Marvin Wilson: Florida State football players won’t workout after Mike Norvell mishandled George Floyd response
By John Buhler
Florida State football players won’t work out because of Mike Norvell.
Florida State football players like Marvin Wilson are not happy with Mike Norvell at all.
Wilson, who is the team’s star defensive tackle and top draft prospect in 2021, pointed out the hypocrisy in how his new head football coach went about addressing the George Floyd murder with his team. 2020 is Norvell’s first season leading the Seminoles, as he hopes to turn this blue-blood program around. He’s found out quickly this is not Memphis Tigers football anymore.
On Tuesday afternoon, Tashan Reed of The Athletic received a full quote from Norvell on the events that took place in the last week. Reed covers the Las Vegas Raiders these days, but he’s well connected with the FSU program, as that was the previous beat he’s on.
#FSU head coach Mike Norvell (@Coach_Norvell) had individual conversations with every player on his roster this past weekend focused on the events surrounding the death of George Floyd. Here's his full quote to @TheAthletic: pic.twitter.com/eM3yZZH4db
— Tashan Reed (@tashanreed) June 2, 2020
Norvell is quoted as saying, “We’ve had a lot of open communication with our team, our players and our coaches. I went back and forth individually with every player this weekend. And that was something that was important to me because this is a heartbreaking time in our country…”
This would have been great, but unfortunately, it doesn’t look to be true. Wilson quote tweeted Reed late Wednesday night, calling out his new head coach for flat-out lying.
Man this 💩 did not happen mane. We got a generated text that was sent to everybody. There was no one on one talk between us and coach. This is a lie and me and my teammates as a whole are outraged and we will not be working out until further notice 💯 #hunchoout https://t.co/6Uuy6K7Eu3
— Big Marv 🦍 (@marvinwilson21) June 4, 2020
Mike Norvell lied and now Florida State football players won’t work out.
This is not how a coach comes into a program in desperate need of a turnaround and wins the players over. Florida State needs to be good for the ACC to be a strong college football conference. The Seminoles haven’t had a 10-win season since 2016 and haven’t won their division since 2014. The ACC Atlantic has belonged to the Clemson Tigers during Florida State’s five years of decline.
When Florida State hired Norvell, the administration thought it was getting the next up-and-coming Power 5 coach. Norvell did great things at Memphis, like taking the Tigers to the Cotton Bowl last year as the Group of 5’s New Year’s Six representative. Then again, he might have benefited from the work Justin Fuente did before him. Todd Graham’s disciple is in hot water.
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Wilson should be a first-round pick in 2021. He is a team leader and the best player Norvell and his staff have this season. By him voicing his teammates’ displeasure of how this was handled, citing they “will not be working out until further notice”, it will be a challenge for Florida State football to put in place the necessary building blocks to get back to national relevancy this year.
Mike Norvell cut corners by not reaching out to his players individually and now he’s paying a price.
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