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What An Embarrassment for Mike Norvell & FSU

FL Cane said:
Travel back to the beginning of December 2021, and you would see two raging dumpster fires in Coral Gables and Gainesville. Miami and Florida had classes ranking in the high 60's, and both its coaches were dead men walking. Meanwhile, while Mike Norvell and FSU had finished bowless, they did score a big last-second win against Miami and had an incoming Top Ten class. If you were an FSU fan, you had to think everything was trending your way. Miami had been a disaster for the better part of fifteen years, and UF was about to hire its fourth coach since Urban Meyer. Miami was "broke" and looking like it'd be stuck with Manny Diaz for another year. UF hadn't invested in football in a while, and nobody had any clue who they'd get. What a difference two months make.

Miami finally ponys up and says enough is enough, it's time to join the big leagues, and it poaches a top ten P5 coach in the country. Now we have a top ten paid coach in the country, the biggest staff budget in the ACC, and plans to build a stadium and even new multi-story football facilities. UF hired the best G5 guy out there who I (begrudgingly) admit could work out very well for them. They're also planning a major facilities revamp. Meanwhile, FSU extended an 8-13 coach for another year in anticipation of landing a top ten class on signing day. New facilities? Forget about it, they don't even have enough money for new urinals. And early signing day? We all know how that turned out for them.

So now, look at the current landscape. Miami went from a high 60's class to a top 15 class in two months. UF Made a jump to a top 20 class with FSU right behind it. The vaunted FSU top ten class went from something to nothing very quickly. Mario Cristobal and Billy Napier put together better classes in two months than Norvell did over the two years he's been building this class. You can it to the bank that if Norvell can't beat out Napier head to head, he sure as sh*t isn't beating out Mario.

The lessons from the last two months are straightforward. Miami got deadly serious about football and is going to be putting more money into it, moving forward, than all but a few blue bloods at the top of the CFB world right now. With half a staff, we put together a better class than the full FSU staff had the opportunity to create over two years. They extended an 8-13 coach with a career-losing P5 record. They don't even have a QB that can get them bowl eligible. For the cherry on top, don't forget that they're broke and don't have a revenue stream (UHealth) or even one big donor that can put up the money we and UF are going to be putting up.

FSU right now mirrors 2007 Miami. A team five years removed from big successes and coming off a 5-7 year. Like 2007 Miami though, don't expect them to get better anytime soon. I can't imagine a more embarrassing situation for them.
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Dang man, that's a lot of hate for a downtroddened team.
 
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Cryptical Envelopment said:
Ask and ye shall receive. There are lots of bonus Gator and Nole tears in there too!

www.canesinsight.com

2022 - State of Florida Blue Chip ratio... and some interesting recruiting class comparisons and notes...

All of this is as of now obviously. Blue chip : non blue chip Miami- 5:2 Florida- 7:10 Fla. St.- 3:5 UCF- 1:14 USF- Oblivion Miami is the only class in the state with a + ratio, and it's not close. Miami has 2.5 BC's for every non-BC. Second place Florida has .7 BC per non-BC. Booyakasha...
www.canesinsight.com www.canesinsight.com
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When people talk about coach sling blade and what a great job he’s done recruiting, they should just reference this thread.
 
rsa coral gables said:
listen, i hate to be a party pooper, but all of this is meaningless since lost to them last year. i sat in that D@ck Stadium in disbelief. That isn't going away until we win again, coincidentally on my birthday.
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This is how I expect your birthday to go this fall. Enjoy the beat down we’re going to give them.

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flcanesfan said:
Dude Taggart was terrible, we were all begging for them to extend Taggart so making it a race thing is silly. That being said Norvell is also terrible so why are they keeping him? Mind blowing really
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Taggart didn't even get to finish His 2nd year, meanwhile, they extend His white successor after a 2nd straight losing season, and they threw a participation trophy parade for the team after their loss to UF. So yeah, it is a race thing, but I wouldn't expect you to understand, and that's OK.
 
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flcanesfan said:
Dude Taggart was terrible, we were all begging for them to extend Taggart so making it a race thing is silly. That being said Norvell is also terrible so why are they keeping him? Mind blowing really
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CaneSince4Ever said:
Taggart didn't even get to finish His 2nd year, meanwhile, they extend His white successor after a 2nd straight losing season, and they threw a participation trophy parade for the team after their loss to UF. So yeah, it is a race thing, but I wouldn't expect you to understand, and that's OK.
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Taggart may have been bad at FSU, but Norvell is objectively worse. Much worse. I would be embarrassed to be an FSU fan right now
 
rsa coral gables said:
listen, i hate to be a party pooper, but all of this is meaningless since we lost to them last year. i sat in that D@ck Stadium in disbelief. That isn't going away until we win again, coincidentally on my birthday.
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I was there, too. You would think they won a SB. The walk to the tailgate was brutal. In the final seconds, I remember thinking, they have no idea what is about to happen and are going to regret beating us. Yesterday’s NSD was the first sign of things to come.
 
