Mike Norvell's ugly new FSU reality on full display in ACC preseason media poll ranking

This time last year, coming off a disastrous two-win season, Florida State still slotted in at No. 7 in the 2025 preseason ACC media poll. That’s not overwhelming praise, but it’s the type of respect and benefit of the doubt that the program has earned. After a five-win year in 2025, that’s all spent. 

In the 2026 ACC preseason media poll, released on Tuesday evening, Florida State slotted in at No. 11, one spot behind Duke and Florida State alumnus Manny Diaz, and narrowly ahead of Cal. That’s the company the Seminoles suddenly keep and the new reality Norvell has created for the program. 

FSU at No. 11 in the preseason ACC media poll adds to the case that Norvell has to go

Kids these days love to throw around the word ‘aura.’ At least, I think so. Maybe that was a few years ago, and I’m late to the party. But either way, Florida State used to have aura. The War Chant, Chief Osceola, and Renegade used to strike fear in the rest of the ACC, even when the Seminoles didn’t have their best team or weren’t coming off the best year. 

Now, FSU is preseason No. 11 in an 18-team ACC. A league that just a few years ago it sued to try to leave because it viewed itself as superior.

Over the last six years, even with a 13-0 ACC title-winning season (which, as we well know, ended with an Orange Bowl debacle), Norvell has spent all that reputational capital. Ranking No. 11 in the preseason poll proves that unequivocally, especially because on paper, there’s probably more to like about this year’s team than last. 

During Bobby Bowden’s 34-year tenure, he never had a seven-loss season. Before Willie Taggart’s failed 2018 campaign, FSU hadn’t lost seven games since Darrell Mudra went 3-8 in 1975. Norvell, since taking over, has lost seven games in a season three times, including the last two. Plus, in the truncated 2020 season, he went 3-6. 

There are plenty of reasons for Florida State’s falloff. It’s not just Norvell. Athletic director Michael Alford absolutely shares in the blame for how disastrously he handled the advent of the NIL era, constantly making the wrong bets at the wrong time. But Norvell hasn’t overcome those mistakes; he’s compounded them with a lack of recruiting fervor that has infected the entire program since he took over. 

Now, we’re here. Where Florida State, two years after winning the ACC with an undefeated regular season and getting snubbed for the College Football Playoff, is No. 11 in the preseason ACC media poll. No matter the circumstances, that’s unacceptable, and it might be too deep a hole for Norvell to dig himself out of. 

It’s hard to imagine that “aura” and that respect being restored under the current coaching staff. Florida State has the top four teams and six of the top seven in the preseason poll on its schedule, so it could earn it back on the field. But is anybody other than the three media members who voted FSU first in the conference delusional enough to believe the Noles are going to run that gauntlet?

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