Florida State focusing on the future after awful 2024 campaign
One year after making a valid argument to be included in the College Football Playoff, Florida State collapsed in mind-boggling fashion and finished this season 2-10.
Losses to Georgia Tech, Boston College and Memphis started the year from hell. There were blowout losses and some close defeats in ACC play. The Seminoles finished the season by getting whacked by rival Florida, 31-11. National title runner-up Notre Dame beat FSU, 52-3.
The only wins came against Cal in a 14-9 snoozer and Charleston Southern.
Coach Mike Norvell canned a bunch of coaches, brought in new offensive and defensive coordinators – Gus Malzahn from UCF and Tony White from Nebraska, respectively – and has charted a course to never let 2-10 happen again.
And now it’s time to convince recruits.
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Restarting momentum can be really difficult especially when it seems Florida has some as coach Billy Napier dodged plenty of early-season bullets to seemingly get the Gators going again.
But this past weekend at Florida State’s junior day event, the Seminoles coaches seemed to make it clear that the focus is on the future, while learning from past mistakes.
“One season doesn’t determine who they are as a team,” said four-star defensive back Dorian Barney, who has FSU, Texas A&M, Georgia and many others involved.
“They are going to build that team back up. I don’t think that will ever happen again.”
Florida State sure hopes not.
Norvell went through the fires for two whole seasons rebuilding a program that had seemed to have lost its mojo.
Every year of the 1990s, Florida State had double-digit wins under Bobby Bowden. Jimbo Fisher won a national championship in 2013 but late in Fisher’s tenure when he soured on so many things – and threw his Christmas tree on the curb before departing for Texas A&M – things went south.
Willie Taggart seemed lost in two losing seasons in Tallahassee and Norvell was hired to reclaim greatness. A rebuild was needed before reclamation and that’s what Norvell did over time and an undefeated regular season followed. The Seminoles were controversially left out of the playoff following the 2023 season because quarterback Jordan Travis got hurt late in the season.
And then just an out-of-this-world showing in 2024 with only two victories.
After meeting with Norvell and the coaches this past weekend, top recruits seem to believe. There was no hiding from the coaches what happened.
“FSU had the energy in the room and want us to know if we go to their school we’re not just for football but for an education and they told us what problems they had and what they are doing to fix it and how we could be the solution, too,” four-star offensive tackle Malcolm Gaston said.
Four-star safety Kaiden Hall, who has FSU among his favorites, said: “They also talked about getting back to what’s important, which is giving huge effort and they are making sure they have the right guys in the building.”
Florida State went to the transfer portal for help at quarterback, receiver and tight end and on both the offensive and defensive lines.
Norvell fired coaches – some midseason – to get things in order. The feeling is that what happened in 2024 will not be allowed to happen again.
That was the message conveyed to elite recruits who have plenty of other options as well.
“They know they had a tough season and didn’t meet expectations, but they plan on getting back on track and getting back to that elite program we know them to be,” four-star cornerback Samari Matthews said.
Four-star ATH Tyriq Green added: “The coaches’ message was that it would never happen again.”
