As Mike Norvell prepares to open his third year as Florida State coach, he can no longer point at coaching turnover, roster turnover, poor staffing numbers and uneven financial support to explain the challenges he inherited.
Now, Florida State simply has to win.
The Seminoles, who begin their season Saturday against Duquesne (5 p.m. ET, ACC Network), have not had a winning record since 2017 and to say this is a critical year for Florida State is underselling its importance. The ACC needs Florida State to look more like the Florida State everyone has come to know — with 15 conference championships and three national championships since joining the league in 1992 — to help its football brand and marketability. Florida State needs to win just to prove it can still be Florida State.
“It is always important, always a big year for us to keep taking those steps to get Florida State back to the top echelon of college football,” athletic director Michael Alford said. “Mike knows that we have 100 percent faith in where it’s headed. Mike and I have talked about this: We’re setting it up for long-term success, not short-term success.”
If the last year has brought anything into stark focus, it is that Florida State picked a bad time to have four straight losing seasons. With realignment in the SEC and Big Ten reshaping the collegiate landscape, the ACC is a distant third from a revenue generation standpoint.
University president Richard McCullough reportedly told the Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce in comments earlier this week the school planned on being “very aggressive” when it came to securing its future.
“It’s something I’m spending a lot of time on and we’re getting a lot of help,” McCullough told the group. “We’re trying to do anything we can to think about how we remain competitive. Florida State is expected to win. We’re going to be very aggressive.”
The financial picture inside the Florida State athletic department has not been rosy for years — made worse by paying former coach Willie Taggart an $18 million buyout by firing him before the 2019 season ended — but it may be turning a corner. Alford was hired, in part, because of his fundraising efforts. Already, he has secured $45 million through capital construction gifts for improvements to Doak Campbell Stadium, and has the long-anticipated standalone football facility on track for groundbreaking in December. This past offseason, Norvell hired a larger support staff, and the team unveiled a new locker room in March.
Alford and those familiar with the program understand Norvell inherited a team in complete disarray when he arrived in December 2019, following the departures of Jimbo Fisher in 2017 and then Taggart. Not only did he have a divided locker room and a roster filled with players who could not cut it on the Power 5 level, the athletic department had not invested in the football program the way that it needed — leaving the Seminoles behind both on and off the field.
The Seminoles went 3-6 during a pandemic hamstrung Year 1 under Norvell. Then last season began with an 0-4 start — its worst since 1976 — and a loss to FCS Jacksonville State. So it is easy to understand why there was a general panic among the fan base about what was happening to the program less than a decade removed from winning a national championship.
Multiple players-only meetings were held to clear the air.
“You know you have certain groups and certain guys try to stir up stuff, oh it’s the coaches fault, it’s this fault, but the coaches aren’t on the field,” safety Jammie Robinson said. “It’s us.”
“That’s the thing, a lot of people weren’t doing their job,” said nose tackle Fabien Lovett, one of several players who spoke during the meetings. “So when you don’t do your job, that creates a problem here or a bomb on this play, or a touchdown on that play. It’s all details. Every detail matters.”
Despite a strong finish in the second half of the season, Florida State lost its regular-season finale to rival Florida 24-21 with a bowl trip on the line — a loss that haunts Norvell because his team reverted to the undisciplined ways of the 0-4 start.
Then a few weeks later, on National Signing Day, Florida State lost its top recruit — No. 2 overall prospect Travis Hunter — to former Florida State great Deion Sanders and Jackson State — a virtually unheard of flip from a Power 5 school to an HBCU.
Florida State fans took to Twitter with their outrage. One started a Twitter Space entitled “Fire Mike Norvell,” and it became hard to ignore the negativity that had surrounded the program.
“In reality, I don’t get carried away with all the things that are on the outside, when it comes to somebody piling on,” Norvell said. “Anybody that’s been a part of the game has been through that hundreds of times. I remember a game when I was offensive coordinator at Arizona State. I think we scored 17 points in the first half. But we had a really bad last drive. I was running into the tunnel and I had a sweet old lady say to me, ‘Get your head out of your ass, Norvell!'”
Whatever outside negativity may have existed at the end of last year has been papered over with optimism for a new season. Norvell starts going into greater detail about why he is so excited about the potential for his team.
First, there is the continuity. With multiple coaching changes in rapid succession, Florida State never had a chance to build its teams through recruiting. That led to fractured locker rooms, players recruited for one scheme playing in one that did not fit, inconsistent performances and a crisis in confidence showing up whenever adversity hit, most especially in close fourth quarters.
Between the signing day classes of 2018 and 2020, Florida State had 33 players leave as transfers. Taggart’s first class, signed just after Fisher left, had 15 four-star players sign as freshmen. Only four of those players remain. Because of that, developing the type of work habits and competition required for winning programs has taken longer.
Norvell has used the transfer portal to fill gaps across the roster. The Seminoles added 14 transfers for the 2022 season after adding 18 in Norvell’s first two years. Their best player a year ago — defensive end Jermaine Johnson — transferred from Georgia. Robinson, the only preseason All-ACC selection from Florida State, transferred from South Carolina.
Norvell credited Johnson with helping establish many of the positive habits he sees in his current players. Depth is better across the board, and the competition for spots is better, too.
What players such as Robinson and Lovett appreciate is the mindset and demeanor they see in Norvell.
“He’s the same every day,” Lovett said. “He leads by example. He’s going to come at you the same way every day, the same thing every day so he instills in you to come with the same attitude every day.”
The first half of the 2022 season is challenging. After the Sept. 4 game against LSU in New Orleans, the Seminoles get a week off before five straight Atlantic Division games against teams that were bowl eligible last season.
How Florida State plays during its opening stretch might just determine where this program is headed.
“I know what we’re pouring into our program, from our players, from our coaches, from everything that goes to the development of where we’re going,” Norvell said. “Outside perception of what it takes to be successful, and real-life application and what’s necessary to be successful, sometimes those are two different things. I’ve got a lot of belief in where we’re going because I get to see it and live it every day. I see the growth, I see the steps, I see the relationships. I am very excited about where we’re going.”