Hurracanes said:
I was there, too. You would think they won a SB. The walk to the tailgate was brutal. In the final seconds, I remember thinking, they have no idea what is about to happen and are going to regret beating us. Yesterday’s NSD was the first sign of things to come.
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yeah, it was pretty f@cking brutal considering that we had just scored on the Knighton angle route and run and i thought it was over then.
 
Hurracanes said:
I was there, too. You would think they won a SB. The walk to the tailgate was brutal. In the final seconds, I remember thinking, they have no idea what is about to happen and are going to regret beating us. Yesterday’s NSD was the first sign of things to come.
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My fsu buddy text me the next day and was elated and gloating. I said you have no idea what you’ve done… this is a great day for Miami.

He said yeah yeah…. I said just watch and when the Mario smoke started he said please tell me you guys aren’t gonna land him lol… I said 4th and 14 thank you!
 
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fsu's in trouble. With the cfb landscape changing its becoming more important to be flush with resources in order to stay competitive. If they stay on this course they may be get to a point that they won't be able to come back from.
 
Canesrule230 said:
fsu's in trouble. With the cfb landscape changing its becoming more important to be flush with resources in order to stay competitive. If they stay on this course they may be get to a point that they won't be able to come back from.
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Well, they can always come back if someone decides to infuse them with cash. But I agree, it becomes exponentially more difficult when you are heading towards 1990 SMU-land.
 
FL Cane said:
Travel back to the beginning of December 2021, and you would see two raging dumpster fires in Coral Gables and Gainesville. Miami and Florida had classes ranking in the high 60's, and both its coaches were dead men walking. Meanwhile, while Mike Norvell and FSU had finished bowless, they did score a big last-second win against Miami and had an incoming Top Ten class. If you were an FSU fan, you had to think everything was trending your way. Miami had been a disaster for the better part of fifteen years, and UF was about to hire its fourth coach since Urban Meyer. Miami was "broke" and looking like it'd be stuck with Manny Diaz for another year. UF hadn't invested in football in a while, and nobody had any clue who they'd get. What a difference two months make.

Miami finally ponys up and says enough is enough, it's time to join the big leagues, and it poaches a top ten P5 coach in the country. Now we have a top ten paid coach in the country, the biggest staff budget in the ACC, and plans to build a stadium and even new multi-story football facilities. UF hired the best G5 guy out there who I (begrudgingly) admit could work out very well for them. They're also planning a major facilities revamp. Meanwhile, FSU extended an 8-13 coach for another year in anticipation of landing a top ten class on signing day. New facilities? Forget about it, they don't even have enough money for new urinals. And early signing day? We all know how that turned out for them.

So now, look at the current landscape. Miami went from a high 60's class to a top 15 class in two months. UF Made a jump to a top 20 class with FSU right behind it. The vaunted FSU top ten class went from something to nothing very quickly. Mario Cristobal and Billy Napier put together better classes in two months than Norvell did over the two years he's been building this class. You can it to the bank that if Norvell can't beat out Napier head to head, he sure as sh*t isn't beating out Mario.

The lessons from the last two months are straightforward. Miami got deadly serious about football and is going to be putting more money into it, moving forward, than all but a few blue bloods at the top of the CFB world right now. With half a staff, we put together a better class than the full FSU staff had the opportunity to create over two years. They extended an 8-13 coach with a career-losing P5 record. They don't even have a QB that can get them bowl eligible. For the cherry on top, don't forget that they're broke and don't have a revenue stream (UHealth) or even one big donor that can put up the money we and UF are going to be putting up.

FSU right now mirrors 2007 Miami. A team five years removed from big successes and coming off a 5-7 year. Like 2007 Miami though, don't expect them to get better anytime soon. I can't imagine a more embarrassing situation for them.
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It does make me wonder what their NFL alumni think of what has happened at FSU. It’s amazing to see, and I am not even sure if it quite mirrors Miami. On paper, Miami still had a talented roster on 2007 with over forty blue chip players. What they explicitly lacked - and what was the teams downfall in 2006 and 2007 - were wide receivers. The simple lack thereof.

I’m not certain what FSU’s blue chip level is, but it’s certainly lower than Miami’s in 2007.
 
