Saving the FSU standard: Search for Mike Norvell's successor is about preserving the soul of a proud program

An apathetic crowd against Clemson and a 10-23 collapse after the 2023 season proved that keeping things status quo risked cementing mediocrity in Tallahassee

Nov 3, 2026 at 11:34 am ET • 8 min read

The official attendance was 60,472, but the scenes in the stadium told a much different story by the time the third quarter arrived during Florida State's home loss to Clemson on Saturday night.  

Empty seats and apathetic fan response did not match the usual pomp and circumstance that comes with these two helmet logos and the rivalry that defined ACC supremacy for more than a decade. No, this year's game in Tallahassee got buried on the television schedule and had a smaller announced attendance than last year's games against Virginia Tech, Pitt and Wake Forest. 

Of course, it's hard to blame the fans for not feeling the same way about the Florida State vs. Clemson rivalry as they did when those two programs combined for 13 ACC Championships in a 15-year run between 2009 and 2024. The tension in the air every time these two teams played showcased that the winner would be the new favorite to win the ACC and compete for the sport's biggest postseason prizes. On Saturday, the urgency was tied more to hot seats than playoff spots as two embattled coaches squared off to sell their own fan bases on the direction of their programs. It's also hard to blame the Florida State students and younger who have only heard stories about the heyday of this great rivalry, since the loss dropped Mike Norvell to 1-5 against Clemson as the Seminoles' coach. 

And so it was with the stark images of those empty seats and the obvious inability to keep pace with even a struggling rival that Florida State finally made the decision to fire Mike Norvell. To bring Norvell back for another year presented the potential of another year with lowered standards, less attendance and even more distance from the memories of Florida State's greatness. 

"You looked up at the stands, and you saw the half-empty Doak Campbell Stadium and an apathetic crowd, and it just became completely obvious what they had to do," former Florida State quarterback and Cover 3 Podcast co-host Danny Kanell explained on our instant reaction episode after Norvell's dismissal. 

"And those empty seats were sold tickets," Bud Elliott added, "Next year ... they might be unsold tickets." 

The mirage of 2023

No magic number could save Norvell's job in terms of wins in 2026, just the hope that he might be able to pull some miracle together as he did in 2023. If Norvell could pull Florida State out of the wilderness and roll through a 19-game winning streak, claiming an ACC championship along the way, then maybe he could similarly find the right combination of talent through the transfer portal to bounce the program back in the right direction. With a difficult schedule and a realistic view of the roster, no one was looking for Florida State to be a top-five team in 2026. But the administration was willing to wait it out and see if Norvell could lay the foundation for something special as he did with a 10-win season in 2022.   

We spend a lot of time talking about what happened after Florida State got left out of the College Football Playoff, but in the wake of Norvell's firing, we should also re-examine what went into the 2023 season and why it might have spoken to the desperation to see the Seminoles back on top. Maybe that season was not a sign of Florida State's return to championship contention, but a one-off under unique circumstances.  

Norvell's ability to get players from FCS Albany, Western Michigan and elsewhere into their program and playing at a high level was viewed as a reason to think he was the right kind of coach for the modern era. As an early adopter of the transfer portal to build out the core of a competitive roster, Norvell was building a reputation as one of the coaches who had "figured it out." He was, after all, considered a candidate for the Alabama job after Nick Saban's retirement. 

Unfortunately, the on-field results since 2023 have suggested otherwise. Florida State went 10-23 in Norvell's final 33 games between the College Football Playoff snub and Saturday's loss at Clemson. Combined with the 3-6 start to his tenure (which was already seemingly doomed by the onset of a global pandemic just a few practices into their first year of spring ball), the success of 2023 now looks more like a stroke of good fortune than proof that one of college football's giants had regained its footing. 

Investing in FSU Football Inc. 

There was so much desire to get Florida State football back to where the investments had been for nearly a decade; perhaps that's why fans were so excited to overlook the one-of-a-kind nature of the 2023 run under Norvell. The disappointments of the Willie Taggart era had provided some sour moments, stopping the momentum of a resurgent Seminoles program, and with so much poured into Tallahassee and Florida State, any whiff of excellence was going to get an overreaction. 

