In retrospect, it seems clear Florida State’s 2023 snub from the College Football Playoff was going to go one of two ways in terms of defining Mike Norvell’s tenure.
It could have lit a fire under him like no other, instilling an unquenchable desire to give the program another opportunity to bring home a national title.
Or it could have utterly broken Norvell.
Obviously, FSU believed the former would happen, giving the coach an eight-year, $84-plus million contract extension ahead of the 2024 season.
Unfortunately for the Seminoles, it went the other way.
After FSU went 23-4 across the 2022-23 seasons — including a 19-game winning streak during that span — it is 10-21 since the snub.
Since the start of the 2024 season, FSU isn’t just the worst ACC team in conference play. It’s the worst ACC team in conference play by multiple games.
Ever since that fateful moment when an undefeated FSU was left out of the 2023 CFP — and it remains awful that ESPN shared footage of FSU when it was announced — Norvell hasn’t been the same.
The genius offensive playcalling, master motivation and quiet confidence that spelled Norvell building the mess he inherited up to being a true national title contender were all gone from that moment.
No matter how much he tried to project a belief that things were still ok, it felt different after that.
Aside from the 2025 Alabama blip, the Seminoles never really seemed motivated to play for Norvell again.
Mind you, I don’t think that’s his fault. When a coach spends a whole season telling his team that if they win all their games, they’ll have a chance to play for the national title and that winds up being untrue, it makes sense some players may, consciously or not, start to tune him out.
The play on the field certainly reflected that hypothesis. And Norvell was never able to find an alternate way to get through to his players again.
There were other factors in the fall-off. The rebuild came on the back of Norvell being an early adapter to how the transfer portal can be used to thoroughly overturn a roster. As more people caught onto that method of roster building, Norvell’s failures as an ace recruiter in the high-school ranks became more obvious.
Norvell and Kenny Dillingham get credit for turning Jordan Travis into the player he became, but Norvell was never able to develop another quarterback and made some brutal transfer QB decisions which greatly reduced the team’s margin for error in each of the last three seasons.
I don’t relish writing the obituary of Norvell’s tenure. I think he’s a genuinely good person — something of a rarity in this profession — maybe too much of one to succeed in this modern age of college football.
But now, attention turns to the future of the FSU football program. Because the next hire, whoever it will be, will be crucial in ensuring that the snub didn’t break the FSU football program’s stance as a blue blood in the sport.
No doubt the $50-plus million Norvell will be owed is why this dead-man-walking portion of his tenure went on so long.
That buyout, which ranks as the third-largest in college football history behind Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M and Brian Kelly at LSU, will be a major load for the athletic department to take on. Especially considering FSU is already in pretty serious debt due to the recently completed construction of the football operations facility and renovations to Doak Campbell Stadium.
But after everyone else knew what had to be done, it’s about time the FSU administration caught on.
The fans made their opinion known by no-showing a rivalry matchup with their attendance Saturday.
Tomahawk Nation was not the only outlet covering Florida State which has been working on a hot board of coaching candidates for over a year with the expectation that a move will be made at some point.
National college football writers continued to wonder what it’s going to take for the move to happen.
Rival fans were begging the Seminoles to keep Norvell.
Everyone with any vested interest in college football knew Norvell must be fired.
At a certain point, though, the money had to be found somewhere.
Because the longer this went on, the more you let apathy build and the school be a laughing stock, the more likely it would be that FSU never comes back from this.
Florida State has some inherent advantages that should ensure the football program never goes the way of Nebraska. The talent in the area and size/passion of the booster base given the late start the Seminoles got to launching a football team will help whoever takes over the program next.
And yes, there will be some strong suitors despite the recent results. Because, after all, FSU is just three years removed from a 13-0 season.
To me, the only thing that could doom FSU to lose its ceiling and fall into a more permanent state of mediocrity would be if that support dissipates and people stop caring.
And the longer FSU’s administration continued to look like the dog in that meme, saying “Everything is fine” while the room is on fire, the more likely that those who are jumping off the bandwagon now decide not to rejoin in a few months’ time when that fresh coat of coaching paint has been applied to the car.
For the future of the program, here’s hoping FSU president Richard McCullough and board of trustees chair Peter Collins didn’t wait too long.