CaneSince4Ever said:
Taggart didn't even get to finish His 2nd year, meanwhile, they extend His white successor after a 2nd straight losing season, and they threw a participation trophy parade for the team after their loss to UF. So yeah, it is a race thing, but I wouldn't expect you to understand, and that's OK.
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But were they paying a person not to coach when Willie was there? Did you consider Taggart’s buyout and budgetary concerns in you “it’s racist” analysis? It never that straight forward.
 
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flcanesfan said:
Dude Taggart was terrible, we were all begging for them to extend Taggart so making it a race thing is silly. That being said Norvell is also terrible so why are they keeping him? Mind blowing really
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Because they can't afford to pay another buyout for 20 years. It's a bad, bad situation for them.
 
FSU fans will never admit it (nor can most of them see through their own delusion) but it's a sign of things to come that Norvell couldn't take advantage of Miami and UF's failures this year. Average recruiting and relying on the transfer portal isn't the way to sustain success, sound familiar?

Norvell is going on year 3 and it will be considered a huge accomplishment to make a bowl game. At FSU. Think about that.
 
Unfortunately I live in Tallahassee and am a lot closer to this program than I want to be, but here are some facts:

1. Willie was a complete and abject failure, yes, much worse than Norvell.

2. His accelerated dismissal was absolutely due to #1, but the color of his skin did not help him AT ALL. Tallahassee is VERY much "in the South", and let's just say if his name was William Taggart and he looked like a frat boy, he'd have almost definitely survived at least through season 2. There were people looking to get rid of him almost before he started. I was at the opening game vs VT, and the place was electric pre-game, but as soon as the game started I was honestly shocked to see the immediate vitriol towards Willie. I didn't hear anything overtly racist, but it was NOT the environment you'd expect for a new coach in his first game. Don't believe me if you'd like, but you'd be completely wrong. He had a very, very small safety net just because of how he looked.

3. They extended Mike because he comes off as competent when he speaks, runs a practice, etc. He's a smart guy and he's been a good HC, so when you look at the surface, he looks like he knows what he's doing. Also, they can pass off his shortcomings thus far as having to clean up the previous guy's mess. But more importantly, they know they're tied to him. Nothing is impossible, but it would be INSANELY difficult to fire him right now, because they're paying Willie Taggart $3.5M per year through 2024 to not coach the team, and they're paying Norvell a little more than that to actually coach at FSU. They simply cannot afford to fire him, pay Willie's buyout, pay Norvell's buyout, and buyout another coach from another school, and pay him $4+ million a year. Again, if something insane happened and Mike went 2-10 this year, people may get so fed-up that they'd beg on street corners and come up with this cash, but it's almost literally impossible. They don't have the money to do all that. So Mike will be the guy at least until Willie's buyout is over.

4. There was a LOT of support for Norvell in the immediate wake of the Miami win. But it was very short-sighted. They had been smacked by us 4 years in a row, and it was almost like a monkey off their back situation in the days after that game. But of course, they quickly came back to reality, and since then squeaked out a win vs a bad BC team, and then lost to a coach-less and hopeless gator team, didn't make a bowl, lost Hunter, got smoked on the trail by their rivals with new coaches, and things are back to "Oh no, we suck again!" status.

5. This year is absolutely gigantic for Norvell, obviously. As I mentioned, I think he has a very small chance to be fired, but there is still some pockets of the fanbase who think he is the right man for the job, the program is progressing, etc. If they have a bad season again, he will have zero support and the program will be in complete shambles, even worse than it is now. He absolutely must win at least 8 and probably 9 games for there to be any momentum at all around the program. 6-6 or 7-5 type seasons won't get him fired, for the reasons I stated above, but if that happens, it will be much like Willie's years when NOBODY will go to the games, support the program, donations will be down, etc. They excused Year 1 because of Covid and Willie's mess. They excused Year 2 because he's still getting his guys, but they did look better than they did in 2020, even though they went 5-7 and lost to a High School team. They did show improvement in a lot of areas (although how could you not after losing 52-10 to Manny Diaz, among several other embarrassments). But there are no more excuses. He has to win this year or the entire fanbase will be at his throat, and with no money to get rid of him, the program will be too toxic to do anything but drown.
 
Canes Legacy said:
FSU fans will never admit it (nor can most of them see through their own delusion) but it's a sign of things to come that Norvell couldn't take advantage of Miami and UF's failures this year. Average recruiting and relying on the transfer portal isn't the way to sustain success, sound familiar?

Norvell is going on year 3 and it will be considered a huge accomplishment to make a bowl game. At FSU. Think about that.
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I love it.
 
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