Florida State University is keeping football coach Mike Norvell for at least another season.
With support from school administrators, Norvell has pledged to make “fundamental changes” to meet the program’s championship standard. Florida State has three claimed national championships in football, and the former longtime independent program has won the Atlantic Coast Conference title 16 times since joining that league in 1992.
In a news release issued Sunday, school president Richard McCullough said “Coach Norvell embraces our support in that process and agrees that success must be achieved. He continues to demonstrate an unwavering belief in this program’s future, and so do we.”
McCullough added the decision “reflects a unified commitment to competing in the rapidly evolving landscape of college football, while maintaining continuity within the program.”
The Seminoles are 5-6 overall and 2-6 in ACC play this year heading into Saturday’s regular-season finale at nonconference rival Florida (3-8), which is also struggling, with the Gators coming off a 31-11 home win against Tennessee to finish its Southeastern Conference schedule 2-6.
Florida State needs a win in Gainesville to gain bowl eligibility and the promise of a 13th game this season, Norvell’s sixth in Tallahassee. The Seminoles have three bowl appearances in the past seven seasons (2019, 2022, 2023) after a streak of 36 in a row from 1982 to 2017.
Florida State has dropped 13 of its past 16 conference games, including Friday’s 21-11 loss at North Carolina State. Since winning the 2023 season’s ACC title, the Seminoles are 7-17 overall.
The slide has gone from seemingly sudden to shockingly sustained for Norvell, 44, who deftly worked the NCAA transfer portal early in his Florida State tenure before other programs caught up, but he and his staff have repeatedly failed to develop talent or find a long-term solution at quarterback. Norvell has missed on consecutive portal quarterbacks in DJ Uiagalelei in 2024 and Thomas Castellanos this year.
Norvell took a pay cut and retooled his staff after last year’s 2-10 debacle, adding Gus Malzahn as offensive coordinator and Tony White as defensive coordinator. The moves looked impressive when the Seminoles upset traditional national and SEC power Alabama, which was ranked eighth at the time, when the Crimson Tide visited Tallahassee in the season opener.
The Seminoles have struggled since, but Florida State would have owed Norvell a buyout of nearly $54 million had they fired him this season, and they would have entered a crowded coaching search that appears to have limited options and high prices.
“This program has been built on belief, sacrifice and putting the team first,” Norvell said in the release announcing he would be retained. “That set of values has always guided my actions, and those of our players. The driving motivation behind this is to make certain that we are doing everything properly to obtain and retain elite players, add critical pieces, and sustain long-term success.
“I love Florida State, and I am fully committed to this program, and our shared goals.”
Norvell is 38-33 with the Seminoles, including 22-26 in conference play, who hired him after his four-year run at Memphis from 2016-19 was capped by an American Conference title and the Tigers making a Cotton Bowl appearance.
Florida State won the ACC in 2023 with dynamic quarterback Jordan Travis and linebacker Jared Verse, who was a first-round pick in the NFL draft the following spring. The Seminoles were notably snubbed for the College Football Playoff that season after Travis’ season-ending leg injury, and a Florida State team depleted by players opting out of the Orange Bowl lost 63-3 to Georgia, which had won back-to-back national championships the previous two seasons.
It was a turning point for the program.
“We will address performance deficiencies in the program,” Peter Collins, the chairman of Florida State’s board of trustees, said in Sunday’s news release. “These deficiencies may include structural changes to the very large and complex program FSU football has become, and these areas are where we will focus and invest.”