Josh Pate is searching for a silver lining with FSU football, but is struggling to find one.
The college football media personality dropped his latest podcast yesterday and chimed in on the perceived mood of Seminole fans about their football program. And he doesn't seem much optimism in Tallahassee, and that was before the announcement of Gus Malzahn's retirement and Mike Norvell taking over the offense again.
"The mood at Florida State does not feel like the mood at Ohio State or Michigan or Georgia," Pate said. "So the best way I can describe the mood of the fanbase at Florida State is that they feel like they're just kind of delaying the inevitable."
Josh Pate is not feeling optimistic about FSU football
Pate continues with his soliloquy by saying that Norvell would be gone if FSU wasn't so cheap.
"He still does miracles. By he I mean 'God', because I'm not referring to Mike Norvell," Pate added. "So short of a miracle this year the feeling, not from me...we're talking about Florida State fans...is they feel like, 'hey it's kind of obvious our administration retained Mike Norvell only because they couldn't afford or didn't want to pay the amount of money it would take to buy him out."
I mean he's not wrong, and he goes in deeper on how Norvell's hot-seat status makes it difficult to recruit and more difficult to hire quality staff. Unfortunately, Malzahn's sudden exit put Norvell in such a pickle that he had to promote Tim Harris Jr. from within and take over the offensive play calling himself.
At this point, however, we've heard it all before and the whole message is getting tiring. FSU fans are completely frustrated with the status of the football program and have Norvell and athletic director Michael Alford in their sight lines for a firing if things go south again in 2026.
It's been such a dramatic fall that it's hard to believe that just two seasons ago, the Seminoles were 13-1 and capping off a two-season run of winning 23 games. Norvell and FSU came into the 2025 season with low expectations, but the Seminoles beat Alabama in the opener and started the season 3-0...then lost seven of their final nine and went 0-fer on the road again.
"They beat Alabama to start the year and STILL didn't make a bowl game, so suffice to say that 2023 season might've been a decade ago," Pate concluded.