In sad news for Florida fans, Mike Norvell has been fired as the head coach at FSU. Anyone with a hint of a pulse in college football knew this was inevitable, as the Seminoles have sunk to levels over the last three years that made The Man in the Black Polo look competent.
The unfortunate part for Florida fans is that the Gators didn’t get to be the nail in the coffin of the Mike Norvell Era; that honor goes to Clemson. The longer term narrative is that Florida fans will watch as FSU tries to dig themselves out of a massive hole they find themselves in to try and regain footing within the Sunshine State.
Florida fans wanted the Mike Norvell Era to last forever
Florida and FSU didn’t get to play in Norvell’s first year in Tallahassee due to Covid, but it’s safe to say Florida would have won that game easily in 2020. Then in 2021, after Dan Mullen was fired, Florida still powered its way past Norvell as Dameon Pierce balled out.
The Man in the Black Polo took FSU to the wire in 2022 and 2023. In 2022, it was a missed facemask call on Anthony Richardson that helped bail FSU out. In 2023, the underfeated Seminoles needed The Man in the Black Polo to dial up an ill-fated double reverse flea flicker to stage a comeback against the 5-7 Gators.
In 2024, Norvell morphed into Karen after Florida planted a flag, and last year Jadan Baugh ran wild over the Seminoles as the 4-8 Gators beat FSU to prevent them from going to a bowl game.
If you are keeping score at home, this was Norvell’s 7th season in Tallahassee, and he had a winning season in two of them.
Say what you will for Florida and the disaster that was the previous era in Gainesville; Florida’s administration was at least able to get out before things torpedoed. FSU claims 60,000 people had tickets for their game on Saturday against Clemson, but a good chunk of those people either didn’t show up or left super early.
The bigger problem for FSU is that they have a $50 million buyout they have to figure out thanks to the extention they handed out after the 2023 season. And one would feel sorry for FSU, except then one remembers how FSU and friends acted when left out of the 2023 playoffs. They ran around and stomped their feet, only to then get their doors blown off by Georgia.
So we’ll see if FSU can dig itself out of this hole. Given some of the names they are throwing out there as replacements, we wouldn’t hold our breath.
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