Outside of the early Jimbo years from his time as OC-2015 FSU has pretty much always had mediocre to down right bad Oline play since 2006. I go back to then because I remember FSU’s biggest issue was outside of mediocre QB play before Ponder they couldn’t run the ball efficiently despite having talented backs. Even in the 22-23 seasons I would call them average? Benson & Travis made a lot of plays out of nothing, and I honestly think the Oline played a big part in the 23 team having a lot of name the score blowouts.

My question is simply why doesn’t FSU get dominant offensive lines? Is it simply the program doesn’t emphasize it, as I mentioned this problem has spanned 4 coaches now. Is it coaching? I see our peers in the region UGA, Bama, our rivals even when they’re bat they can at least keep the QB standing and have a decent run game.

As the Pete Thamel story continues to do the rounds, I decided to see what FSU actually obligations are to the assistant coaching staff. This is a 20 minute project not a deep dive into the contract language so details are missed, offsets are 100% missed, and I am making the huge assumption that 100% of all future money is owed.

I could not find current information for TE/Deputy HC Chris Thomsen or Odell Haggins.

Coaches whose contracts end at the end of this season so no buyout is needed.

OC/WR Tim Harris

S Evan Cooper

OL Herb Hand

DL Terrance Knighton

LB Ernie Sims

QB Austin Tucker

GA/ Assistant positional coaches do not have formal contracts and this would include Gabe Fertitta.

Coaches contracted through the end of the 2027 football season

DC Tony White, 2027 contract value 1.7 million

CB Blue Adams, 2027 contract value 500k

RB Kam Martin, 2027 contract value 450k

ST Adam Scheier, 2027 contract value 350,000

DE Nick Williams, 2027 contract Value 525,000

No assistant coach is contracted past the 2027 season.

Front office

No contract information for acting AD Bruce Warwick

GM John Garret is contracted through the 2028 season and is owed 1,225,000 after this season.

Player acquisition Taylor Edwards is through 2027 and owed 450k

Former AD Mike Alford has 1.45 million 2.9 million left after this academic year.

Again with the assumption there is a 100% buyout no offset, that is 3.525 million dollars to buyout the coaching staff.

If you want to include front office and Alford's, the total is 8 million. I have no idea where Pete Thamel pulled this 20 million dollars to fire the staff from.

If Norvell was fired last year, it would have cost around 6.6 million.

Edit to add. There is a lot of confusion about Norvell's buyout. It started this year at 51 million dollars. It goes down every paycheck, there is no cliff. On Sunday his buyout will be approx 45 million dollars. At the end of the season it will be 42.5 million. This is paid out monthly until Dec 2031.

It never goes 51 million if fired before the Florida game and then down to 42.5 million fired the day after the ACC championship game.

The consensus seems to be that FSU punted on this season ,(not investing in the roster, lowballing better qb prospects and signing Ashton Daniels, not hiring a new OC after Gus , etc). Now the administration has made it clear they want to keep Mike because of finances.

If that were always the case, then why approach this year the way they did? If Alford was the problem, and he was handicapping the team with his approach to paying players, why was he fired mid-season rather than before?

It'd be local to Tallahassee, but they could do masks of Mike Norvell, instead of Mike Myers, and sell like hotcakes. It'd be a scary Halloween - every FSU fan would recoil in terror, "no, not you, your bag of candy's gonna break and all my lights are gonna explode" - but Spirit could fund St Jude's quite a bit.

(And now that I think of it, every house that was visited with a Norvell mask would somehow run for 200 yards over their normal average. Just think of it: a kid wearing a Norvell mask walks by a broken-down car, and all of a sudden it springs to life and rolls 300 yards uphill, until the kid gets out of range and it breaks down again, popping all four tires in the process. Man, being an FSU fan right now is fun.)

This is golden

How ? Why? When? wtf

We got demoted to the American Conference.

Relegated to the American: Florida State (20). Which would be hilarious on so many levels. The Seminoles have been trying by any means possible to prove themselves to the SEC and Big Ten—except via actually winning football games.

ACC records from 2024 through Week 6 of ’26

1. SMU 16–3
   
2. Miami 15–4
   
3. Clemson 13–6
   4t. Duke 12–6
   4t. Georgia Tech 12–6
   
4. Virginia 12–7
   
5. Pittsburgh 11–8
   
6. Louisville 11–9
   
7. Wake Forest 9–11
   10t. California 8–11
   10t. North Carolina State 8–11
   
8. Virginia Tech 7–12
   
9. North Carolina 6–12
   
10. Syracuse 6–13
    
11. Stanford 6–14
    
12. Boston College 5–13
    
13. Florida State 4–15

Does anyone actually have any intrigue or care about this week in the slightest? I can’t even find it in my soul to truly have any desire to win this game. I’m not necessarily cheering for us to lose, but after over a year of begging on our hands and knees for this moron to get fired, this really seems like our only shot. A 50 point blowout loss to a rival followed by a bye week… God I hate Miami and would love to ruin their season but who can actually stomach seeing Mike and Tony White’s stupid faces on the sideline anymore? I have zero excitement or interest in Saturday whatsoever. The only thing happening in FSU athletics that I’m actually interested in is a basketball exhibition versus Auburn… on Miami week.

EssentiallySports says FSU is $430m in debt, and doesn't have a lot of flexibility to make a $100M total investment to fire Norvell and replace him: this "explains the hesitancy" to eject him, which makes sense to me, even though I find it unpleasant: Norvell's cooked, and White's way cooked, and so is the top of the roster.

To me, though, this is Norvell's chance. None of this season matters any more: why not throw out the NIL data, just select anyone who's willing to show up on the field? Screw how well they do in practice, forget the NIL payouts, forget "who shows up best in the charts," just if someone's willing to play and wants to play with heart, out they go, let's get some playing time, you know?

We're going to lose anyway - our five- and four- and three-stars are going through the motions. They're getting paid. Their college career is an audition for the NFL, at this point, and little else... but if they're not willing to do what they're being paid for, that's part of their audition, too, and that's on them to fix, not Norvell. They're getting paid. He doesn't owe them.

So if these players getting paid are going to not bother... why should we? Sure, we might end up with Kromah and Wisner of the NIL players on the field, maybe the OL (they seem to be trying, they're just not very good), and sure, we might be looking at WR5 and QB3... but ... in the end, we're ALREADY losing, why not put players on the field who'll actually put in the effort on game day?

I'm sick of watching our paid players go through the motions, like "I was in place to block, how was I supposed to know I was actually supposed to block" and utterly confused why we call deep passes when our QB1 can't actually throw deep in timely fashion. Sure, he's inexpensive compared to the top shelf QBs... but why put him on the field if he's not going to fix what everyone sees? I mean, if we can see it, so can our opponents?

Just utterly confused right now what FSU is doing.

You see stuff like this all throughout college football: programs spend big money to fire someone and their entire staff, then hire a brand-new staff. This happens, and the new staff doesn’t do any better than the previous one while they are paying essentially two coaching staffs for the next five years and NIL. That’s the nightmare scenario: you fire Mike and still end up being 6–6 or 7–5 next year.

I’m sure you guys are all wondering the answer so I’ll save you the click.

No. No, we’re not.

Noles fan from CT. Gonna be heading up to Boston College for the game on 11/7. Anyone going to be there?