Outside of those within the Florida State football program, very few people have been in Mike Norvell\u2019s corner of late.<\/p>\n
Just about everyone was when he won 19 straight games and led the Seminoles to their first ACC championship since 2014.<\/p>\n
But after losing nine straight ACC games over the last two seasons \u2014 a truly unfathomable thing to happen at FSU \u2014 just about everyone understandably hopped off the bandwagon.<\/p>\n
His players showed on Saturday that they didn\u2019t, even if they haven\u2019t always been playing in a way to make their coach look good lately.<\/p>\n
They proved their belief on the field, running away with a 42-7 beatdown of Wake Forest to snap their four-game skid that felt like it was never going to end.<\/p>\n
They also proved their belief in the postgame press conference, when all four players who spoke advocated for their head coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way he pours into us, the way he pushes us, after those losses with all the critics and stuff going on. \u2026 He\u2019s blocking out the noise and continuing to push us. With everything that\u2019s going on, we see it, and you don\u2019t think we go through stuff. He\u2019s the one that\u2019s there picking us up and making us thrive,\u201d quarterback Tommy Castellanos said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hate all this stuff, all the, \u2018Fire coach Norvell.\u2019 Nah, nah, nah. Coach Norvell has been absolutely awesome and everything and more for us. I know you guys don\u2019t see that. I know they don\u2019t see that, but everybody blames the coaches, but that\u2019s on us. Those four games have been on us. We have been put in positions to execute and win those games, and we didn\u2019t. It\u2019s not on him, that\u2019s on us, tonight we showed, and I\u2019m glad we got that done for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defensive back Earl Little Jr., who secured his fourth interception of the season in Saturday\u2019s win, made an unprompted statement to defend Norvell before answering his first question, which was totally unrelated to the head coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to give a big shoutout to Coach Norvell right now,\u201d Little said. \u201cI know a lot of people are against him right now, but that\u2019s our coach. We\u2019re going to continue to keep fighting for him. We\u2019re going to continue to keep playing for him. We\u2019re going to continue to keep pushing for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite all the disappointment of the last four games with the Virginia setback, the Miami rivalry loss, the Pitt mess and the Stanford embarrassment, FSU announced a crowd of 63,677 fans inside Doak Campbell Stadium for Saturday\u2019s win.<\/p>\n
It may not have actually been that many \u2014 teams always announce tickets distributed \u2014 but it was certainly close and far more people than many expected.<\/p>\n
Those who came largely seemed supportive of Norvell and the Seminoles.<\/p>\n
The head coach expressed gratitude towards his players for delivering the performance they did in that moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just look up in the stands, and just seeing an excited, fun celebratory Florida State crowd, I know it\u2019s been a
rough month leading up to this game, and obviously have had to face some disappointments, but like I said, our
players, they\u2019ve been putting in the work,\u201c Norvell said. \u201dThey\u2019ve really poured into each other, poured into the staff. Our staff is continuing to pour into them. Just to see that show up tonight and to have a dominant performance, one that all three phases had an opportunity to make great impact, I just loved the joy that they had.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked what those relationships with players and staff members have meant over the recent struggles and how much it meant to see his team deliver on this day, Norvell was visibly emotional.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you come up short in games, when your record is not what you want it to be, the identity is going to be put on display. I don\u2019t just say it because it sounds good; (my players are) my heart. They\u2019re family to me, and they said yes to being a part of this program, and we said yes to them,\u201d Norvell said. \u201cI think it\u2019s a team that is very capable, and just to see them continue to try to grow and to be better and to go and showcase what they\u2019re able to do, even with a lot of challenges and probably a lot of things on the outside that make it difficult in today\u2019s age of college athletics. I think you see that across all of college football.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat doesn\u2019t change how I feel about them, and it definitely is never going to change what I\u2019m going to pour into them to help them go and allow their identity to be put on display like it was tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally off the schneid and sitting at 4-4, an interesting November lies ahead for the Seminoles. They need two wins in the final four games to return to a bowl. Next week\u2019s Clemson game, once thought to be potentially the single-hardest on the 2025 schedule, now looks far more attainable with the Tigers at 3-5. Then is a matchup with Virginia Tech, which is 2-3 in ACC. After that, if FSU needs another win, it\u2019ll have to come in road games at NC State and\/or Florida.<\/p>\n
If the team is able to build off Saturday\u2019s showing and finish strong, it could be incredibly beneficial in saving the athletic department from a Norvell buyout of over $50 million in a chaotic coaching carousel where FSU won\u2019t be the best (or probably second\/third-best) on the market.<\/p>\n
The team is embracing the opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s new November. Fresh start, I told the guys today, it\u2019s a new November, 1-0. Fresh start of the season. We are going week in and week out. Continue to play great football and continue to keep fighting for the community, for the logo, for the fans, and coach.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Outside of those within the Florida State football program, very few people have been in Mike Norvell\u2019s corner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[3691,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-30351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-florida-state-football","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}