Florida State sits at 2-2, with its only wins coming against FCS Central Arkansas -- its head coach's alma mater -- and a shaky Week 0 outing against New Mexico State. The infamous power-outage loss to SMU on Labor Day did not help the national perception of Mike Norvell's future, but the Alabama loss showed signs that at least the offense is progressing -- if only slightly. Now, however, the key stretch of FSU's schedule begins.
The Noles are a 2.5-point home underdog to Virginia this week. It is well within the realm of possibility that they beat the Cavs, who began their march to becoming one of college football's biggest surprises in 2025 when they beat Florida State in double overtime at home on a Friday night. Then it's Louisville, and then rival Miami before a bye week.
There may not be a final determination on Norvell's future by the end of the month, but the narrative shaping around him starts now. It is not currently a foregone conclusion that Norvell will be fired. In the backdrop of what's happening on the field, within FSU's athletic department, change is in the air.
After firing athletic director Michael Alford, FSU is embarking on more than just an athletic director search; it is taking an existential look at how its athletic department should function in the current landscape of college sports. Current board of trustees chairman Peter Collins has become more involved in athletics, and he and school president Rick McCullough announced Alford's firing, as did they last year when they kept Norvell to avoid paying a massive buyout (currently $46.7 million). The fact that trustees are getting more and more involved in athletics is its own treatise on where college sports is overall.
Trustee involvement can also get dicey. Fans saw at North Carolina in the search process that hired Bill Belichick that sources indicate there were essentially two searches running in parallel, and the one that ended up with the eight-time Super Bowl champion won out. That is not the search that was being run the conventional way via the athletic department.
Many in college sports view the end of the decade as the next significant potential realignment moment. FSU has been preparing in different ways over the last couple of years, being at the forefront of private capital and private equity discussions in college athletics. The school is reimagining what the athletic director job really entails.
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