Florida State, after 24 hours of speculation, made the decision on Monday to keep head coach Mike Norvell — for now.
Athletic director Michael Alford issued a statement on Monday that, while the results have not matched up to FSU’s expectations, a “comprehensive” analysis of the football program won’t come until the end of the season.
“We rightfully have high expectations in everything we do to represent Florida State in the manner that built our reputation as one of college football’s best programs, cultivating an extraordinary group of supporters nationally and globally,” he said. “We embrace those expectations while also sharing the deep disappointment when results on the field are short of that standard. As we continue to move forward this season, our comprehensive assessment of the football program will be completed at season’s end. Meanwhile, we are fully committed to helping Coach Norvell and the 2025 Seminoles strongly rebound in the coming weeks.”
Did FSU make the right choice in deffering the decision?
Jordan Silversmith and Jon Marchant offer an argument for each side.
Firing Norvell midseason is not the answer
Jordan Silversmith: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Amazingly, 1,493 days (yes, Mike Norvell has won an ACC game since then) after my TN colleague Jon Marchant wrote, ‘Firing Norvell now will only set Florida State back even further,’ the Seminoles are in the exact same spot, no easy answers and no way out. Once again, the athletic department needs to decide whether it makes sense to place an unprecedented financial burden on itself because of its own poor decision-making in extending Norvell, who now ranks as the 6th-highest in buyout terms according to USA Today, or if carrying on with its embattled head coach remains the best path forward.
Once again, the Seminoles made the right choice to stick with Norvell.
Now, let me be clear: If Norvell’s buyout were any reasonable number, there would be a new coach roaming the Seminole sidelines against Wake Forest next week. But, if fired, Norvell would be owed around $59,158,000 ($1,987,000 remaining this season, $53,346,000 still on contract, 85% of pro-rated sum from $4.5 million donation to school) and other programs have already left warning signs about the toll that type of number takes on an athletic department and university.
Texas A&M became the first school to break the glass ceiling during the 2023 season in terms of paying insane coaching buyouts to make their problem go away, firing former FSU coach Jimbo Fisher two years into a 10-year contract (which, before I finish, no, don’t even think about it), handing him $19.2 million in the first 60 days and $7.2 million annually until 2031 — a total that ESPN reported would cost the university around $76 million to have Fisher sit on his couch or hang out on ACC Huddle. Any Florida State fan would admit the Aggies have a boatload more money than FSU, and still, as much as Texas A&M fans do not want to admit it, canning Fisher set their athletic department back years, even if they still are ranked highly this season.
Sportico reported earlier this year that the 12th Man Foundation, the main booster foundation for the Aggies, had revenue drop by more than $25 million for the 2023-24 fiscal year. That effect was felt heavily in other sports. Former Texas A&M baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle bolted for archrival Texas less than a week after taking the Aggies to the College World Series final. In his place, the Aggies hired internally. A&M also hired Bucky McMillian, a rising star in the men’s college basketball world this offseason, but whose highest job before the one in College Station was coaching Samford after former head coach Buzz Williams resigned from his post to take the Maryland job. Two coaches in the span of 12 months in the second and third-highest revenue sports for Texas A&M departed for what they believed would be better jobs and more investment.
Speaking of crazy buyouts, Penn State decided to pay the second-highest figure in college football history to make James Franklin go away, lighting $50 million on fire. Amazingly, it seems the Nittany Lions made that move without having a serious contender in mind. While On3 reported last week that Penn State will try to go after Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman, they will most likely fail and need to turn their attention to more reasonable targets. Even though the Penn State job is the best in this hiring/firing cycle, the name most linked to Happy Valley is Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule. In 2½ seasons so far in Lincoln, Rhule has a record of 17-15 in the same conference as PSU and has never been ranked above No. 22. With a lot of the same characteristics at Penn State as Nebraska, is anyone sure this will be a slam dunk? More importantly for Florida State fans, if Rhule is the top name in the hiring cycle, what would that mean for FSU? A shallow pool of candidates just puts the Seminoles back in the same pattern they continue to find themselves in.
Say AD Michael Alford still thinks it is the right decision to start fresh with a new head football coach — the start of his new tenure will almost certainly be a disaster. The 2026 Florida State schedule is a gauntlet. The Seminoles travel to Alabama, Miami and Louisville and have home dates against Notre Dame, Clemson, Florida and SMU. Throw in matchups versus Pitt, NC State and Virginia, and it’s hard to find many clear victories on the docket.
With a worsening of the athletic department, a shallow pool of candidates and a brutal schedule upcoming on top of the financial burden, firing Norvell makes little sense even if the Seminoles are in purgatory.
While it seems like there is no way out, Alford does have a couple of levers to pull to start digging out of the hole he put himself in.
The first place he must start is with a renegotiated contract and buyout. At first glance, it makes no sense for Norvell to do that, but there is precedent. Not only did Norvell almost halve his salary and donate it to the FSU Vision of Excellence fund before the season, but multiple other coaches in recent years have restructured their deals. Ahead of the 2021 season, Michigan and Jim Harbaugh created an incentive-laden agreement that dropped the now-Los Angeles Chargers head coach’s buyout and lowered his salary. Before the start of this season, Oklahoma State and Mike Gundy changed the language around his buyout from a percentage of his contract paid to him (like Norvell’s) to a flat number of $15 million, which would have turned into $10 million after a certain period if he was not fired last month.
If Alford can secure the restructuring to an acceptable number, then there will be a light at the end of the tunnel, similar to the situation and buyout surrounding the ACC.
