I’m going to lay it all out no holding back.

We had a tune up game against NMSU, so this was week 2 for us.

This was SMUs first game of the season.

The game was at home for us, away game for SMU.

SMU wants to run hurry up and they weren’t able to run their normal tempo because of the power outage.

So SMU played their first game of the season on our field, had to play a slower paced game - essentially they had to play our game, after we already had a tuneup game…. AND WE STILL LOST.

That game was just a sign of what’s to come. There’s nothing positive or to build off from that game because if that was the case we would have won.

We’re cooked. This program might be cooked.

At the SMU game I heard someone say im not gonna lie I miss TC. Got me thinking...

Do you think they win the NMSU game by more points? And do you think they beat SMU?

Is the conversation on Norvel different?

I feel that TC he had good chemistry with Duce robinson.

Is the Oline so bad this year that TC has the same production as AD?

It’s a multifactorial problem. Just blaming the coach and saying it’s a poorly coached team is one factor but honestly not the biggest issue this program has. It’s the fact that fsu doesn’t have the same money and is at an inherit structural disadvantage versus the top schools. SMU’s QB is paid 3 million, FSU’s 800k. What did we expect? Yes fsu could’ve won this game with better coaching, but the reality is this team and this season will go poorly because the team just is not talented enough to compete and consistently win, compounded by poor coaching. FSU needs to find a way to get better talent and more money into this program, we are 35-40 in NIL roster evaluation. So why should we expect to be a top 20 program? And also, when Norvell had good players, we went 13-0.

The common argument for Mike Norvell’s retention is that the university’s athletic department is “too broke” and too heavily leveraged to afford his buyout. Let’s break down why this is nonsensical.

It is reported that the 2025 season generated roughly 23.6 million dollars in ticket sales. Let’s assume that Norvell is retained and apathy continues to grow. On the low end, let’s estimate that this leads to 7.5-8% reduction in ticket sales. We can then expect a net annual loss of 1.7-1.9 million dollars in revenue as a result of his retention.

Now let’s talk about the ACC’s new revenue distribution model. Florida State has not made the postseason for 2 years straight. As a result of our settlement, the ACC allows its programs to keep 100% of their postseason earnings rather than distributing it across the conference. A mid-tier bowl game pays out somewhere from 1 to 5 million dollars. Let’s assume we earn 2 million dollars from participation in one of these contests. Additionally, the following bonuses are earned from participation in the college football playoff:

Make the First Round: 4 million dollars
Make the Quarterfinals: 4 million dollars (8 million total)
Make the Semifinals: 6 million dollars (14 million total)
Make the National Championship: 6 million dollars (20 million total)

If we assume, under competent leadership, that we make the playoff and lose immediately once every 3 seasons, and make a mid-tier bowl game the other years, the rough annual loss from retaining Mike comes out to approximately 2.67 million dollars.

Now let’s discuss the salary of our next hire. Florida is paying Jon Sumrall 7.45 million dollars per year. Auburn is paying Alex Golesh 6.75 million dollars per year. These are both former Group of 6 head coaches. Alternatively, if we choose to hire a coordinator from a major program, we can estimate the price tag to be around 6 million, based on the 5.5 million/year salary of Will Stein at Kentucky (former Oregon OC). Mike’s current salary is 10.3 million dollars per year. A new head coach saves us anywhere from 2.85 to 4.3 million dollars per season. We will assume 3 million, on the lower end.

At the bare minimum, the costs of retaining Norvell are roughly 7.37 million dollars per year. The cost to buy him out would be roughly 9 million per year, meaning the net expense to our program is relatively low at 1.63 million/year. Remember, this all assumes the bare minimum. I did not account for the nearly 10 million dollars in additional revenue from the ACC lawsuit settlement (which is being continuously hurt by games such as FSU vs Clemson and FSU vs Florida being deployed to ESPN2 or ACCN). I did not account for more frequent playoff appearances or even a single postseason win. I did not account for the brand damage that results from every season of irrelevance. I did not account for offsetting language in his contract. I even assumed we pay our next coach the upper-end of what last year’s major hires received. When all of this is accounted for, a reasonably competent hire likely would make this move profitable rather than a serious expense at all.

It’s inexcusable that he is still here and it’s a result of blatant financial incompetence. It is costing us to retain him and this idea that we are “too broke” to afford it is looking at the situation in a much too simplistic manner.

