Florida State’s patience with Mike Norvell has become one of the stranger storylines in college football.
With the season closing in, the Seminoles are still standing by a coach who has now put together back-to-back losing seasons. That’s the kind of run that usually sends a head coach packing, or at least sends him looking for work somewhere outside a Power Four job. Instead, Norvell remains in charge in Tallahassee.
Paul Finebaum can’t make sense of it. On McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning, he questioned why Florida State hasn’t moved on.
“What is the state and status of Mike Norvell, who many thought should have been fired last year?” Finebaum said. “What does he have to show for a big contract and literally nothing since his near playoff run a couple of years ago?”
That “near playoff run” was the 13-1 season that ended with the College Football Playoff leaving Florida State out. Since then, the program has fallen hard.
The Seminoles went 2-10 the next year, then followed that with a 5-7 season even after Norvell cleaned house. Their offensive coordinator, who had only started the previous season, retired rather than come back.
That’s why the criticism has teeth. This isn’t just a case of a rough patch. It’s a program that has looked broken for stretches, and Finebaum’s point is that the line between patience and stubbornness has already been crossed.
The buyout question is the obvious defense, but the source of the problem doesn’t seem to be money. Florida State has a deep alumni base, and the school is not presented here as a place that should be short on support for athletic department spending.
Maybe the administration still believes the 13-1 season was proof that Norvell can get it done again. Maybe they think he’s still the right coach. But whatever the reasoning, the results right now aren’t good enough.
Norvell is 38-34 as a head coach overall. If Florida State is waiting for another season like 2023, it may need to put a deadline on that hope. The source points to 2026 as the possible year.
The question hanging over all of it is simple: will Norvell save his job?
In Other News...
Steve Forbes Just Sent A Very Different Message About Wake Forest
Steve Forbes spent part of the preseason setting the table for Wake Forests next act, and the picture he painted was a lot more ambitious than the usual October optimism. The Demon Deacons will use two exhibitions and a closed-door scrimmage to get ready before the regular season begins on Nov. 2, and Forbes made it clear he likes what he has seen from a roster that looks different in important ways.
The biggest reason for that confidence is the way the group has changed in size and defense, even with the realities of a mostly new team and financial constraints in the background. Forbes also singled out freshman Gavin Placide as a major piece of the conversation, and while early ACC projections have the Deacons near the bottom, the message from their coach was that expectations are being built inside the program, not outside it. [Read more 🡒]
ACC Forced To Rewrite Title Race Rules After Last Seasons Chaos
The ACC spent part of its media days cleaning up a mess it created last season, when its title-game path drew heavy scrutiny after a five-loss Duke team advanced over Miami under the old tiebreaker setup. Conference officials said the overhaul is meant to better ensure the two best teams reach the championship game, while also accounting for the leagues expanded and uneven schedule and keeping the process more in step with College Football Playoff thinking.
For Wake Forest and the rest of the league, the practical change is that the conference is trying to define ties in a way that makes more sense in a 17-team setup, where some schools will play eight league games and others nine. The ACC is also leaning more heavily on a measure the playoff selection committee uses, even if it is not formally adopting CFP rankings as the tiebreaker, a sign the league knows last seasons confusion cannot be repeated. [Read more 🡒]