When Florida State walks into Alabama this weekend, it won’t be stepping into the unknown.
The Seminoles already have a recent road map for what this matchup can look like. They beat Kalen DeBoer’s Crimson Tide at Doak Campbell Stadium to open last season, and their own quarterback, Ashton Daniels, spent last year at Auburn pushing a playoff-bound Alabama team to the edge before a late mistake swung the game the other way.
That history is why Mike Norvell sees familiarity as part of the equation.
"We understand that this is going to be a game that there's going to be a lot of things that carry over that look the same," head coach Mike Norvell said. "But obviously, we've got to go out there, and we've got to be prepared for all the different varieties.
They've played Ashton. We've played them, so there's some great familiarity."
Daniels’ night against Alabama for Auburn wasn’t clean, but it was dangerous enough to keep the Tigers alive deep into the fourth quarter. He completed fewer than half his passes, yet still threw for 259 yards and a touchdown, ran for a team-high 108 yards and absorbed only one sack despite facing 20 pressures.
Auburn had the ball moving late, too. Before Cam Coleman’s fumble with a little more than 30 seconds left ended the upset bid, Daniels had strung together a 12-play, 58-yard drive that got Auburn to the 27 with all three timeouts.
Earlier, with Auburn inside the Alabama 30 and down 20-13 near the end of the third quarter, a first-down checkdown slipped off Omar Mabson II’s hands and landed in Bray Hubbard’s.
Hubbard is still there, and that matters. The senior safety is a team captain and a preseason All-American. So is defensive coordinator Kane Wommack, who has remained on DeBoer’s staff after arriving from South Alabama in 2024.
Wommack’s defenses haven’t been the old-school Tuscaloosa juggernauts from the Nick Saban years, but they’ve still been productive. In his first two seasons, his units finished in the top 25 in scoring and yardage.
This year, Alabama’s defense has opened even hotter, sitting top 10 nationally in both yards allowed per game and yards allowed per play while giving up only 10 points each to East Carolina and Kentucky. Kentucky’s first touchdown in the 45-17 loss came on a pick-six.
"Coach Wommack, you could see his variations in each game," Norvell said. "He knows what he's gonna try to take away from certain players.
You can see how he's trying to disrupt the rhythm, timing, if there's certain things that they try to do to contain certain individuals. It definitely shows up.
He's a really good football coach, and he's got really good personnel that he's utilizing."
The tactical contrast from last season is a big part of why these two versions of Alabama feel different. Against Florida State to open last year, the Seminoles leaned hard into the run under then-offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn.
They used their lowest 11-personnel rate of the season, and Alabama matched with its base 3-4 defense more than half the time, a rate it only exceeded against Georgia in the SEC Championship. That set up Florida State to use its speed on the ground for 230 rushing yards.
When Alabama sat in Cover 3 with a single-high safety over half the time, quarterback Tommy Castellanos hit a pair of sideline shots that covered 104 yards and helped produce two Florida State touchdowns.
Auburn’s game plan a year ago looked almost like the opposite. The Tigers were in 11-personnel on 92 percent of their snaps, and Alabama responded by playing nickel or dime on more than 97 percent of its snaps. With light boxes and a heavy dose of Cover 2 - over 40 percent, Alabama’s second-highest usage of that look - Daniels became a running threat, taking off 23 times, while the Tigers leaned on short throws and yards after the catch.
This year, Alabama’s defense is showing more of the Auburn version than the Florida State version. The Crimson Tide have lined up in nickel on more than 90 percent of their snaps, a huge jump from last season’s 64.7 percent mark that ranked 112th nationally. They’re also using Cover 2 at the highest rate in the country, a far cry from the 12.7 percent Florida State saw when the teams met last year.
That’s why Norvell said earlier this week that balance will be the key for Florida State. The Seminoles can’t just wait for the perfect play to show up. They’ll have to live with the hard yards, the “three-yards and a cloud of dust” stretches, and make sure they cash in when the explosive chances arrive.
That balance has to show up in the play calling, too. Florida State will need to get its weapons like Ousmane Kromah and Micahi Danzy involved in ways that stress the defense, while also leaning on the quick throws underneath and the quarterback run game that nearly helped Daniels pull off the upset last season.
If they can’t make that blend work, then going against DeBoer and quarterback Keelon Russell on the other sideline could turn into a much tougher afternoon than the Seminoles want.
In Other News...
Mike Norvells Future Just Got More Uncomfortable For Florida State Fans
Public pressure around coaching searches has a way of spilling far beyond the sideline, and Mike Norvell is the latest Florida State coach finding his personal space pulled into the conversation. With speculation about his future already hanging over the program, even something as ordinary as a box truck at his residence becomes part of the surrounding noise, another example of how closely the sport watches coaches when their standing starts to wobble.
Florida State fans have seen this kind of scrutiny before, and college football keeps proving that a coachs job security can become a public spectacle long before any official decision is made. The attention does not stop with football, either, as similar media fascination shows up in basketball and other sports whenever uncertainty builds, which is exactly why every small detail around Norvell now feels bigger than it ought to be. [Read more 🡒]
Florida States 2027 Schedule Just Changed The Mike Norvell Debate
The ACCs release of its 2027 football conference opponents gave Florida State a clearer look at the road ahead, and on paper it shapes up as a manageable slate. The Seminoles are set to host Duke, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami and Stanford, while visiting Cal, Clemson, North Carolina and Syracuse, with the league again scheduling nine conference games and five of them in Tallahassee. Florida State also already has non-conference games lined up against Florida and ETSU, leaving one more out-of-league slot to fill.
Compared with the tougher look of 2026, the 2027 setup stands out as the kind of schedule that can matter when the conversation turns to Mike Norvells future. Florida State will still have to deal with Clemson on the road and Miami coming to town, but the overall balance of the league slate gives the Seminoles a better chance to build momentum, and perhaps a better backdrop for the debate over where the program is headed under Norvell. [Read more 🡒]
Florida State's Mike Norvell Reality Just Got More Complicated
Florida States football turbulence is now tied to a much bigger reset inside the athletic department. University leadership is putting the focus on restructuring the whole operation and strengthening revenue generation and business functions, rather than rushing into a quick verdict on Mike Norvell. For now, the preferred approach is to let the season play out while the administration sorts through how it wants the department to look moving forward.
The timing leaves Norvell in a familiar but uneasy spot, with fan frustration still simmering after the recent losses. Florida State is also preparing to redefine the athletic director role around business expertise and a broader organizational overhaul before naming a successor to the recently dismissed AD, which means the football decision is unfolding inside a larger administrative rewrite. In other words, the coachs future is still very much in play, but it is no longer the only issue driving the conversation. [Read more 🡒]