Florida State’s next coaching move is no longer just about replacing Mike Norvell. It’s about making sure the program’s post-2023 collapse doesn’t become something deeper and harder to fix.
That’s the real shadow hanging over Tallahassee now. The Seminoles were 23-4 across the 2022-23 seasons, riding a 19-game winning streak, and then came the College Football Playoff snub that changed everything. Since that moment, FSU is 10-21, and since the start of the 2024 season it hasn’t merely been bad in ACC play - it has been the worst ACC team in conference games by multiple games.
The belief inside the program was that the snub would fuel Norvell. FSU backed that idea with an eight-year, $84-plus million extension before the 2024 season. Instead, the opposite happened.
The offensive spark, the steady confidence and the edge that helped turn a mess into a national title contender all seemed to disappear after the undefeated Seminoles were left out of the 2023 CFP. Even with Norvell trying to insist things were fine, the energy around the program shifted. Outside of the 2025 Alabama blip, the team never really looked like it was playing for him the same way again.
That doesn’t mean the entire collapse sits on Norvell’s shoulders. A coach can spend a season telling his team that winning out will earn a shot at the national title, only for that promise to be ripped away.
It would make sense if some players started tuning him out, even if only subconsciously. The results on the field backed that up, and Norvell never found another way to reach them.
There were other reasons the slide kept going. Norvell was an early adopter of using the transfer portal to remake a roster, but as everyone else caught up, his shortcomings as a high school recruiter became more obvious. He and Kenny Dillingham deserve credit for developing Jordan Travis, but Norvell never produced another quarterback at that level and made some costly transfer quarterback choices that shrank the margin for error over the last three seasons.
Still, the issue now is bigger than one coach. The next hire will matter enormously if Florida State is going to keep its place as a blue blood and avoid letting the snub define the program itself.
Part of the reason Norvell stayed in place so long was financial. He is owed more than $50 million, a buyout that ranks third in college football history behind Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M and Brian Kelly at LSU. That’s a heavy burden for an athletic department already carrying serious debt from the football operations facility and the renovations to Doak Campbell Stadium.
But the delay also came with a cost. Fans showed their frustration by staying away from Saturday’s rivalry game.
National writers kept asking what it would take. Rival fans were practically begging Florida State to keep Norvell.
Around college football, the consensus was obvious.
Florida State still has things working in its favor. There’s talent in the area, and the booster base is large and passionate. The program also remains only three years removed from a 13-0 season, which means there will be strong candidates interested in the job.
The danger is not that Florida State becomes Nebraska. The danger is that apathy takes root, the support thins out, and the school starts losing the kind of pull that makes a quick recovery possible.
That’s why the longer the administration kept acting like everything was fine, the more damage it risked doing. If enough people decide to jump off the bandwagon now, they may not come back just because a new coach is introduced a few months later.
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