FSU football: 3 questions about prospective coaching hire Mike Norvell
By Kelvin Hunt
Discipline
One of the biggest questions is how disciplined are Mike Norvell’s teams? A lot of folk will look at the sheer number of penalties and surmise a team is undisciplined if the total is high.
It’s true in some cases and in others it’s a non-factor. For instance, high penalties was a direct correlation from being undisciplined while Willie Taggart was head coach.
Florida State Seminoles Football
The penalties were usually procedural(not lining up correctly), off-sides, false starts or dumb personal fouls for late hits out-of-bounds, etc.
FSU football was tied for No. 118 in the nation for penalties in 2018 with 110. They have 111 penalties through 12 games in 2019 which is good for No. 126 in the nation.
Usually highly penalized teams are often aggressive on defense which is offset by splash plays/tackles for loss. For instance, the 2016 FSU team had 100 penalties on the season but had 95 tackles for loss and 51 sacks.
The 2019 version of FSU has 111 penalties with 69 tackles for loss and 29 sacks.
Memphis has averaged 96 penalties per season under Mike Norvell, but his defenses have averaged 29 sacks and 89 tackles for loss during his time at head coach.
His teams have also won a ton of games and research has proven highly penalized teams doesn’t necessarily translate to losses. It just depends on what type of penalties they are and when they happen the most consistently.
If they are mostly on the offensive side of the ball forcing an offense to overcome getting behind the sticks all the time. That’s worse than say random pass interference calls on a defensive back or jumping offsides on third and long trying to time the hike to get a QB sack.
So I’d be willing to say Norvell’s teams aren’t necessarily undisciplined because they’ve been penalized a bit during his tenure. It certainly hasn’t translated to a ton of losses as he boasts a 71 percent winning percentage (37-15) as head coach at Memphis.