On the scoreboard, which was finally operational at Doak Campbell Stadium by the time Florida State’s Week 1 clash with SMU went final after midnight in Tallahassee, it looked like another devastating one-score loss for head coach Mike Norvell and the Seminoles. On the field, however, it wasn’t nearly that close.
Ultimately, the turnover margin was +3 in Florida State’s favor after a giveaway on a hook-and-ladder to end the game, but functionally, it was +4 in favor of the Seminoles. Yet, Florida State managed just seven points off turnovers, was outgained 585-324, and, by Bill Connelly’s SP+ postgame win expectancy, the Seminoles had just a 1.4% chance of winning the game.
Statistically, it’s nearly impossible that the final score was as close as it was. Fans who sat through the power outage delay and booed the home team in the fourth quarter as it trailed by just three understood how poorly Florida State played, and every statistical model proves it. So nobody should be fooled into thinking that Monday night was a step in the right direction for a head coach who is hanging by a thread.
Mike Norvell should be judged by the performance, not the final score
Any competent team with a competent head coach finds a way to accept the gift that SMU gave it on Monday night and wins that football game. The final turnover-luck margin was 12.8 points, according to GameOnPaper, but was over 15 before the relatively meaningless turnover on the final play.
A promising drive early in the game ended with an SMU fumble deep in Seminoles territory. Later, an SMU receiver ran the wrong route in the end zone, leaving Kevin Jennings to loft the ball right into the arms of Nehemiah Chandler. SMU averaged 51.30 yards per drive and gained 73% of the available yardage. FSU’s defense had an 18% stop rate. For the Mustangs to finish the game with just 27 points is a borderline statistical anomaly.
With an SMU muffed punt and a missed field goal from the Mustangs, FSU even had 9.80 special teams EPA to SMU’s -2.66. The penalty EPA favored SMU by over a touchdown as well. Everything broke right for the Seminoles, and they played so poorly on a down-to-down basis that their postgame win expectancy was 1.4%. That’s more embarrassing than if they had just been blown out.
Frankly, the margin probably doesn’t matter. Florida State is a program with championship expectations, so whether it was by three or by 33, a loss is a loss. And after back-to-back losing seasons, Norvell can’t afford to take many more before the administration in Tallahassee and the program’s donor base decide to swallow the poison pill that is his near-$50 million buyout.
Whatever moral victory could be taken from keeping a stand-alone Labor Day ACC game close against a program you voted to keep out of the ACC for fear of lowering the standard, after your newly renovated stadium could barely host the game at all, is likely irrelevant to the pertinent decision-makers who have seemingly already made up their minds on Norvell’s future. But it shouldn’t, and probably won’t, sway any public opinion either.
Sometimes the final score lies, and in this case, it wasn’t anywhere close to an accurate representation of the game played late Monday night in a dimly lit Doak Campbell Stadium.
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