Florida State’s 2026 season is already drawing plenty of skepticism, and Josh Pate is not buying the idea that the Seminoles are about to flip the script.
Pate laid out a bleak outlook on a recent episode of his podcast, pointing to a punishing early slate and uncertainty at quarterback as the biggest reasons to doubt Mike Norvell’s team. Florida State’s projected win total sits at 6.5, but Pate clearly isn’t impressed by that number. The schedule gets nasty fast, with two of the top teams in college football for 2026, SMU and Alabama, on the docket before the end of September.
That’s only part of the problem. The Seminoles also have to go on the road to Louisville and Miami, while Clemson, Virginia, and Florida are all coming to Tallahassee.
The quarterback situation is another reason Pate is leaning hard into pessimism. Auburn transfer Ashton Daniels, who also played at Stanford, is the man Norvell has already chosen to lead the offense.
Daniels spent last season at Auburn behind Jackson Arnold on the depth chart while playing for Hugh Freeze, and his college touchdown-interception ratio stands at 24/22. That number is a big reason Pate isn’t high on Daniels as a 2026 starter.
Norvell didn’t leave the job open for long. After 15 spring practice sessions, he had seen enough to name Daniels QB1, with no real competition for the role. Kevin Sperry is next in line to hold a clipboard, along with JUCO quarterback Malachi Marshall, unless Norvell decides to turn to either of them if Daniels runs into trouble.
The larger issue, though, is what another rough season could mean for Norvell himself. Florida State has won just seven games over the past two years under him, and only three of those came in conference play. Pate doesn’t sound convinced the Seminoles can survive a schedule this front-loaded after what the program has already been through.
Norvell is back for another year at Doak Campbell Stadium and will handle play-calling duties after offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn retired at the end of last season. But Pate’s view is that the calendar could turn to October with Norvell already looking like a lame duck.
Florida State did have talent in 2026, just as it did in 2025 and 2024, but that hasn’t changed the overall mood around the program. The Seminoles were undefeated in 2023, then were left out of the College Football Playoff and followed that up with a 60-point Orange Bowl loss to Georgia. For Pate, that recent history still hangs over everything.
By the end of September, he believes everyone will know whether Florida State is heading toward another coaching search.
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Waldens decision now forces a recalibration for a group that was hoping to steady itself with an early defensive back haul. Florida State still has plenty of time to recover in the 2027 cycle, but losing another target the staff had prioritized is a reminder that the secondary remains very much a work in progress. For a program trying to keep pace in the recruiting chase, the next few months on the trail will matter even more. [Read more 🡒]