Big Crisis Awaits Mike Norvell & FSU After Latest Intel Confirms Brian Kelly’s Sneaky Tactics in Hiring Alex Atkins

“Florida State had more inches of snow than wins this season!” Such headlines became a perpetual horror point in every FSU fan’s head. Deny if you can, but it is what it is. Mike Norvell is on the hot seat after a horrific 2-10 record in the 2024 season. You can blame it on his excessive loyalty to his coaches, but bad play-calling has also been a part of the problem. Remember the golden days? They were not really yesteryears. The program went undefeated in 2023, and if not for a snub by the committee, Norvell would have had a playoff appearance. Enter 2024, and it was a downhill, and the program kept going further down with each game. No playoff spot, no bowl game appearance- a season full of tragedies, worth forgetting. Naturally, the post-mortem claimed some casualties.

One among them- the offensive coordinator Alex Atkins- is no longer at FSU. He will be now seen next to Brian Kelly at the Tigers. How did Kelly manage it?

Brian Kelly gets a master plan to pick talents up from FSU

After a gusty beatdown against North Carolina in the mid-season, Norvell decided to move on from Atkins. The logic behind this was it marked the eighth straight loss for the Seminoles, raising a valid question on the offensive management. Atkins got a few quality products on the O-line heading to a brand-new season, but he didn’t showcase the expertise to develop high school players from the ground. It is rather debatable if it was convincing enough to pull a rug on a coach like Alex. Little did they know that Brian Kelly was lurking behind to take his chance. After a few weeks, the LSU head coach pulled the former Florida State OC to his team as the new run game coordinator and the tight ends coach. But Kelly played a masterstroke here. He added a stack to his FSU O-line targets by welcoming the beating heart of their offense.

”Solomon Thomas giving an interview with Rivals after he signed with LSU, and he actually disclosed that it was Alex Atkins that encouraged him, Solomon Thomas, to pick LSU,” said insider Matt Moscona, citing what Thomas said to him during a direct interaction. “I went to a practice and I asked my coach my ex-coach at Florida State, you know, about the offensive line coach at LSU, he was like he’s a great dude on and off the field, he’ll take care of, you know, beyond  the football aspect of it and that’s always been a guy who I’ve wanted to know to play for.”

Five-star offensive lineman Solomon Thomas back in December 2024 flipped his commitment from Florida State and has signed with the LSU and now you know the tea behind. It’s clearly Alex Atkins. The highly coveted recruits deem Atkins as his father figure and his assurance that the LSU O-line coach gets the job done for Brian Kelly.

There is more to come to trouble Mike Norvell. Because Kelly isn’t likely to stop his recruitment train out of the Seminoles’ highly coveted offensive squad. With Atkins on the board, he got another script in his favor to manipulate his positive image in the Florida locker room.

‘‘How many more prospects might he be able to impact, think of all the guys, look, Florida State and LSU were recruiting you’re fishing in the same pond, you’re recruiting the same athletes, you’re in a lot of those same recruiting battles, so all the guys that Alex Atkins had been recruiting to Florida State, he can now turn around and say come join me at LSU,” Moscona added to Mike Norvell’s growing concern.

At Florida State, Atkins was instrumental in leading some high-voltage offenses, including the 2023 unit that went 13-0 and clinched an ACC title. So, he has a handful of finished products on the Seminoles offensive depth chart that can be a lucrative option to Kelly going forward. It’s nothing foreign to Mike Norvell, nevertheless. Kelly has been getting under the top teams (including his own) skin for a while.

Kelly’s outburst on players during the game

LSU Tigers head coach Brian Kelly garnered a lot of backlashes for a “despicable” sideline message to a player back in early November. The LSU Tigers received a blow from the Florida Gators, 27-16, on Saturday. After a heavy back and forth throughout the season, Brian Kelly’s team was officially out of playoff contention for the year 2024 with this loss. But Kelly didn’t give up on his 2025 dream and kept on what he does best, manipulating players.

When the Tigers went to fight South Florida shortly after, Kelly was caught on camera manipulating LSU’s Chris Hilton. “Don’t walk away from me! You are f—— uncoachable. Who the f— do you think you are?” he said. Kelly, who formerly coached at Notre Dame, ended up cursing the player for getting on the sideline.

The insecurity looks real. Kelly has said that LSU would be aggressive on the portal and urged donors to be generous with the money to help the team reach its highest potential. But manipulating and influencing players in an offensive way was never in his public script.