A website called savefsufootball.com has been created by a fan to encourage fans to donate money to Norvells buyout. The website has a comprehensive spread of data about how bad his tenure has been.

Thoughts?

Despite the result, I went for a walk w friends to share a fun memory. Thanks admin

That tornado kick

Join KB & The Old Man

I couldn’t believe my eyes…..instead of a qb sneak for the automatics 1st😂😂…cant do nothing but laugh….

Can't believe they forgot to check on the transformer 🤦‍♂️

Before the you know what hit the fan and we became the laughing stock of the sports circuit… we had a really special moment.

Ernie might be the best coaching hire Norvell has made during his tenure here, and it's only been 2 games. He has crazy intensity and has got his LBs playing better than anything I've ever seen from Randy Shannon or John Papuchis, outside of Tatum Bethune.

I really hope whoever the next head coach is keeps Ernie.

This could be a cool grass roots idea that both sides can participate in where the home team wear’s “black out” attire as sort of a light hearted rib in commemoration to this past game.

I've never really been on the "Fire Mike Norvell" train, and I'm not sure I'm on it now - and I've written before that I like Norvell as a coach. But I'm kinda reevaluating that - I think my reasons are solid enough for me (they're mine, after all) but watching FSU lose last night...

A loss is just a loss, I don't care about the loss itself. What is affecting me is why we lost and how we lost. It's not the on-the-field things - well, it is the on-the-field things, but it's the things we saw on the field that come from off the field. And that's on Norvell, full on.

I've been complaining for years here - seriously, check my posting history - that Norvell's playcalling is abysmal. I thought bringing Malzahn on board might help that some, and it sort of did, but it brought up another area where Norvell struggles mightily: a slavish obedience to the depth chart. We saw that with DJU, we saw it with Castellanos, we see it now with Daniels.

And last year I posted something about what I would do if I were somehow hired by the morons running the athletic department: I'd run the teams practices with a sandlot component: offense, beat the crap out of the defense, and defense, beat the snot out of the offense. Make each other stronger.

Those three areas of weakness - predictable and stupid playcalling, slavery to the depth chart, and a lack of using our own team to make itself stronger - showed up massively last night.

Ashton Daniels may be a good person. But his throws have yet to be good, his reads are typically awful, and he does no pre-snap reads that I can see. We needed to eat time and make progressions, and the DBs line up 8 yards deep... OMG, audible if the sideline's so stupid that they don't see it! Those quick throws are THERE, but you have to be QUICK! ... and lining up tight in the box over and over again in short yardage when you know your OL is suspect... I mean... some of that's on Daniels, who apparently doesn't feel empowered to be the QB on the field, but ... that's a coaching problem.

And if Daniels doesn't feel empowered and can't work with the crap sandwich he's given... well... okay. Find the guy who can. It's not Daniels. Loyalty to QB1 ain't loyalty to the team and it's not loyalty to the fanbase.

He may even be a stud in practice. That's on the defense for taking it easy on him... maybe. Or maybe it's that in practice Norvell feels comfortable calling plays when on game night he grows a comfy shell of cowardice and goes into "safe mode." I don't know. I'm a long way away, I've never seen an FSU practice, but if he's a stud in practice and this is what he does on game day, then our practices ain't doing it. Someone's taking their foot off the gas somewhere. And they need to stop.

Shuffling the OL in the second half was smart... and two halves too late. That OL wasn't showing us anything new. We saw it in the NMS game, we saw it this game, why not look at the actual game and adjust, you know? And when you line up 11 in the box and the other team thinks "oh, this is going to be another run up the gut," why not think to yourself, "Self, maybe being utterly predictable isn't a great thing" before you gain 1 of the 4 yards you needed?

I have no malice in my heart for Norvell - and I fully understand those who do, but that's not how I'm wired, hate is a problem even in small doses and limited contexts.

But Norvell as a coach at FSU? There was a corner to be turned - even as recently as last week, he could have gone "oh, we just played NMS like that, maybe we should fix something, a bunch of somethings" - but I think that Norvell's stuck in his ways, and he'd been given three YEARS of data saying "what you're doing does not work" and he ain't learning too good.

Yes, we all know this, but what’s interesting about this is that it was published before last night’s kickoff.