In his introductory Florida State press conference six years ago, Mike Norvell said that special teams would be the backbone of his program.
Those same special teams may have been the backbreaker for his
Florida State tenure Saturday night.
A pair of missed field goals as well as a pair of muffed punts in a span of 92 fourth-quarter seconds doomed the Seminoles to lose another close game Saturday night at NC State, 21-11.
Florida State outgained its opponent for the 10th time in 11 games, with nearly 100 more yards than the Wolfpack. And yet, the team lost and fell to 5-6 on the season.
It’s getting harder and harder to shake off the feeling of Norvell’s tenure feeling cursed. Or at least that’s what Florida State has to hope it is instead of the alternative of the program itself being cursed.
The second muffed punt, which eventually proved to be the clinching play after NC State scored a touchdown, wasn’t fluky. It was simply a punt returner who isn’t even really playing on offense anymore and has just one job failing to do that job successfully.
The first “muffed punt” was something entirely else, though.
A shanked punt off NC State’s Caden Noonkester’s foot was so bad that it traveled 25 yards and bounced off K.J. Kirkland’s head when he was attempting to get out of the way of it because the punt returner was warning him and his teammates to get out of way.
The ricochet could have gone anywhere. Out of bounds. Straight into the ground where a bunch of converging Seminoles could have recovered it.
Nope. Because Kirkland was lowering his head to get out of the way, it rolled 16 yards backwards, away from all the FSU players on the field and was recovered by the NC State punter in what could quite possibly be a college football first.
That wasn’t anything any Florida State player (or coach) did wrong in that moment.. Kirkland was trying to get out of the way. Squirrel White correctly made the “peter” call to tell them to get out of the way. No one missed a chance to recover it.
It’s the type of play that makes it seem that whatever higher power there is out there is thoroughly done with Norvell’s Florida State tenure.
“Two catastrophic things that happened to us in the fourth quarter,” Norvell said postgame.
One can’t help but feel at least a little bad for Norvell. His four-year build paid off with a 13-0 season and ACC title before the historic College Football Playoff snub took that away in truly tragic fashion.
But things haven’t been the same since. And the worse this season gets, the more certain it seems that Norvell won’t be able to rediscover that former glory.
The twist of fate that was the first punt mishap was cruel. It also may be a net positive for Florida State in the long-term.
Because if the Seminoles had managed to win that game and get bowl eligible, maybe they could have justified running back Norvell in 2026, citing a four-win improvement.
There’s still one more chance next week in Gainesville against Florida, but after what we all saw Friday night, who could have confidence that the Seminoles will go win that game? They won’t have won a road game in over two calendar years by next Saturday.
When you see the replay of that fateful punt play, I’d encourage you to remember this: it may have made the Seminoles an internet laughing stock for the moment — as if a 7-16 record over the last two seasons wasn’t already doing that — but it also could very well be a long-term good for the program.