The national championship run of 2013, which as an era included three ACC championships and a spot in the first-ever College Football Playoff, reinvigorated Florida State football for the new era. It was proof that the Seminoles were built by Bobby Bowden but could be sustained under different leadership. The on-field success sparked investment throughout Tallahassee, with a vision of where Florida State would fit in the national landscape as a football program, university and campus community.  

The university has been investing in its academic offerings and seeing improvements in the development of its graduate and research programs. Tallahassee has seen a development boom with commercial districts exploding around the campus and in the shadow of Doak Campbell Stadium. CollegeTown looks different now than it did when Florida State was last running college football, with Madison Social among the few establishments that can claim a history that dates back to 2013. 

Walking down Madison St. on the night before the Miami game last season, the economic impact of Florida State football was on full display. There were lines out the door for every establishment and a sea of fans spilling into the streets where live music and street vendors added to the festival atmosphere. Power brokers in and around the program saw the potential for Tallahassee's unrivaled gameday environment to extend outside the stadium and throughout the town. Tens of thousands in number, Florida State fans will historically show up, eat, drink, stay and spend throughout the weekend.  

But to get all that spending, Florida State football has to get the fans to show up. Over the course of the last two years, the numbers have been going in the wrong direction. After stadium renovations dropped the Doak Campbell Stadium capacity to 67,277, fans did their part through most of 2025 and filled it up, averaging 65,286 fans for ACC home games. Through three ACC home games in 2026, that number has dropped to 58,787 announced. That approximately 10% drop in attendance (from 97.0% capacity to 87.3%) includes, as we mentioned earlier, tickets that were sold and not attended. The concern for Florida State is that retaining Mike Norvell means the fans continue to show up less, and next year they might not even buy the tickets in the first place. 

And why would they spend the money required to show up, eat, drink and stay throughout the burgeoning Tallahassee football social scene when the product on the field has looked so dissimilar to the success at the roots of Florida State's football culture? 

Norvell had three different losing streaks of four games or more during his tenure. Florida State, as a program, had not endured a single four-game losing streak since before Bobby Bowden's hire. The Seminoles were once one of the most feared programs in the country, and yet there's nothing intimidating about a program that loses nine straight games to conference opponents (like Florida State did in 2024-25). 

Florida State football's habits throughout the 2020s have been largely a series of failures to meet expectations. The habits of the Florida State fan base, witnessing these failures, have been to check out. There are decades upon decades of Florida State fans who could never fathom the levels of losing that have been seen in the last couple of seasons, which is why you had to end the current direction of the program. If you let this losing continue, it becomes the new expectation, and the habits of fans are no longer to support the team and program with the fervor that built Florida State football culture. 

Most important coaching search in FSU history

You can build out apartments, hotels, restaurants and bars for the fans. You can modernize the stadium and set up the team with a football-only facility to lock in on championship contention. All of the spaces in and around this university have received investment to support a championship football program, and the one thing that's been missing is a championship contender on the field. 

If Florida State doesn't get this right, it risks truly losing a hold on the championship standard. Young people around Tallahassee today tell stories of "watching Jameis as a kid" and speak fondly of the title run and its aftermath back in 2013-14. But the math on that is changing, quickly, and soon the Florida State freshmen will no longer be able to claim childhood memories of the last great era in Seminoles history. 

That's why the soul of Florida State football could not endure another season of obvious mediocrity. Because to move forward without accountability to the program's standard would be disrespectful to all the efforts to build Florida State into the modern power that it has become. First was the athletic director and then the head coach; now Florida State gets to spend a couple of days doing some soul-searching to get organized for the most important search in program history. 

The Seminoles will be treated much differently going into 2027 with new leadership at all levels of the athletics operation. With college football on the verge of yet another shift, Florida State's rebrand will echo the ongoing changes in the sport. With recent investments in the town, stadium and facilities, the university has assured that Florida State has brought all the amenities for the Seminole football up to code for the new era. 

Now the community needs the program to start playing winning football more often, so that the new-look buildings can have an old-school feel for the next generation of fans cheering on championship contenders. Because the last thing that Florida State can afford is to lose is its connection to the championship standard, and the decision to fire Mike Norvell showed that no buyout number can match the value of that standard.