October 16, 2025 • 15 mins
Yes, it's in a bit of a freefall right now, but the Managing Editor at WarChant.com, Ira Schoffel, visited with Preston to discuss the Seminole football program following a third straight loss.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
If I passed the hour of the morning show with
Preston Scott, it is the third hour. I'm Preston, he
is Jose and this is the managing editor for Warchan
dot com. He is Irischaffel and Ira. If I were
writing an article, I'd probably title this another Week another
disappointing performance from FSU defense.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I feel like I've seen something like that before.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Oh darn it, that's right, you wrote that. It's now
we've got a couple of days. Perhaps you've watched the
game again and it was probably worse than you saw
with your own eyes. What are your thoughts now forty
eight hours later?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
You know, obviously after that game and really two of
the last three games, you know, most of the focus
is on the defense. You know, I thought that they
you know, we would love what we saw against Alabama,
and you know, I think for much of the Miami game,
the top priority was stopping the running game. They did
a good job of that, so there were some things
to like. But the Virginia game and then this Pick
game were pretty dreadful from Florida State's defense. Honestly, they
(01:13):
looked as bad and in some ways worse than they
did a year ago, So that's the number one thing.
I mean, the offense wasn't perfect and certainly had some
opportunities to maybe put that game away against Pitt and
they blew those opportunities. But what the defense has looked
like for the last few weeks is just just pretty awful,
(01:34):
and it makes you think that they're going to have
a tough time winning a lot of these games left
on the schedule.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I was, dare I say, impressed with how Tony White
accepted responsibility he is the defensive coordinator. Is that coach
speak or do you think there's a direct sincerity in saying, no,
I've I'm making mistakes and how I'm putting this scheme
together and utilizing it.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
You definitely give him some credit for that, and it's
better than the alternative. You know, we've seen times in
the past where coaches have blamed everything on execution, and
you know, he could do that to some degree. But yeah,
it just seems like, I don't know, and this is
a small sample size. We've not covered Tony White for
very long. This is six games in, but it just
seems like there's there's huge overreactions to what happens one
(02:23):
week to next You know, if you go back to
the Virginia game, they couldn't stop the run. One week
later they stopped the runn against Miami, but then they
give up big plays. Then the next week against Pitt,
it seemed like they were so determined to not give
up big plays that they just sat back deep in
zone coverage and let Pitt take everything underneath, whether that's
eight passes to the running back for one hundred and
(02:45):
fifty five yards or the quarterback scrambling for first downs
in a bunch of different situations. So it just seems
like they're they're playing whack a mole. To some degree,
he's fixing one problem, but then that creates another problem.
Sometimes at some point you have to to be com
it in all areas.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I was at the game Saturday, and I'm gonna I'm
gonna share one overall observation and get your thoughts to it,
and to me, it's on both sides of the ball.
One is when you've got guys that you know the
scheme is dialed up, they've got the quarterback, and inexplicably
they leave their the ground and let this big kid
(03:24):
just kind of waltz around them and make a big play,
just not fundamental discipline there. And then you know a
guy who's been great all year, Deuce Robinson, his personal
foul cost us a touchdown because it pushed that offense
back to a first and twenty and then we punt deep,
it gets blocked and it's a short field and a
quick seven. I just look at undisciplined plays being made
(03:47):
by players that should know better.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, there's definitely a lot of that, and in fact,
I'm touching on it and something I'm about to post
on our website. You know, just a lack of situational awareness. Yeah,
from the very first drive, you know, the pick goes on.
