“2-10 in year in year 5 is a capital offense.” Nothing seems to be going well for Mike Norvell. When the committee decided to strip FSU off of their 4-team berth in 2023, fans kind of thought, “It’s fine, next year with 12 teams in, Norvell has got it.” Boy, they were wrong. “Florida State had more inches of snow than wins this season!” – is a headline that lives in our heads rent-free, but how do you recover from this embarrassment? A whole staff change? Yes, that could get things into motion, but what about the roster? See, 2023 saw Norvell losing his star QB to the draft. In 2024, he didn’t exactly have anyone to rely on. Uiagalelei, Glenn, and Kromenhoek were good players, but they always fell short or could never live up to the “Jordan Travis hype”.

And when you start piling all of these “wrongs” together, you start losing faith. Just like Josh Pate is losing belief in Norvell’s show. “If 2025 is not drastically different for Florida State, I may be out,” Pate pointed out. Now credit where credit is due – Norvell has done some heavy lifting in terms of the coaching staff. OC Alex Atkins, DC Adam Fuller, and WR coach Ron Dugans are all gone – and honestly? This was needed. FSU arguably had the worst scoring offense and defense in the country and that demands a coaching staff change.

But who is going to replace them? You get Gus Malzahn as the OC. Now, this is a controversial pick because Mr. Gus here gave his resignation right before he could be fired for UCF’s disaster run (Doesn’t paint the right picture). However, he is still a better pick than Atkins.

Now on the defense, this pick is rather interesting – Giving Tony White the DC mantle is like betting on that one horse no one cares about. Things could either go terribly wrong or amazingly right. White has set his vision clear: Follow the 3-3-5 play and tailor the entire D-line around the players in the program and those that will transfer in. Could work or could wait – only time will tell.

Finally, the weakest section for the Seminoles – receiver corp. This is arguably the pick fans could be the most confused about. See, UCF wanted to badly retain this guy and FIU fans wanted him as their WR coach – that means Tim Harris is doing something right. He-l under him, Javon Baker went from Alabama bust to day 2 draft pick.

Will all of these changes make Pate change his mind? We don’t exactly know but hey, it is a step in the right direction – Now you will ask “What about the roster?”. Yeah, well, there is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding that.

Losing a blue-chip QB

“Well, he had a fantastic Junior season, and that is re-energized interest from a lot of programs on the trail. You know, his dad said as many as 60 total touchdowns, just three interceptions, 11 rushing scores. Mr. California,” Steve Wiltfong pointed out. Now, who are we talking about? The 2026 class 5-Star Brady Smigiel.

Is it a surprise Brady decided to flop out after FSU’s 2024 run? Not exactly. But was it the only factor that pushed him to decommit? No. Brady went ballistic in his junior season, just as Steve mentioned, and when you score that big? You attract a lot of attention.

Right now, 6 major programs are behind Brady: Michigan, Michigan State, OSU, Huskies, Gamecocks, and UCLA. This pretty much means Norvell has no shot at trying to get Brady back – this also means that they will be losing out on their potential 2026 season QB.

Not a problem you’d want in your basket when you are actively trying to bring the program back into relevancy.