Florida State’s night against No. 20 SMU turned strange before the first snap and ugly by the final whistle, and the 27-24 loss only added fuel to the growing pressure on Mike Norvell.
A power outage delayed the game for more than 100 minutes, and once play finally got going, the Seminoles were left to deal with a familiar result: another ACC loss for a coach whose seat keeps getting hotter. Since the start of the 2024 season, this was Norvell’s 14th ACC defeat.
The atmosphere at Doak Campbell Stadium felt off from the start. Before kickoff, when Osceola planted the flaming spear at midfield, the spear fell over and had to be picked up off the ground.
Minutes earlier, the stadium and the surrounding area had lost power after a transformer blew. Even after limited power returned, the venue was far from normal.
The game clock didn’t appear on the video boards until midway through the second quarter. The public address announcer’s microphone was cut out for the entire first half, and there was no music over the loudspeakers until a bassy techno beat finally broke through just before halftime. For long stretches, the only sounds were the band, the crowd and repeated versions of the “War Chant.”
FSU fans made their frustration clear, too. When Norvell showed up on the video board for a pre-recorded message at halftime, boos broke out. In the second half, the crowd bounced between the tomahawk chop and more boos, sometimes flipping from one to the other in the span of seconds.
Norvell’s situation has been building for a while. After going 2-10 in 2024 and then 5-7 last season, he entered this year with the hottest seat in the country, and with a buyout close to $50 million, he bought himself more time. But the margin for error has disappeared.
Florida State did show some fight against a ranked SMU team that had been billed as an ACC dark horse. The Seminoles were tied in the fourth quarter, and the game was closer than it had any right to be.
Still, that kind of performance doesn’t erase the larger pattern. Five of FSU’s seven losses last season came by 10 points or fewer, and another competitive loss won’t suddenly change the conversation.
SMU helped keep Florida State alive with four turnovers and a missed field goal, but the Mustangs also found success when they weren’t beating themselves. The Seminoles defense was hit repeatedly, and in the end the result was the same old story.
Less than three years after Alabama considered Norvell as a candidate to replace Nick Saban, Florida State is stuck with no momentum and a program operating on limited power.
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Money only makes that conversation harder to ignore. Norvells 2024 extension runs through 2031 and includes a modest base salary with supplemental income that rises each year, but the real issue is the buyout, which sits around $46.7 million. That kind of number puts Florida State in a familiar college football bind: even when a program starts asking tough questions about direction, the cost of making a change can be almost as daunting as standing pat. [Read more 🡒]
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