There's three fourth downs on that drive, the pick goes
for and converts, and on all three of the third
down stops. You got Florida State players kind of celebrating
(04:10):
that they stopped pit before the first down marker, almost
as if like the drive was over. And it's like, man,
it's fourth and short and it's twenty twenty five and
you're playing a team that has nothing to lose. Once
they went forward on the first fourth down, if they're
on thirty four yard line, yeah, there's a good chance
they're gonna be going forward on the next two for
fourth downs two And it's just you know, it was
(04:31):
kind of fitting that the game ended with Florida State
jumping off sides when Pitt's trying to run off the clock,
and so yeah, they're they're you know, listen, man, it
was a bad football team a year ago and they're
trying to learn how to win. But I gonna if
you're gonna win these close games, you have to be
smarter than this team has shown.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
I think my my grace for high profile college football
players is now gone because they're paid professionals. These are
professional football player and the position of quarterback is is
pretty much everything with most college football teams as it
is in the pros. Tommy Castellanos can't throw inside the pocket.
(05:12):
He's too short. Uh, does gust need to do kind
of borrow what you know? I've read your column with
George Henshaw. He said, Look, if Tommy's my quarterback, I'm
he is no way throwing from the pocket. Ever, do
they have to make a decision on whether they're going
to keep Tommy because if you're going to lose football games,
you might as well lose with the future of your program.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, you know, it's hard. It's hard to put it.
It's hard for me to go there right now. I'm
pretty disappointed in him against Miami. I thought he played
better to some degree against against Pitt. Now, if he's
not going to run the ball, and he seemed to
be not willing to run in that game, you know,
he in Gus Malsan. We asked Tommy about it after
(05:55):
the game. He said he's fine. Gus Malesan said, yeah,
he got hurt again basically the first play of the game,
and that limited his ability to run. Well, if he's
not going to run, if he's not going to keep it,
this offense isn't going to go very far, especially when
you don't have some of the receivers that they didn't
have in that game. You know, they had several receivers
out too, right, So I will say this, if he
can't run, then I think you might want to look
(06:18):
at going to somebody else just to kind of open
up that part of the game as well. But you know,
I don't know. I'm not putting a ton of the
problem in that game on it. I do think Gus
could call the game better for Tommy, But I'm not
ready to say he was the problem on that game.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
So when you look at the offense sort of shooting
itself in the foot sometimes we then so we accept
that the possibility is that Tommy's not not able to
run the plays, run the offense the way Gus needs
it run. So we're back to that, well do we do?
You know, we saw brock Glenn coming in for a
(06:54):
fourth down that never happened. Clearly that was that was
something they were thinking of aut doing. Do you think
they just needed to do more of that and get
him out there.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Well, whether it's Brock Lynn or Kevin Sperry, I you know,
I think it looked like maybe they decided they were
going to have to run the quarterback in that situation
and they were kind of out of some of the options.
You know, Randy Pittman, the tight end, has done some
of the wildcat before he was out for that game.
You know, if Tommy didn't, if they didn't feel Tommy
could get a big enough push because his ankle's bothering
him whatever it is with his foot, then maybe that's
(07:27):
why they brought Brocklenn in that situation. But I also
think Kevin Sperry would be an option. Now, the question,
I guess what we don't the information we don't have
is is are those would those guys turn the ball
over more? You know, Tommy did a better job of
protecting the football in this game. He didn't have the
interceptions he had had the last two games, So you
don't know what you get with those guys from that standpoint.
(07:49):
But yeah, running the football is the backgrount of this offense.
And if I was surprised they were able to run
it as well as they could when it was clear
Tommy didn't want to keep it in the second half.
But going forward, if teams realized tom he's not going
to be willing to keep it because he's not one
hundred percent, then it's going to be much harder run
the football.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
If you look at the rest of this schedule, is seven,
seven and five the best it's going to look.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I mean, that's probably about as optimistic as you could be.
Right now. It's possible that they could go eight and four.
You know, it's certainly possible. It's not like they've got
a lot of great teams left on the schedule. Clemson
will be tough, but they're not great. Florida is certainly
not great on the flip side though, the way they're
playing defense right now. Unless they can get back what
(08:33):
they had earlier the season, and I'm not sure they can,
then they can lose to everybody. I mean, they literally
could lose at Stanford, they could lose to Wake Forest.
