Forget the $51 million buyout. What if Mike Norvell beats the odds?
NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...
They want him to fail. Maybe even right out of the gate to end the misery of it all, long before the college football season reaches October.
Fire him early, and get a jump on the hiring season.
Only there’s one teeny-weeny problem with the wishes of a vast majority of the wildly passionate Florida State fanbase (and a few high-roller boosters): What if Mike Norvell doesn’t play along?
What if Norvell, on the hottest of hot seats heading into Saturday’s season opener against New Mexico State, has a team that can win enough games to change the narrative?
“I don’t want a team that’s just fed by outside motivation,” Norvell says. “Let’s go write our own story.”
The odds aren’t in his favor.
He may think he has a team that can change everything entering his seventh season in Tallahassee. May think he has found a quarterback in Ashton Daniels, and has made all the right offseason personnel and coaching staff moves.
But he’s facing nearly impossible odds.
Once you’re on the hot seat, once your athletic director responds to your struggles with lukewarm support — as FSU athletic director Mike Alford did after last season — time is running out.
No one survives the hot seat. Not in the past or the future.
Not even with a $51 million buyout hanging over the unseemly process.
Just last month, Florida State announced a record-breaking fundraising year for Seminole Boosters in fiscal 2026, securing more than $106 million in commitments and more than $86 million in cash contributions.
All that money, and the No. 28-ranked transfer portal class, according to the 247Sports Composite.
Or as one SEC general manager told USA TODAY Sports, “If you’re up against FSU (to sign an elite player), you’re probably not losing that battle.”
If the money isn’t going to secure better players, you do the $51 million math where it’s headed.
But there was a strange energy at FSU this offseason, even though some of it fit typical hot seat drama of closed ranks and no access. There’s a buzz on the field, and in the brand new 150,000-foot Dunlap Football Center.
Gone are the days of high-priced transfer portal classes with lagging results, and ACC quarterback transfers on the downside of their careers (DJ Uiagalelei, Tommy Castellanos).
There are 13 new starters from the transfer portal, but they weren’t exactly fighting off high-level suitors. From Georgia (Marvin Jones Jr.) and Alabama (Malik Benson) mercenary castoffs who tanked in 2024, to the eager and hungry from Troy, Bowling Green, ECU and Southern Miss, Norvell changed his transfer portal philosophy by need and/or (financial) necessity.
He decided he would run the offense and call the plays, even though he hired an offensive coordinator and a quarterbacks coach. This, of course, is textbook hot seat.
If you’re going down, you’re going down by your own hands — not someone else. Norvell was one of the hottest young offensive minds when hired by FSU, an elite play-caller and quarterbacks coach.
Now he’s trying to rehabilitate a quarterback (Daniels), a program and his coaching reputation in three short months. Or sooner, depending on how you see it.
We should know plenty about this team after the first three weeks of the season, after New Mexico State, a Labor Day home game against ACC heavyweight SMU and a critical nonconference game at Alabama.
You can’t lose at home to SMU, which two years ago bought its way into an ACC the Noles once dominated. And you can’t get embarrassed by Alabama, which you beat by 14 last year in Tallahassee.
Or the Noles could start with three wins, and that buyout money suddenly shifts from paying Norvell to not coach, to spending cash on players for him moving forward.
Norvell began this week by refusing to release a depth chart, and says he may not release one the entire season. Every job is up for grabs every week.
"You make the most of every opportunity you have," Norvell said. "And you go have fun."
Go write your own story, all right.
And maybe beat the hot seat for the first time ever.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB. Listen to him daily, from 12-2 p.m., on 1010XL-Jacksonville.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Forget the $51 million buyout. What if Mike Norvell beats the odds?
More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos