven’t seen since Genghis Khan fortified his Mongol army by promising recruits all the sheep and goat they could plunder.

And so Florida State President T.K. Wetherell, the former state legislator, did what any good politician would do: He called in a favor and deputized Gov. Jeb Bush as the Seminoles’ de facto recruiting coordinator. …

Bush, at Wetherell’s request, actually sent a text message to stud New Jersey cornerback Myron Rolle, who would end up signing with the Seminoles. Bush’s message, as Rolle recently recalled to members of a recruiting watchdog group, read in part: “I’m excited you’re looking at Florida State. When you come to Tallahassee again, let’s hook up with each other — Jeb Bush.”

Meyer, sitting in his office, just smiles and shakes his head incredulously when asked about the Guv’s plan to hook up with an FSU recruit?

“I want to meet the governor, and tell him that last time I checked, the University of Florida is a state institution, too,” said Meyer, who was also recruiting Rolle. …

That FSU persuaded the governor to text-message a recruit only goes to show how Meyer, in only one season, already has had a massive impact on state recruiting. The young computer-savvy UF coach is the king of text-messaging and utilized his Blackberry to punch up what was arguably the nation’s No. 1-ranked recruiting class last week. …

“To recruit well you have to be an octopus,” Meyer said. “You have to wrap your tentacles around everything associated with a kid: Who’s he dating? What family member is most important to him? You have to have complete involvement in that recruit.

“The NCAA allows you only one phone call a week to recruits (there is no limit on text messages). You can’t recruit that way. The people who want to recruit by making one phone call don’t like to work. Nowadays with all issues out there, you have to get to know these kids. And the best way to do that is communication, and text-messaging is how these kids communicate now.”