While much of the country was already asleep late Saturday night (and early Sunday morning), Mike Norvell was shoveling even more dirt on his grave at Florida State. A no-show against rival Miami was one thing, given how good the Canes had looked to that point in the year. A loss to Pitt the following week was bad, no doubt, but the Noles still had their goals in front of them. But a loss to Stanford, a team with a placeholder head coach that entered Saturday at 2-4 with a loss to Hawaii on the resume? There might not be any coming back from that.
One year after a shocking 2-10 season, Norvell's Seminoles are now at 3-4, with their ACC title and College Football Playoff hopes now fully out the window. At this point, even making a bowl game is up for grabs; things are grim, and it's hard to identify how they might get better any time soon. Given all of that, it would seem like a program with FSU's standards would be looking to make a change at the top as soon as possible, right?
But in the year of our lord 2025, it's never that simple. We're just two years removed from Florida State handing Norvell a giant contract extension, one that comes with a similarly giant buyout. And that makes the next few weeks awfully tricky.
How much is Mike Norvell's buyout at Florida State?
In short: a whole heck of a lot. If Florida State fires Norvell without cause before the start of next year, he'll be owed a whopping $58,667,708 — the sixth most expensive buyout in the country and No. 2 in the ACC.
That's the price you pay for a massive extension of the sort the Noles gave Norvell on the heels of his 13-0 season (and the Alabama job coming open due to Nick Saban's shock retirement) back in 2023. It's hard to really find too much fault with that decision without the benefit of hindsight; Norvell had just guided FSU to a perfect ACC title run that should have been rewarded with a College Football Playoff berth, and at the time no one was too upset about the decision to lock him up for the long haul. Now, though, it threatens to shackle the Noles to a head coach they no longer believe in.
Then again, as we learned with James Franklin just days ago, enormous buyouts are no longer the complete deterrent they used to be. There's more money than ever sloshing around college football, and sticker shock can only keep itchy boosters at bay for so long. At this point, it's hard to have much faith in Norvell's ability to turn this ship around. And if that's the case, Florida State should get a jump on finding his replacement as soon as possible. Here's where to start.
4 Mike Norvell replacements Florida State should already be calling
Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss head coach
This would be the home-run swing, given the success Kiffin has had at Ole Miss in recent years — a job with both a lower floor and a lower ceiling, historically speaking, than FSU — and his familiarity with the recruiting landscape in South Florida both from his time in the SEC and his three years spent as the head coach at Florida Atlantic back in the late 2010s. While his Rebels have yet to truly break through, either to the SEC Championship Game or to the College Football Playoff, no one should take for granted how difficult it is to win that consistently in Oxford; the last time Ole Miss enjoyed three double-digit win seasons in a four-year span was under John Vaught back in the late 50s and early 60s.
In a strange year for the coaching carousel, there just aren't very many viable candidates with that kind of resume. The only other one who might ostensibly be available is James Franklin, and, well, we don't have to tell you why his particular baggage might not be welcome in Tallahassee right now. Kiffin has flirted with leaving Ole Miss in the past, and Florida State could likely offer him more money with a cleaner Playoff path. You need to at least make him say no.
Deion Sanders, Colorado head coach
No Florida State coaching list would be complete without Deion, a Fort Myers native who of course starred at cornerback under Bobby Bowden in the mid-1980s. Of course, for all his accolades as a player, his resume as a head coach still feels a bit light for a job like this: He enjoyed tremendous at Jackson State, and took Colorado from one win to nine wins in the span of just two years, but it remains to be seen what his roster-building looks like without his son at quarterback or Travis Hunter as a two-way phenom.
Then again, Deion did lure Hunter to an HBC program and then got him to follow him to Boulder, which tells you a lot about his ability to attract talent. The name and the charisma still count for a lot, and you know he'd earn the kind of buy-in at FSU that has been hard to come by for anybody not named Bowden. I wouldn't feel over-the-moon about this hire given all that we don't yet know about Sanders in the portal era, but it's also not hard to imagine him thriving here with proximity to so many great recruits.
Alex Golesh, USF head coach
Of course, there's also something to be said for not trying to win the press conference but instead trying to just identify a really good football coach. Golesh sure seems like he qualifies based on his work at USF, where he's led the Bulls from a program that won a combined four games in three years under Jeff Scott to one that's ranked in the top 25 and eying a Playoff spot at season's end. His offshoot of the Josh Heupel offense has been wildly effective with Byrum Brown at the controls, but he's no one-tricky pony — this is a complete, physical team, one that's proven its mettle against the likes of Boise State and Florida already this year.
As with every candidate this cycle, there are red flags. This would undoubtedly be a big step up for Golesh: He's never led a Power 4 program before, and his past stops as an assistant (save for two years as OC under Heupel at Tennessee) have come at places like Iowa State, Illinois and Toledo. He's a Midwestern guy at heart, and it remains to be seen whether he can go into Florida high schools recruit with the big boys. (It also bears mentioning that Brown committed to the Bulls while Scott was still around.) Still, his system plays, and he sure seems like a capable culture-builder who's earned a shot to prove he belongs. Plus, poaching from an upstart in-state rival can't hurt.
Jon Sumrall, Tulane head coach
You'll forgive Noles fans for being a bit skeptical of targeting a seemingly can't-miss candidate from the Group of 6 ranks, given how Norvell has worked out after a stellar four-year run at Memphis. But the next time Sumrall fails at a coaching stop will be the first: He authored some of Mike Stoops' best defenses at Kentucky, won 23 games over two seasons as Troy and now has Tulane at 6-1 and once again looking like AAC title contenders. He produces tough, contending teams everywhere he goes.
The same caveats apply. He hasn't proven that he can recruit at the level required of the head coach at Florida State, and it's worth noting that he took over two very healthy programs at Troy and Tulane. He also has never coached in the state of Florida. Still, the track record here is hard to ignore. Some Power 4 team is going to give Sumrall a chance this offseason, and given just how soft the Seminoles have looked lately under Norvell, it might be worth a look.