FSU football head coach Mike Norvell has already done a lot of great things in his first month in Tallahassee. However, he could learn a lot from Mack Brown.
FSU football head coach Mike Norvell is way ahead of the curve compared to his predecessor.
However, FSU is coming off an 18-20 record over the last three seasons and there are questions about if the Noles can return back to prominence.
The 2017 season can be attributed to losing an experienced QB in game one and having to play a true freshman that didn’t early enroll against one of the toughest schedules in college football.
The last two seasons have been a microcosm of poor personnel decisions on and off the field coupled with lack of organization across the board.
Florida State Seminoles Football
How does Mike Norvell fix it? Well, all he has to do is look at Mack Brown at UNC who inherited an even worse program than the Noles.
In fact, UNC was 13-23 the three previous years prior to Mack Brown coming back to the Tarheels in 2019.
They were 2-9 the year prior to him arriving and they just finished the 2019 season with a 7-6 record with a huge win in their bowl game while being competitive in every loss.
So rest assured Nole fans. A turnaround can be done and in quick order with the right components. The good news is there’s a lot of talent remaining in Tallahassee, much more than what’s at North Carolina and the Noles won six games.
Here’s three things Mike Norvell can learn from how Mack Brown did it.
Early Success
One of the first things Mack Brown did after getting hired was putting a ton of focus on getting former FSU commit and four-star quarterback Sam Howell to stay home and attend UNC.
Of course, Howell officially ‘flipped’ to North Carolina from FSU at his high school ceremony during the Early Signing Period.
FSU folk in the know knew that was likely with him being from North Carolina, but of course casual fans and media looked upon the news like a huge win. It was, but it was more so negligence of the FSU staff than anything but I digress.
Howell went on to have an amazing season as a true freshman that early enrolled. The recruiting win gave Brown some instant validation on the recruiting trail as he had been out of coaching for quite a while. UNC managed to finish with the No. 30 ranked recruiting class for 2019.
The good news for FSU football fans is Mike Norvell did almost exactly the same thing by signing Tate Rodemaker AND Chubba Purdy within 10 day of getting hired at FSU while getting all but one of the commits for 2020 to sign early.
One of those quarterbacks will early enroll just as Sam Howell did at UNC.
That recruiting success has FSU ranked No. 21 at the moment and they’ll be looking to address needs via the transfer portal and JUCO ranks.
Hired Competent Coaches
Mack Brown went out and hired Phil Longo as his offensive coordinator and Jay Bateman as his defensive coordinator.
Longo had previous success at Ole Miss and Sam Houston State and Bateman had previous success at Army and Ball State.
Both were thought to be good hires and proved to be so even though Brown no prior relationships with either guy.
However, Brown did include coaches he’s had previous success with. He hired his former offensive line coach/recruiting coordinator Stacy Searels who was with him at Texas.
He hired Dre Bly as his defensive backs coach who played for him in his first tenure at UNC. Brown also hired Tim Brewster who coached for him at both Texas and North Carolina in Brown’s first tenure there.
Mike Norvell has followed a similar path as both his coordinators at FSU worked for him at Memphis. Norvell is his own offensive coordinator really, but defensive coordinator Adam Fuller has had success prior the success achieved while at Memphis.
Norvell has added coaches that have had success elsewhere from which he had no connections with.
He also retained two respected coaches in Odell Haggins and Ron Dugans who were already at FSU from the previous staff.
Accountability
Here’s the most important part and it’s a word we heard a lot from the last regime. Who is going to hold people accountable?
It’s something we haven’t had time to see yet from Norvell since he’s only been at FSU like 27 days which includes Christmas!
Accountability, coupled with good coaches and buy-in are how UNC went from two wins to seven wins in one season. I watched a number of North Carolina games this year ( I live 40 minutes from Chapel Hill) and I saw a team that played for each other.
I saw a team that played for and trusted their coaches, and I saw a team although not as talented easily could have won eight games. They lost two games in overtime and another against No. 1 Clemson that they should have won.
Mike Norvell has already shown he’s reached the players as a number of players who were not expected to return in 2020 have already announced they plan to do so.
Now it’s about getting them to buy-in to his full vision and putting in the work in strength and conditioning. They need to put in the work in the film room.
Credit has to go to Willie Taggart as he did clean up the academic side of things as players were going to class and doing reasonably well.
Final Thoughts
I hate this time of year because fans will say things like it doesn’t matter what he does until he wins some games on the field.
Well, obviously we know that and games can’t be played until they come up on the schedule. However, all we can do is point out things that have proven to work and if he’s doing those things.
So far it looks as though Mike Norvell is on the right track. He’s wasted no time in assembling what looks like a competent coaching staff.
He’s won some early recruiting battles to establish some momentum to finish strong. Now it’s just finishing up strong on National Signing Day and addressing immediate needs on the roster while getting things going with off-season strength and conditioning.
The Noles have a lot of work to do in that area as it hasn’t really been addressed properly since the 2013 season.
If there’s buy-in the spring and some roster pieces fall into place like quarterback and the offensive line?
I would not be surprised to see Mike Norvell achieve similar success as Mack Brown because he’s simply inheriting more talent to begin with.