Florida State is 1-5! Yes, you read that right. The team that went undefeated last season is struggling to even get a ‘W’ in its win column. For the Seminoles’ fans, it’s a familiar story every week- high hopes for a comeback, coupled with some sort of a resurgence. What do we get? Another disappointing performance. The Golden Bears must be kicking themselves for holding the unpleasant record of being the only team to lose to the Noles this season. Amid all this, is there a time for a change? Should Mike Norvell be concerned about losing his position? Well, Norvell might not be going anywhere, but there needs to be an overhaul, and an insider knows where to start- the coaching staff.

Brian Smith, the host of the Locked On Seminoles podcast, talked about several key positions that stink for the Seminoles. Fortunately for Mike Norvell, Smith does not start with the change to the head coach position. Instead, he starts with Alex Atkins, the O-line coach and the offensive coordinator of Florida State. The reason? Well, it has to do with recruiting and failure to do his job.

Talking about Atkins, Smith explains his issue with the OC, “He is a horrible recruiter in the time I have looked at. Why is Armella playing, why is this guy playing? I don’t know. And now he’s got a developmental problem because he had a bunch of guys back that are seniors, fifth and sixth-year guys, and it has regressed. How does that work? He gotta go.”

Smith isn’t wrong, and given Atkins’ profile as the O-line coach and the OC, the proof is in the performance of the offense. Barring some impressive plays by Brock Glenn against Clemson, the offense hasn’t really had a good game this season. Forget the losses; let’s take into account the only win registered by the Noles. In their win over Cal, Florida State managed just over 300 yards of offense (just 177 passing yards). How did the O-line fare? Well, DJ Uiagalelei was sacked three times and pressured throughout the game. In comparison, the losing team had over 400 yards of offense and a much better run game. It all comes down to Atkins’ failure to develop players.

Next up in the line for Smith? The linebacker coach: Randy Shannon. To highlight his issues with Shannon, Brian Smith didn’t have to go back that much. He just looked at the Clemson game. The issues with the linebackers have persisted all season, and one play highlighted that more than anything.

“The linebackers were out of position, the wrong run-gap fits over and over- what was it, a 59-yard line play for Clemson last game. The linebacker fills in the hole, the same hole the D-lineman is at, and the running back goes right behind him and runs for 59 yards. These kind of plays happen over and over again. It can’t happen. He gotta go,” Smith said via the Locked on Seminoles podcast.

The third position that needs to be upgraded in terms of the coaching staff is the tight-end coach. Chris Thomsen is not doing a good job, and this is best illustrated by the decrease in the overall quality of players at the position. How do you have a tight-end room in which the experienced players are awful and the two best TEs in the team are both freshmen? At the end of the day, it also comes down to two things- recruitment and development, and Thomsen has failed in both. Mike Norvell has a decision to make.

The foundation of any successful college program is recruitment. As per Smith, it’s 80% recruitment and 20% development. It doesn’t matter if you are a great coach; you will not accomplish anything if you recruit badly. Just look at the successful programs in college- your Michigan, Alabama, Penn State, Georgia, Ohio State- it all starts with recruitment, and then some very good coaches (which they don’t have at Florida State) make those good recruits into NFL prospects. How is the recruitment going for the Seminoles? Let’s have a look.

A recruiting disaster for Mike Norvell’s Seminoles

October has yet to have any good news for the Florida State program. Their QB1 DJ Uiagalelei is probably out for the remainder of the season, linebacker DJ Lundy will also miss the rest of the games with an injury, and then, we have also had some recruiting disasters.

The latest addition to the recruits decommitting from the Seminoles after seeing them play this season was four-star WR Malik Clark. Ranked 16th among WRs by ESPN for the 2025 Class, Clark committed to Florida State in July. The reason for Clark decommitting? Well, there hasn’t been any official statement, but we do know that Clark visited the campus when the Seminoles lost to Memphis last month.

This hasn’t been the only recruiting setback for Mike Norvell. The Seminoles were ranked No. 10 by AP for the 2025 recruiting class. Since then, Norvell has seen several key players decommit. It started with 4-star defensive tackle Myron Charles, who flipped to the Longhorns. 4-star defensive end Javion Hilson also withdrew his pledge to the program.

The No. 10 ranking soon fell to No. 29, and it is going to fall further as Norvell looks to carry out a rebuild without any tools to actually rebuild the program.