FSU football’s Mike Norvell is ‘shocked’ by the struggles this season and promises changes

Even Mike Norvell is shocked at the way Florida State Football season is over.

The Seminoles head coach said he was surprised on Monday with his team’s 1-8 record and how the season went, especially considering what he thought was in store for FSU this year.

“I’m shocked at where we are today. It was not expected,” Norvell said.

“You look at some of the results that we’ve had to deal with, you look at some of the circumstances that have happened. You go into a season and you have a picture in your head of what things are going to look like. I’m not there blind to it, I am optimistic, but I also know challenges.”

Norvell said he had a few questions about his team going into the 2024 season, especially about its response to difficult situations. But he never thought the year would turn out this way.

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“Everyone who has asked me before the season is what it would look like when everything went well or when things didn’t go well.”

Things are not going well Seminoles, especially offensively. FSU hasn’t had a quarterback complete more than 10 passes in its last three games as both Luke Kromenhoek and Brock Glenn have split snaps.

In the 35-11 loss to North Carolina, the Seminoles completed just eight passes on 18 attempts between both quarterbacks. Glenn finished with six completions for 123 yards and a touchdown, Kromenhoek finished with two completions for 36 yards and two interceptions.

With the offensive struggles, Norvell said it’s important to judge quarterbacks on what they were asked to do game plan-wise, and not pin the mistakes of others on the signal callers.

“I watch them. I know what’s being asked of them. You see the intent. You see the things they have control over and how they execute,” Norvell said.

“They don’t have control over receiver separation. They don’t always have control over protection. There’s a couple of things in the pockets we gave up recently where two are on run-pass, which indicates someone had a better decision , and another where we didn’t get separation and didn’t win one-on-one and the quarterback held the ball and got sacked.

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Norvell promises offseason changes focused on the final games of the year

Quarterback issues aren’t the only issue Norvell and his staff have faced this season. FSU has struggled in almost every area of ​​the game except special teams.

After a 13-1 season with an ACC title, the decline to where the Seminoles currently stand is unprecedented.

Norvell said there was a talented group that left FSU last season, and he thought some of the players left over from last year’s team would flourish in a more advanced role. This didn’t happen for the Seminoles, as the struggles were across the board, from new faces and veterans alike.

“It’s one of those things where I don’t always have the answer as to why some of these situations or circumstances have happened, but you keep working. You keep trying to put guys in the best position,” Norvell said. “It looks different than I expected.”

“Knowing all the challenges that are going to appear on the back end of it, would you do a few things differently? Would you look at a few different schedules or things you could plug in? Yes, of course. But that’s part of going through the process of a season, and obviously it hasn’t gone very well for us in terms of the different elements that have emerged.”

With three games remaining in a disastrous season, the challenge for Norvell now is to keep the program’s future intact. Whether it concerns coaching changes or stopping young players from entering the transfer portal, Norvell said he knows a lot needs to change.

He has confidence in the players in the dressing room and that they will make the difference in the last three games as well as next year. He is aware that the team needs to be better at applying game plans and that staff evaluations need to improve.

Norvell he said knows what to do in the offseason to ensure that a season like this year never happens again.

“I can tell you there will be a change in what we’ve seen this year and in the year to come,” Norvell said. “But right now my full focus will be on what awaits us in the next three games, to get the best out of ourselves.”

Liam Rooney covers Florida State athletics for the Tallahassee Democrat. Contact him via email at [email protected] or on Twitter @__liamrooney

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: FSU football’s Mike Norvell is ‘shocked’ by a disastrous losing season