Mike Norvell enters his seventh season at Florida State with the kind of pressure that follows every loss and every slow start. The record at FSU is still above .500 - 38 wins and 34 losses - but the last two seasons have dragged the conversation in a much harsher direction.
The high point still stands out: a 13-0 regular season in 2023 that made the Seminoles believe they belonged in the College Football Playoff. Instead, Jordan Travis went down with a season-ending left-leg injury in mid-November, and the committee left Florida State out. The season ended with a brutal 63-3 Orange Bowl loss to Georgia, a finish that still hangs over the program.
Since then, the slide has been hard to ignore. Florida State went 2-10 in 2024 and then 5-7 last season, leaving Norvell heading into 2026 with a real chance to save his job.
CBS Sports analyst Danny Kanell, who played at Florida State, laid out the number Norvell has to hit if he wants to be back in 2027.
“I don’t think there’s any pressure whatsoever on Mike Norvell, because I think he knows exactly what he has to do,” Kanell recently said. “If they don’t get to eight wins he’s fired.”
Kanell also made it clear that the standard is simple, even if Florida State’s recent results have made it feel anything but.
“Mike Norvell is everybody’s hottest seat,” Kanell said. “Like everyone out there looks at Florida State and says if he doesn’t get better, if they don’t improve, he’s done. From that standpoint, you know exactly what you have to do.”
Eight wins is the line Kanell pointed to, and on paper it looks reachable. But Florida State has spent the last few seasons stumbling against teams it should be handling, with losses to Boston College, Memphis and Stanford. That history makes the opener against New Mexico State impossible to treat as a sure thing, and the road games at Alabama, Louisville and Miami are all spots where the Seminoles are likely to be underdogs.
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Deckerhoff retired from Florida State broadcasts after the 2022 spring game, but he is not done behind a microphone just yet. He will continue calling Tampa Bay Buccaneers games in what he says will be his final season there, while FSU makes room for his name in the stadium where so many of his calls lived. [Read more 🡒]