If you can't defend, you could lose to anybody. So,
you know, yeah, I think seven to five is possible
in the eight and four as possible, but I also think,
you know, six and six are worse as possible if
they don't start playing some defense.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
We were going to get to the topic that I
know that a lot of you want to hear about,
and so we'll just ask Iris Chaffell straight out. Are
you going to go to Savannah Banana baseball games in
February as a member of the media or as a fan?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
That is that is the big question in our household.
I can tell you that my wife put in for
the tickets. He's in the lottery, but if there are
media passes, I will probably be trying to go that
route as well.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yeah, if you didn't hear friends, Savannah Bananas announced Tallahassee
as one of the spots for that. I mean, it's
crazy that that things come to this point where they're
doing ticket lotteries, but they're going to play a couple
of games a Thursday and a Friday at Dick Hawser
before going to Dope Campbell Stadium for a Saturday game
of baseball. I can't get that in my mind. But
there truly are some pretty pressing matters on the football front,
(09:43):
and I don't think any of us really enjoy these topics.
I think anyone that's been around Mike Norvel they like
him as a person, his public persona IRA. You know,
we've we've talked. He's he's tough to listen to in
a press conference because it just sounds like, you know,
he's saying a lot of the same things over and
(10:04):
over and over. Is he on the hot seat as
much as your colleague Corey Clark thinks he is.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, I mean he's definitely in the hot seat. If
this season goes the way last season did, and it
seems to be turning in that direction right now. You've
lost three straight games and you couldn't get out of
the tailspind last year. You know, it's hard to predict
right now that they're going to come out of this
and start playing good again, and if they don't, Yeah,
he's definitely on the hot seat. That's why that game
was so big. It would have been an end If
(10:33):
you won that game, it would have been an indication that, Okay,
you're probably gonna win these next two against Stanford and
wake Forest. Then you'll have a chance later in the
season get at Clemson, Florida, NC State those games. But
right now it's hard to believe that. So, yeah, he's
definitely in the hot seat. As far as like his
personality and speaking and why people get angry is I
just think it's you know, the two times that the
(10:54):
couple times that fans have gotten most they've been most
excited about things Mike Norvell has said. Was the big
one was a few years ago when he responded to
a question about recruiting and gave this long, passionate answer
and was really fired up and really determined, and there
was a conviction and a real belief in what he
was saying. But a lot of times, yeah, it just
(11:16):
seems like he's trying to come up with the right
words to not offend his players, to not offend his coaches,
to not you know, it's just it just doesn't feel
very authentic at times, and when you're losing, that's the
last thing you need. So but again, the results are
going to be what determines whether or not he lasts,
and they have to turn around quickly, and he hasn't
shown He certainly didn't show it last year. He had
(11:36):
the ability to turn it around, so we'll see if
he can this time.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Well, you've had a staff overhaul for the most part,
and so at this point it's the only piece that's
left over. If they can't turn the ship around, you know,
you're Corey Clark made a point in his column about
the losing streaks of three games or more in Florida
state history. They're not a ton of them in the
last six decades. But the fact that coach Norvel owns
(12:01):
six of the ten, I think is the number that
I read is pretty pretty reflective of kind of where
things have gone.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yeah, it is, And you know, and I listen, I've
spent most of the last five or six years not
excusing things that he's done, but looking trying to look
at and give him the benefit of the doubt and
share situations. You know, those first couple of years. You know,
you come in, you inherit a program going in the
wrong direction, and it's during COVID you can't even be
around your team physically, you can't and you can't really
(12:29):
go on the road and recruit for like almost two years.
Those were legitimate reasons. I don't think there were excuses.
And then you start having success. Well then last year
goes the way it does, and it's like, okay, well
you get a mulligan maybe after those two good years
in twenty twenty two and twenty three, but if this
happens again, you just there's no more benefit of the doubt.
