Head coach Mike Norvell of the Florida State Seminoles reacts to a play during the first half of a game against the Boston College Eagles at Doak Campbell Stadium on September 02, 2024 in Tallahassee, Florida. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images)
Florida State Football Crossroads: This is a pivotal time for Mike Norvell and the Florida State football program. The 2024 season was a worst case disastrous scenario as the once proud football program crash and burned to a 2-10 record.
Following 2023's 13-1 season where they just missed out on the 4-team college football playoff, expectations were sky-high for the seminoles in 2024 as the playoff field expanded to 12 teams. Surely the Seminoles would get in the playoffs, right? Wrong! Dead wrong!
Fresh off rewarding head coach Mike Norvell with an 8-year contract extension worth 84 million dollars the Seminoles flew overseas for their season opener vs Georgia Tech. And lost on a last second field goal. Oops!
Well, a last second kick, and the game was on foreign soil...maybe the game was a fluke. So the Seminoles came back to America and regrouped. Then they lost to Boston College. Following another loss to Memphis and an 0-3 start the Seminoles football program was a full-fledged 5-alarm fire. Something was wrong.
Actually a lot was wrong. The transfer portal players Norvell brought in were not as good as advertised and, in my opinion, the team quit. Once players deemed they would come nowhere close to 2023's almost perfect season and they would not be making the expanded playoffs in 2024, they quit.
The losses continued to pile up. Many of them blowouts. A closer than necessary win vs Cal and a win over lowly Charleston Southern were the only things that stood between FSU and a winless season.
FLORIDA STATE FOOTBALL CROSSROADS
Florida State Football Crossroads: As the season continued to unfold, and unravel, Norvell and FSU started losing prized recruits from the class of 2025. This disaster began to feed on itself. So unless Norvell hits a home run in the transfer portal this month - something he has yet to prove he can do - Norvell's stay at FSU may be short. And his buyout will be big.
For more Florida State and college football talk tune in each weekday to Craig Shemon and Company from 2-6pm on ESPN Southwest Florida.
