It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Florida State was not supposed to be 1-7 at this point in the season. Maybe 7-1, but not 1-7. No way.
This team was going to be really good. Everybody said that. Sure, the ‘Noles had lost a ton of players; only four starters returned on offense and four on defense from a team that went 13-0 during the regular season, beat six opponents by more than 20 points and won the ACC championship with a 16-10 win over Louisville.
It didn’t matter. This team that would make people pay for last year’s snub, when the ‘Noles were left out of the playoffs despite putting up numbers and stats comparable to anyone…
Beleaguered FSU Coach Mike Norvell was at the podium this week after his Seminoles had been trounced, 36-14, by arch rival Miami. The ‘Noles have four games to go but they are meaningless. Their season is over. With the Miami loss the Noles and Norvell, who long ago lost any hope of getting to the playoffs, now have no hope of even getting to a bowl.
Ever since this all started going down, Norvell has been on the hot seat. He is one of the highest paid coaches in America and coaches who make millions are not supposed to be 1-7. That is unacceptable, heck, at most schools, it’s unacceptable , even if you don’t make millions.
So here was Norvell, trying to explain the unexplainable as his team prepares to play North Carolina. As is usually the case with good teams that go bad, there is no simple solution. If there was a simple solution, Norvell would fix it.
But if you have to point the finger at one area where this team has fallen apart, it would be the offense, and that’s kind of supposed to be Norvell’s thing.
It started with the decision to snap up Oregon State quarterback DJ Uiagalelei in the transfer portal. Uiagalelei is a coach killer. Coming out of high school, he was considered by many to be the best prep quarterback in the country.
But he was only so-so at Clemson, where he began his college career, only so-so at Oregon State (it should tell you something that when Jonathan Smith left OSU last year to take the Michigan State job, he brought along Aiden Chiles, Uiagalelei’s back up, not Uiagalelei), and only so-so at FSU for the first five games.
At that point, he hurt his throwing hand and hasn’t played since, And Norvell has been trying to fill the hole with freshmen Brock Glenn and Luke Kromenhoek, who haven’t been helped by a shaky offensive line and lack of a running game. By almost any measure, FSU has the worst running game in the ACC, and since it can’t throw the ball either, well…
Norvell realizes this can’t go on. He has some cashe built up because of last season, but Norvell knows that ‘Noles nation will not tolerate this for very long. “We’ve got to show improvement and get it done on the field,” Norvell said at his press conference, “and that’s what I expect from every member of this program. That’s going to be the expectation.
“Our offense has not been very good at all,” he continued. “We’ve had our issues including lack of a running game throughout the course of the year; some of that is due to injury and some of it’s due to performance.”
And, it might be added, some of it is due to the fact that the ‘Noles have used seven different offensive lines in eight games.
Still, this was supposed to be a quality team with quality depth. Injuries hit almost all teams, it’s how you play through them that counts and the ‘Noles just haven’t been able to play through them.
And at this point, with everything they had in front of them at the start of the season gone, you have to wonder how much they really care.
While there is no way to right this ship, there might be a way to keep it from sinking – beat Florida. For both teams, it could be the biggest game of the year all things considered. Like Norvell, Florida Coach Billy Napier is fighting to keep his job, So the team that loses could be losing more than a game. It could be losing its coach as well.