TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Florida State fired coach Mike Norvell on Sunday, a move will cost the school a buyout of roughly $50 million that is among the largest in college football history.<\/p>\n
The firing came a day after a home loss to Clemson.<\/p>\n
Norvell won 19 straight games from the middle of the 2022 season through an ACC title in December 2023. But the Seminoles went 10-22 since the start of the 2024 season, and Norvell\u2019s hand-picked quarterbacks \u2014 DJ Uiagalelei, Tommy Castellanos and Ashton Daniels \u2014 all struggled with accuracy.<\/p>\n
Florida State is 1-5 vs. Power 4 programs this fall, including a 36-24 loss to Clemson on Saturday in which the Seminoles were a five-point favorite. The Seminoles have not defeated one of their main three rivals (Miami, Florida or Clemson) since the 2023 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday is about a new beginning for Florida State and doing everything we can to support student athletes that we have here and taking the next step forward in what we\u2019re doing,\u201d Florida State President Richard McCullough said at an evening news conference.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the afternoon, McCullough issued a statement saying that Norvell had been dismissed and thanked him \u201cfor his commitment and service to Florida State and wish him and his family the very best.”<\/p>\n
McCullough announced Rick Stockstill would be the interim head coach. Stockstill has been Florida State’s director of scouting (offense). He previously was the head coach at Middle Tennessee from 2006-23, and Stockstill was a Florida State quarterback from 1977-81.<\/p>\n
While Stockstill oversees the team for the next four regular-season games, McCullough hired Daniel Parker of Parker & Associates to lead a pair of concurrent searches: football coach and athletic director. McCullough dismissed athletic director Michael Alford on Sept. 14.<\/p>\n
Now Parker will also be leading the search for a football coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a big business decision. It\u2019s the future, the fate of Florida State football,\u201d McCullough said. \u201cIt\u2019s the legacy that we have at Florida State and trying to get it right. That demands excellence on the field. And a trajectory going in the right direction. I\u2019m just not seeing that trajectory (with Norvell). Yesterday was a bit of a defining moment for me going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norvell went 41-39 in his six-plus seasons in Tallahassee, which also included a stunning loss to then-FCS Jacksonville State in 2021 and Memphis in 2024 in guarantee games. Norvell went just 24-30 in ACC games since 2020. His team\u2019s incredible run three years ago to a 13-0 record \u2014 only to be left out of the College Football Playoff<\/a> \u2014 seems long ago now.<\/p>\n His buyout is approximately $47 million, which is 85% of his remaining salary through the end of Norvell\u2019s contract through the 2031 season. His contract does include offset language that would mitigate some of the buyout if he lands another job. Norvell was scheduled to make $10.3 million in 2026. Buying out his assistants would push the buyout far past $50 million.<\/p>\n Interim athletic director Bruce Warwick said Norvell was informed of the decision and called his wife, Maria. He then went into a regularly scheduled team meeting and talked to the Seminoles.<\/p>\n Warwick says Norvell \u201cwas very passionate, he was very emotional.\u201d He relayed that Norvell wants to see the players find success and that he will be following them.<\/p>\n Florida State (3-5, 1-4) plays at Boston College (4-4, 2-3) on Saturday.<\/p>\n AP Sports Writer Mark Long contributed to this report.<\/p>\n Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here<\/a>, visit the Top 25 here<\/a> and see AP\u2019s full college football coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n \n Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.\n <\/p>\n \n Error! There was an error processing your request.\n <\/p>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Florida State fired coach Mike Norvell on Sunday, a move will cost the school…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[111,143,28,30,29,173246,57,4348,110,10921],"class_list":["post-444736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-college-sports","tag-college-football","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-florida-state-norvell-fired","tag-football","tag-schools","tag-sports","tag-sports-transactions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444736","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=444736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}