A tenure that seemed to end half a dozen times over the years finally ended once and for all on Sunday. Mike Norvell is no longer the head coach at Florida State.
"The embattled" seemed to be part of Norvell's name, as he fought uphill from the get go. Prominent Seminoles threatened boycotts of the staff months before Norvell's first game. 2020 was a wild time in America, but it was especially wild time in the football locker room in Tallahassee, Florida.
Every coach who rises as high and lasts as long as Norvell faces adversity. But the adversity Norvell faced seemed more plentiful, more intense, and more challenging.
And now it's over.
What was the high point? Nov. 11, 2023. Before a primetime ABC audience, No. 4 Florida State moved to 10-0 on the year with a 27-20 win over Miami. It wasn't an emphatic victory over the 'Canes, but it was FSU's third straight in the series, extending their winning streak in the rivalry to three. The loss dropped the unranked Hurricanes to 6-4 on the year, while giving FSU 16 straight wins overall.
Florida State hasn't beaten Miami since that night, and Mario Cristobal's Canes are the No. 1 team in the country.
What was the low point? Dec. 3, 2023. Selection Sunday. Black Sunday. Thanks to Jordan Travis's injury -- and Alabama's win over undefeated Georgia in the SEC Championship* -- the College Football Playoff selection committee made the unprecedented decision to leave an undefeated ACC champion 'Noles squad out of the 4-team Playoff. The first, last and only.
There were, of course, other difficult moments. Georgia's ensuing 63-3 pummeling of FSU in the Orange Bowl was difficult to sit through. The loss to Memphis, Norvell's former team, stung. The Jacksonville State loss in 2022 was embarrassing. The 6-game losing streak amid the 2-10 season of 2024 was almost impossible to comprehend if we didn't all watch it happen in real time. Norvell ended his tenure going 4-17 in ACC play, and with an 8-game losing streak to rivals Miami, Clemson and Florida.
Maybe all of that would've happened eventually. But Florida State would not have fallen as fast and with a CFP appearance in 2023.
* My personal theory on 2023: If Georgia had defeated Alabama, the committee takes the path of least resistance and rolls with the four undefeated Power 4 champions: No. 1 Georgia vs. No. 4 Florida State in the Sugar Bowl, and No. 2 Michigan vs. No. 3 Washington in the Rose.
What did Norvell get right? Many of these pieces we've written so far have boiled back to a failure to adapt to the transfer portal. Not so here. Norvell was among the first head coaches to embrace the portal, and finding diamonds like Jared Verse in Albany allowed him to turn an 8-13 start in 2020-21 into a 23-4 run in 2022-23.
Also, Norvell never cracked publicly amid intense and unrelenting pressure. Sure, part of that pressure existed was because his team lost too many games, but that doesn't make it any less difficult. That's not enough on its own to keep his job, but still needed to be said.
What did Norvell get wrong? Once the rest of the country caught on, Norvell's early-adopter advantage in the portal evaporated and he never pivoted. While he started homegrown players here and there due to injury or poor performance, every single "starting quarterback" Norvell employed at Florida State arrived via the portal. (Travis, a Louisville transfer, was on the roster when Norvell arrived.)
Bobby Bowden and Jimbo Fisher made recruiting at Florida State look easy when the Seminoles were winning. Apparently, it's not. Norvell never signed a top-10 high school class. And while 5-star prospects are not the be-all, end-all of building a college football team, it's still better to have one than not, and Norvell never signed a single one at FSU. Again, that seems impossible.
Norvell's roster management was a lesson to the rest of college football that once you buy a ticket on the portal carousel, you may not be able to get off when you'd like. Or at all.
Where does Norvell go from here? Unlike others in his position, a soft retirement feels off the table. Norvell is only 45 and worked too hard to go out like this. Taking the open Oregon offensive coordinator position under Dan Lanning -- the two worked together at Arizona State and Memphis -- feels blindingly obvious.
Where does Florida State go from here? My search firm, Don't Overthink It, LLC, recommends Florida State not overthink it.
Manny Diaz is a Florida State alum who's won more games, at Duke, than Florida State has since 2024. He's got a better team, at Duke, after losing Darian Mensah to Miami, than Norvell built at Florida State. Sure, his 21-15 run at Miami might be tough to swallow, but look at it this way: A) That was a different era, and B) Imagine the burning fire in Diaz's belly to dunk Miami's head in the toilet.