FSU football: Mike Norvell shoots straight about emerging leaders on team

FSU football coach Mike Norvell spoke after opening the Tour of Duty workout up to media. He’s striking the right tone for where this team is.

FSU football head coach Mike Norvell is an intense no-nonsense type of guy it seems and that was never more apparent than his interview Thursday morning after the team’s Tour of Duty workout.

The workout for open to the media for the first time and gave a glimpse into what the players have been enduring the past few weeks.

Ironically, Norvell’s version of the Tour of Duty began at FSU when his former coach came to Tallahassee to observe what Bobby Bowden was doing when FSU was on top of the college football landscape.

“That’s where you get the edge….that’s where the mindset and approach come,” said Norvell. The most telling answer was how Mike Novell was asked about which players are beginning to emerge as leaders.

I loved how Mike Norvell handled that question and had already intimated he wasn’t happy with the team’s response that morning.

He didn’t name a single player in terms of who was emerging as leaders. It was about understanding the expectations, embracing them and putting in the work to reach them every single day.

It’s a theme he’s stuck with since his introductory press conference. He said leadership is going to occur when the words equal the action and begin with him filtering down through the coaches and the players.

There is progress being made and players and coaches are evaluated every day by watching film of the workouts. Players are wearing different color jerseys based on the daily evaluations of who’s meeting the standard and who’s not.

Thoughts

It’s all about the tone and demeanor with Mike Norvell. It’s something Jimbo Fisher would express when he was pleased or disappointed with how practice went.

His demeanor is serious and not some we didn’t practice great today but we’ll get there type of tone. It’s we didn’t practice up to the standard today and they are going to be held accountable.

It appears Mike Norvell isn’t here to be friends. He’s here to develop the mindset of what it takes to play winning football.