FSU football allowed media to observe portions of its Tour of Duty workout Thursday morning. Here are some observations from the workout.
FSU football continues to put in work as they get closer to spring practice scheduled to begin March 7th.
Mike Norvell allowed the media to observe “Tour of Duty” Thursday morning, his version of FSU’s old school “mat drills” that took place while Bobby Bowden was head coach.
Norvell got exposed to the drills by Todd Graham who he coached with at Tulsa and Arizona State.
Graham observed the drills when he visited Tallahassee for a week when Bobby Bowden was head coach.
Norvell implemented his version of the drills while head coach at Memphis and now with FSU football where it originated.
It’s something former players have stated were a staple in helping the Noles become one of the best programs in the nation.
The drills are a test of physical and mental fortitude that simulate physical pain and emotions the players will experience in actual games. If they aren’t able to handle the Tour of Duty there’s a good chance they are not going to be able to handle what happens in actual games.
Here are a couple of observations from the workout.
Efficient Use of Time
The workout was broken up into four stations and one of the first things I noticed was how efficient and organized everything was.
There was no wasted time as players were going at all four stations at the same time. The drills allowed little time for players to rest as they were in constant motion.
By the time they were completing a rep on the mat and got back to the line it was almost their turn to get another rep in at that station.
The drills taking place while others were on the mats were constant motion. One drill observed off to the side was players throwing what looked like a 20-pound medicine ball against the wall.
Other players were riding airdyne bikes while others were doing high knees while walking with resistance bands.
One of the common narratives with the old staff was how much time was wasted at practice and how unorganized things were. The Tour of Duty workout is structured extremely well and is likely means practices will be designed to maximize time for players to get the most reps possible.
Evaluation and Accountability
I gave some thoughts about Mike Norvell’s post-workout interview Thursday. The big takeaway was his talk about evaluating and holding players accountable.
Some players were observed wearing orange jersey’s. I haven’t been able to 100 percent confirm, but I’d assume a player wearing orange isn’t a good thing since others were in what looked like game jerseys.
The jersey can change each workout based on evaluations once the film is evaluated.
Yes, the workouts are filmed and evaluated like game footage. The old staff would talk about holding players accountable, but this is evidence of action taking place each day.
Some people may see it as a bad thing some of the upperclassmen were in orange jerseys. It is, and then it’s not. It’s showing everyone that no one is above getting called out for not having a good workout/practice.
Everyone has a bad day, so I wouldn’t put too much stock into who has on an orange jersey on any given day. The worry should come if the same players have to wear the orange jersey each day. That means they are not embracing the standard and putting in the necessary work to get out of the orange jersey.
Final Thoughts
It’s early, and spring practice is weeks away, but I’m already seeing how different Mike Norvell is in terms of accessing and evaluating everything.
This portends to good things in the future as players are going to be forced to either buy-in or check out.
I wrote how Norvell had one done a great job of recruiting the CURRENT players to buy-in to his vision since only a handful had hit the transfer portal.
However, this level of evaluation and holding people accountable is bound to separate the fake from the real. That’s what it’s designed to do.
It reminds me of my freshman year in high school as I was trying out for the varsity baseball team. On the first day of the try out, my coach told us we didn’t need our gloves or bats. He made us run laps around the field, and I stopped counting at 21 laps which is over five miles.
We had 38 players to tryout for the team that day, and 27 returned for the second day of tryouts.
If we see players hitting the transfer portal between now and the end of spring, it’s a good thing. It means they don’t want to be here anymore and shouldn’t be if they aren’t dedicated to upholding the standard at FSU football.