Alford should also continue making changes to how the football program is run. Although Norvell ceded play-calling duties and continued his preference for letting defensive coordinators have complete autonomy on that side of the ball, more responsibility needs to be stripped away. Florida State needs to hire an actual general manager to oversee all aspects and roster decisions of the program and move on from Derrick Yray, who reports to Norvell. Not only could that help FSU stop whiffing on recruits and transfers, but it would also build infrastructure around the program to be ready when the number makes sense to pull the plug on Norvell. Cal and Stanford are two programs that come to mind where the general manager is the final boss, not the head coach, and Alford could look to his ACC counterparts for inspiration.
At Stanford, the latest conquerors of FSU, the Cardinal GM is former star quarterback Andrew Luck. Here is how the Stanford Athletics website, gostanford.com, described his role:
“In his new role, Luck will be tasked with overseeing the Cardinal Football program, including working with Coach Taylor on recruiting and roster management, and with athletics and university leadership on fundraising, alumni relations, sponsorships, student-athlete support, and stadium experience.”
Here is what Cal wrote for general manager Ron Rivera on their website, calbears.com
“In this newly created role, Rivera will report to UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons and have complete oversight of the football program. The General Manager will also focus on revenue generation and fundraising.”
While the Stanford blurb needs an update because Luck fired Taylor, the responsibilities are clear, and so is the chain of command. A new general manager, hopefully a former player, can help drum up support for the football program as Florida State battles apathy off the field while implementing a vision for the team on it that the Seminoles clearly lack.
As college football moves closer to the pros, these general manager roles are becoming more common. Entrusting a new figure with the Florida State program will modernize the Noles and add a needed authority figure into the room, as “the standard” currently lacks under the present regime.
The argument around Norvell centers on an honest conversation about the football program. The Seminoles are and continue to be a ratings darling. They are second in the ACC in viewership this season at 3-4. They will continue to get eyeballs next season with the matchups on the schedule and pay for the Doak renovations with a slew of impressive teams coming to Tallahassee. What they are not, however, is a national championship program under Norvell and the current conference realignment. The smart play for Florida State would be to chase titles in other sports outside of football, while preparing for the turn of the decade, when they receive the chance to move on from Norvell and get out of the ACC. With the right moves, the Seminole football can be set up for the future and put themselves in a position to reach heights the program has proven it can.
Letting Norvell continue is a mistake
Jon Marchant: This morning, Florida State athletic director Michael Alford released a statement that football head coach Mike Norvell would be retained at least until the end of the season.
Just shy of a year ago, Alford held a virtual town hall for boosters in which he claimed that Florida State was “committed to competing at an elite level across all of its sports and asked boosters to continue to support the program.” According to the Tallahassee Democrat, Alford went even further:
“We want Florida State football to be at the top on a perennial basis.“
He said the investment into the programs across the board will continue and that the investment into FSU is to make it the very best in college athletics. Alford said that the school will continue to look for different revenue streams and ways to maximize contributions.
Alford said he is very excited about the future of FSU and its athletics programs and that FSU will continue to fund its programs at a “championship level.”
The decision today is antithetical to Alford’s past words. The statement released this morning was tone deaf and hypocritical and insulting to fans and boosters. It makes FSU’s administration look out of touch or worse, makes one wonder whether FSU has been entirely truthful about its ability to compete at the highest level.
The situation with Norvell is untenable. According to CBS Sports this morning, following FSU’s embarrassing road loss to a dreadful Stanford team that dropped the ’Noles’ to 0-4 in conference play for the firs time ever, players in the locker room mocked Norvell’s common refrain on needing to “Respond” to the loss.
A week ago, transfer tight end Randy Pittman Jr. allegedly liked a tweet in which someone joked that former defensive back Conrad Hussey, who was released from the program earlier this season after an alleged altercation with a position coach, should lie and say that his altercation was with Mike Norvell instead so that Norvell could be fired for cause:
It is understandable that firing a coach is not a decision that is made lightly. It comes with a cost, sure — a historical, monumental financial burden in the form of a buyout of at least $55 million that you did not have to sign on to but did — as well as player opt-outs and damage to your recruiting class.
However, firing Norvell is all but a certainty at the end of the season anyway, and firing a coach mid-season has historically had its benefits too, namely a bump in performance:
So not only is FSU going to incur the standard hits that come with the warranted firing of a coach, it’s determined not to gain any of the possible benefits that might come with doing it earlier.
That’s just on the field. Off the field, booster and fan support is sure to plummet even further than it otherwise would, which will impact local businesses. In his statement this morning that seemed designed to alienate boosters, Alford went as far as to say the school is “fully committed to helping Coach Norvell and the 2025 Seminoles strongly rebound in the coming weeks.“
How will it help Norvell or the program to put Norvell back on the sidelines so that everyone watching on TV can hear him be relentlessly booed for four hours?
It could be argued that keeping Norvell through the end of the season is solely a financial decision. That FSU simply doesn’t have the money. It’s true that Florida State doesn’t have the financial elasticity as do some other programs. But Texas A&M is paying out the majority of Jimbo Fisher’s record $77 million buyout over eight years. No one says you have to give Norvell a Bobby Bonilla type buyout, but there’s flexibility — per Norvell’s contract, FSU is able to pay the buyout in monthly installments through the 2031 season. .
All of that doesn’t sound like an administration that understands how the sport works, much less is committed to thriving in its upper echelons.
Alford should be directly asked whether FSU is truly committed to winning and how their decision today is congruent with his past comments. He should also be asked what actionable steps will be taken to help Norvell and FSU rebound this season. But we likely won’t like the answers we get.
