“It will show up how practice went on Saturday,” spoke a defiant Mike Norvell to the local Tallahassee media last Wednesday, his final time meeting with the press before his team headed west and took on Stanford.
With media barred from watching practice, I appreciate Norvell giving the general public an honest look into Florida State’s preparation, or lack thereof, heading into Stanford.
In just the first half, the Seminoles took three penalties on special teams, did not score a point in the first quarter
as an 18-point favorite and Warchant reported Norvell needed to be separated from defensive back Edwin Joseph. The second half did not create much change as FSU surrendered a 94-yard touchdown drive to a backup quarterback who had not thrown a pass before tonight, jumped offside to hand Stanford a first down and scored three points in 30 minutes. At least in the last three losses, there were positives to point to, but Saturday, Florida State found yet another new low as the bottomless pit continues to know no bounds.
“As I just told the team, I did not have the team ready to play,” Norvell said to the media in Stanford to open his postgame press conference, “What we just watched on that field was not anything towards what we invest and work and pour our time into.”
All of the trademark phrases from Norvell that he says he wants in his team, playing fast, smart, and physical, were nowhere to be found in Palo Alto. Instead of going quick and uptempo to get in rhythm, Gus Malzahn’s offense sputtered with four three-and-outs, nine of their 12 drives going under three minutes and the most disjointed performance from his unit to date. As mentioned, the Noles certainly did not play smart, as yellow laundry littered Stanford Stadium. If Norvell’s team committing a delay of game on the first play of the game after a touchback does not describe how poorly coached this team is, nothing else will. The last part of Norvell’s catch phrase, playing physical, was hit-or-miss at best and embarrassing at worst. For large stretches of the game, the Cardinal owned the line of scrimmage. Florida State averaged three a rush and five tackles for loss. What appeared to be the strength of the team after the Alabama game has become a liability.
“At the end of the day, there was enough that we did control that we were awful in. Give Stanford credit for being able to do what they needed to do, but at the end of the day, it was extremely poor on all parts of the things that we can control.”
More than playing fast, smart and physical, Norvell wants his team to be emotional, and that was FSU’s most significant shortcoming on Saturday night/Sunday morning.
On a sleepy Saturday, with a stadium not close to full capacity and a 10:30 PM ET kick, FSU needed to bring its own energy. It was left in Tallahassee. While it is impossible to tell whether the team quit or to read the players’ body language from 3,000 miles away, energy and enthusiasm jump through the television screen and for four quarters, the Seminoles sleepwalked through their West Coast trip to Palo Alto. The same issues of poor tackling, an inability to set the edge and back-breaking drives hampered Tony White’s defensive unit. On offense, the unit struggled to find rhythm with QB Tommy Castellanos clearly not 100% and a Stanford defense punching them in the mouth. On special teams, Florida State looked like they were just put on the field together for the first time as the unit’s decay continued from a season ago.
“I’m pouring everything I have into this university,” answered Norvell when asked by Nole247’s Chris Nee about where he felt he stood with the Florida State administration. “At the end of the day, it’s about the on-the-field results and we’ve come up short and we’ve not done anywhere close to a good enough job in being able to finish games.”
As the walls started to close in on the Seminoles, once again, nobody stepped up to pull Florida State out of the fire. Norvell’s tenure and goodwill with FSU stakeholders continue to go up in flames with each passing week, as he proves he is incapable of providing a floor on how far the Seminoles can fall, much less helping them reach their ceiling.
Worst of all, most of the stakeholders mentioned probably did not see their program burn to the ground because they went to bed. What is the point of staying up to watch a garbage football team as part of an average football program? So many of the issues Saturday can be copied and pasted from previous articles. In fact, the only thing missing from Saturday’s debacle was a back-breaking turnover.
