Waking up this morning to find Florida State at 4-0 with a Top-5 ranking, it’s easy to think Mike Norvell is on top of the world. A thrilling overtime win at Clemson, coupled with a season-opening win over LSU, leaves the Seminoles with legit College Football Playoff hopes. They’ve won 10 straight and the fan base is justifiably excited. But, it wasn’t always like this.
Today is the two-year anniversary of Florida State losing at home to Louisville and falling to 0-4 on the season. The Seminoles were 3-10 under Norvell, and the pitchforks were out. Many observers thought a change might be imminent. Comparisons to predecessor Willie Taggart, who was fired midway through his second year, were made. It was looking grim. But FSU stuck with Norvell, and my oh my how things have changed.
When I say “things have changed”, I’m mostly talking about outside perception of the Seminoles. Because Mike Norvell never changed. He never wavered and he never lost faith that he and his staff could get it turned around. He viewed it as “when”, not “if”. You can refer back to his post-game press conference after that loss to see what I mean.
Norvell inherited a worse situation than most realized
It’s not just the roster, which was terrible. The circumstances after his hire made an already difficult job even more challenging. Three months after his hire, COVID-19 caused the world to come to a screeching halt. Meetings with position groups and playbook installation took place virtually vice in person. Recruiting went from “difficult” to “impossible”. Florida State coaches were on the job for 16 months before any of them stepped foot in a high school. Imagine trying to establish relationships with your players via Zoom.
The Seminoles fielded one of the youngest and most inexperienced rosters in recent history in 2020. Of the 114 players on the roster, 84 were freshmen or sophomores. In retrospect, 3-6 with a win over Top-5 North Carolina isn’t a terrible first year. But after suffering through Jimbo Fisher’s disastrous final season and 21 games of middling play from Taggart’s tenure, more immediate results were desired.
A rough start to 2021 got even rougher
Embed from Getty ImagesBefore that Louisville game we talked about, things were already going poorly. An overtime loss to Notre Dame in the opener was followed up by a shocking loss to FCS Jacksonville State, possibly the worst loss in school history. Then a blowout loss to Wake Forest in which they racked up six turnovers. But the team bounced back from that Louisville loss by rolling off three straight wins before a loss at Clemson. Wins against Boston College and Miami left FSU with a chance for bowl eligibility going into the finale against Florida. But it wasn’t meant to be, and FSU fell 24-21 to finish 5-7.
It was a two-win improvement, but they lost three winnable games, all of the self-inflicted variety. Things boiled over on signing day, when #1 recruit Travis Hunter flipped from Florida State to Jackson State. The irony of former Seminole cornerback Deion Sanders getting Hunter was not lost on fans. A Twitter Spaces room titled “Fire Mike Norvell” attracted over 6,000 listeners at one point. Florida State finding itself in its current situation didn’t seem possible in November 2021.
Staying the course led to a big step in 2022
Norvell and the Seminoles entered 2022 with modest expectations. Vegas had a 6.5-win over/under assigned. Had they fallen short of that, it’s perfectly reasonable to wonder if the school would have moved on. It was definitely a prove-it year.
After a 4-0 start that included a wild win over LSU and a comeback victory at Louisville behind backup quarterback Tate Rodemaker, things were looking up. Three straight losses, however, quickly put a damper on things. Were those first four games a mirage? Were these the same old Seminoles?
Nope. They won their next four games by 25, 42, 35, and 32 points before finishing with one-score victories over Florida and Oklahoma. A 10-3 final record and #11 ranking sent Norvell into the offseason with plenty of momentum. For the first time in a half-decade, they entered 2023 with high expectations. And thus far, they’ve met them.
So how did Norvell do it?
The same way every other winning coach has done it, basically. By assembling a roster with as much talent as he can get. What’s slightly different is the way he did so.
The biggest driver in that fan outrage on Twitter Spaces was recruiting. Losing Hunter dropped Florida State’s 2022 class to 20th nationally and 4th in the ACC. That was after a 23rd-ranked class in 2021 and a 22nd-ranked class in 2020. None of those classes included a five-star player. High school recruiting has been good, but not great. The team’s current success is helping them make strides, as they currently have the #6 class for the 2024 cycle. But, those aren’t players who are helping them win games now.
Embed from Getty ImagesWhat Norvell has done better than just about anybody in the country is identify impact players in the Transfer Portal. Including Honorable Mentions, FSU had 15 All-ACC players in 2022. Ten of them were transfers. Trey Benson led the team in rushing. Johnny Wilson was their leading receiver. Jordan Travis had a breakthrough year and is a Heisman candidate. Jared Verse was an All-American and is likely to be a top-10 pick. The list goes on and on.
He’s added to the cupboard this year, nabbing Jaheim Bell and Keon Coleman to make the offense even more of a headache for opposing coordinators.
OK but how sustainable is his model of team-building?
This is the biggest question. The debate-du-jour among college football fans is the pros and cons of building your team via the portal or through high school recruiting. Or even what is the best balance of the two.
Many observers will claim that “the portal isn’t sustainable” and argue that you can only integrate so many fresh faces each year. And maybe they’re right. The reality is that we don’t have a long enough track record to know. If it is, you can mitigate that by getting guys with multiple years of eligibility left, like Norvell has done.
My guess is that it’s plenty sustainable. For as much as they’ve relied on transfers, again, the high school recruiting looks to be improving. Norvell is unlikely to forgo adding impact players via the portal even if he’s reeling in top-10 high school classes. At the end of the day, it comes down to assembling the most talented roster you can, by whatever means, and developing that talent. Norvell has shown he and his staff can do that.
FSU has eight games left. They’re likely to be favored in all of them. A spot in the ACC championship game looks to be well within their grasp. And if they can do that witAh one loss or fewer, a CFP appearance is likely. Everything they want is right in front of them, there for the taking. Something that felt incomprehensible just two short years ago. Sometimes it pays to have patience.
Eric Mulhair is the Co-Host of The South Endzone Podcast and a contributing writer for Belly Up Sports covering College Football. You can follow him on Twitter for the most up-to-date info on Podcast/Article releases, or even just to argue about College Football.
