Chop Chat
Fansided

FSU football: Filling needs and player development keys to Nole revival

By Kelvin Hunt

TALLAHASSEE, FL - AUGUST 11: Head coach Mike Norvell of the Florida State Seminoles speaks during a collegiate athletics roundtable about fall sports at the Albert J. Dunlap Athletic Training Facility on the campus of Florida State University on August 11, 2020 in Tallahassee, Florida. (Photo by Don Juan Moore/Getty Images)
TALLAHASSEE, FL - AUGUST 11: Head coach Mike Norvell of the Florida State Seminoles speaks during a collegiate athletics roundtable about fall sports at the Albert J. Dunlap Athletic Training Facility on the campus of Florida State University on August 11, 2020 in Tallahassee, Florida. (Photo by Don Juan Moore/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
1 of 5
Next

FSU football has a long road ahead to get back to its winning ways.

Talking with FSU football fans in real life and on social media is always fun, but it can be exhausting at the same time. There are FSU football fans that still have a love for Jimbo Fisher, others believe Willie Taggart was fired too quickly, and the program has gotten worse under Mike Norvell.

I can assure you the program was already falling off under Jimbo Fisher, and Willie Taggart made the program even worse after 21 games.

Here we are with a head coach that had no Power Five experience before arriving in Tallahassee. I do believe Mike Norvell can get things turned around, but it’ll likely take a bit longer than most FSU football care to think about.

Some fans don’t believe he’s the guy because they don’t believe he’s a great recruiter. I find that hard to assess because he’s dealing with conditions no other FSU football coach has ever had to deal with regarding a pandemic like COVID-19.

Recruits can’t visit the campus for practice or interact with coaches on campus. The coaches can’t go to the high schools to evaluate in person, so it’s not like it’s a level playing field compared to what Fisher and Taggart had access to.

However, at the end of the day, the coaching staff still has to recruit regardless of the obstacles. Some fans believe Mike Norvell has to recruit at an elite level rankings wise to get off of the bottom of this hole.

That’s not true, and truth be told, no coach isn’t going to entice large amounts of elite recruits to join a program where FSU is at the moment.

The key to recruiting for Mike Norvell will be feeling the needs on the roster and developing the players that choose to become Seminoles.

After all, the lack of the latter is why the majority of those blue-chip players that were on the roster the last few years couldn’t stop the fall into oblivion.

Let’s look at one case study of a program turning things around without recruiting at an elite level.

Home/FSU Football