On Labor Day, Norvell pulled the entire fan base back in, and by Halloween, apathy is the only emotion to describe it. The Florida State public knows it is stuck with no way out as Norvell’s $53 million buyout hangs over its head. No matter what choice they make, the program will be set back years. Above all, if the coaches cannot fix the exact same mistakes their team keeps making, and the players, who are mostly mercenaries, do not care enough to take pride in their play, why should the fans stay involved?
If the saying that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference, is genuine, then the Florida State public has reached its point of no return.
No. 1: One-Man Band
With the energy and effort of the Seminoles in question, one player answered the bell and left it all on the field from snap one: QB Tommy Castellanos. Clearly, hobbled from a host of injuries coming into the game, FSU’s dual-threat signal caller pushed himself to the limit, including scoring Florida State’s only touchdown when he helicoptered into the air to dive for the goal line on an eight-yard touchdown scamper. Unfortunately, for Castellanos and the Seminoles, his night ended early on a vicious, dirty hit that knocked him out of the game late in the fourth quarter.
Still, without Castellanos’ positive play with his legs and a few shots down the field, Gus Malzahn’s unit did not offer much. The stats may say that Florida State gained 444 yards of total offense, but none of the staples from Malzahn’s unit came through on Saturday night. FSU rushed for only three yards a carry, averaged 5.6 yards per play and, as mentioned, went three-and-out four times. Dating back to the second half against Pitt, Florida State has only scored 23 points in their last 90 minutes of football with only two touchdowns. Last week, the excuse of losing guys to injury loomed over the performance. This week, it was another disappointing performance in a season increasingly becoming full of them.
“We’ve had some opportunities, some penalties, and dropped balls. We are trying to force things that didn’t necessarily need to be forced. But there have been a lot of good things that our offense has done. Obviously, tonight was not the performance anyone expected or was used to or accustomed to.”
No. 2: Water
When defensive coordinator Tony White first started at Florida State, he told the media he wanted his defense to play like “water” so that no matter the situation, his unit always stayed calm. Amazingly, like everything else, that quote has come back to bite. White was right, however, about his unit playing like water, as his unit has stagnated and become increasingly more toxic.
For the fourth week in a row, the defense still deserves the majority of the blame for a Florida State loss. White’s unit played uninspiring and undisciplined, proving once again that either the players do not understand the scheme or the coaches are not teaching it right. Against Stanford’s backup quarterback in the second half, FSU allowed a back-breaking 13-play, 94-yard drive that ran 7:04 off the clock to put the Noles in a 10-point hole, 20-10, heading into the fourth quarter. The Cardinal also attacked the teeth of the Seminole defense, running the ball on 42 of their 67 plays, content to take the air out of the ball and take easy yards off the FSU defense.
If the play on the field was not bad enough, a litany of errors plagued White’s unit, most notably the penalty yards. For the third week in a row, an FSU defensive lineman jumped offside to hand their opponent a free first down as Stanford baited Daniel Lyons into the neutral zone on 4th&4. Like everything else on the roster, the defense continues to get worse while making the same mistakes.
Circling back to White’s comments in the offseason, he seemed like a slam-dunk hire and a surefire selection to lead a new age of FSU defense. Now, he may not even last until the end of the season.
No. 3: What’s Next?
Speaking of firings, and this is always awful to do, but there are serious questions right now about the job security of all of Florida State’s coaches heading into their second bye week. Of course, those discussions start at the top with Norvell, who is 5-14 across 2024 and 2025, and once again out of answers to fix his problems. I have maintained that the Seminoles are stuck with USA Today reporting his buyout north of $50 million, but with the apathy mentioned in the team and in the fan base, the cost may be greater to keep him around. On Sunday, On3’s Pete Nakos reported that FSU decision makers began making “informal phone calls” surrounding his future.
Outside of Norvell, moving on from a position coach, most likely a holdover from the 2024 staff, also seems firmly on the table with an open date next Saturday. Clearly, something has to change, and the only lever left for Michael Alford seems to handing out pink slips.
