One disastrous season knocked Mike Norvell off several top 25 coaches list?

FSU football head coach Mike Norvell was the talk of the town a year ago. He had flirted with leaving FSU for the Alabama job months after going 13-0 in the regular season and winning FSU's first ACC Title in a decade.

That combination of things helped make him one of the highest-paid coaches nationally with a major contract extension, and he was on every top coaching list going into the 2024 season with FSU as the No. 10 team in the preseason.

Fast forward three months later, and FSU was 2-10, and Norvell likely would have been fired if not for a massive buyout with the new extension.

Norvell fired both coordinators and hired two veteran guys with proven track records. Despite the 2-10 record, FSU added talented players from the high school ranks and the transfer portal. They will be among the most talented teams in the ACC going into the 2025 season.

However, Mike Norvell isn't listed among the top 25 coaches nationally on at least two lists.

I have no qualms with most of these lists, though why guys continue to overrate Brian Kelly is beyond me. The rationale for some of the coaches by these guys makes ZERO sense. Deion Sanders isn't a top 10 coach.

He's not an elite recruiter (which is why one guy put him in there), is only 13-12 at the Power 4 level, and didn't beat a ranked team in 2024.

I love Kenny Dillingham, but he's 14-12, 9-9 in the Big 12 over the past two years. He had a great 2024 season, but ASU was 3-9 in 2023. That's a great improvement, but it might be too early to thrust him into a top-25 conversation, though I'd put him higher than Deion.

We're putting Sherrone Moore into a top 25 list with one 8-5 season as head coach? Are we putting Lincoln Riley on these lists when he has gotten progressively worse in the last three years and hasn't won anything? He went from 11-2, 8-5, to 7-6.

LANCE LEOPOLD is in the top 20 on both lists? He's 22-28 as a head coach in the past four years and three losing seasons out of those four. I get it, he's coaching at Kansas, but if he was that great, schools with better pedigree would come calling.

Mario Cristobal can't even make the ACC Championship game and is only 22-16 and 12-12 in the ACC the last three years.

I'm an FSU guy and Mike Norvell going 2-10 falls SQUARELY on him. However, are we ignoring the 23-3 regular season run in 2022-23 and a conference championship? I wouldn't put Norvell in the top 10 after last season, but he's most definitely a better coach than several guys listed on both lists.

The good news is he has a chance to prove it in 2025.