And so yeah, you start looking at those losing streaks
(12:52):
and and you know, after the game Saturday, Mike Norvel
said something that he said several times last year. He said,
I know what it's supposed to look like, and that
that phrase stuck with me because, yeah, you know what
it's supposed to look like. You've been around good teams,
but you also haven't proven these last couple of years
that you know what it takes to get there. And
again he's got a chance here to do it and
(13:14):
prove everybody wrong. But right now he is what he is.
He is the record that he's put on the field,
and it's it's going to come back to haunt him
if he can't turn around quickly.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
I'm curious, just big picture, what do you make of
the fact, Okay, he's successful at Memphis, comes here and
now here's where we are. We have, you know, more
than enough time to judge kind of where the program is.
But Memphis is still back being Memphis. They're not you know, juggernauts,
but they're a good football program. Where does that leave
(13:44):
Mike Norvell at this point?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Well, I mean, listen, we have to acknowledge that he
didn't build Memphis into a good program. Justin Fwente, who
was the coach before him, who then got the Virginia
Tech job and then failed there. He's the one that
kind of got Memphis to where it got. Micro inherited
a good program and then took it to a different level.
He did. He got into the Cotton Bowl, something that
never seemed conceivable, won their conference, did a lot of
(14:09):
good things there. But it's not like you built that
program from scratch. So you take that into account, and then,
like you said, they've been successful since he left. This
deal with Florida state is it's it's a unique situation.
And I think it's why you need to understand when
you're hiring these coaches and why I think that they
need to get out of the business with something I'm
writing about this week is you know, getting out of
(14:29):
the business of these long term, ridiculously expensive coaching contracts
because you never know how it's going to work. I mean,
if you fire Mike Norvell, there's no guarantee, even if
you hire Lane Kiffin or whoever it is, that you're
going to be successful. Every job is unique, every situation
is unique, and there's it's a little bit of a
craft shoot. So I just I think that you know
when you're judging these coaches that none of them are
(14:52):
going to be a slam dunk and and and Jimbo
Fisher looked like a slam dunk until he wasn't. So again,
I just think the biggest key is not carrying these
long term contracts to these coaches and giving yourself an
out if it doesn't go well. And I think the
new realm of college football where you're paying the players now,
I think it gives you some leeway to maybe go
in that direction.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
IRA's always fascinating insights. I appreciate your time. We'll talk
again next week. Thank you sir, Thank you Press. I
appreciate it. Iraschaffell with warchant dot com
If I passed the hour of the morning show with
Preston Scott, it is the third hour. I'm Preston, he
is Jose and this is the managing editor for Warchan
dot com. He is Irischaffel and Ira. If I were
writing an article, I'd probably title this another Week another
disappointing performance from FSU defense.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I feel like I've seen something like that before.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Oh darn it, that's right, you wrote that. It's now
we've got a couple of days. Perhaps you've watched the
game again and it was probably worse than you saw
with your own eyes. What are your thoughts now forty
eight hours later?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
You know, obviously after that game and really two of
the last three games, you know, most of the focus
is on the defense. You know, I thought that they
you know, we would love what we saw against Alabama,
and you know, I think for much of the Miami game,
the top priority was stopping the running game. They did
a good job of that, so there were some things
to like. But the Virginia game and then this Pick
game were pretty dreadful from Florida State's defense. Honestly, they
(01:13):
looked as bad and in some ways worse than they
did a year ago, So that's the number one thing.
I mean, the offense wasn't perfect and certainly had some
opportunities to maybe put that game away against Pitt and
they blew those opportunities. But what the defense has looked
like for the last few weeks is just just pretty awful,
(01:34):
and it makes you think that they're going to have
a tough time winning a lot of these games left
on the schedule.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I was, dare I say, impressed with how Tony White
accepted responsibility he is the defensive coordinator. Is that coach
speak or do you think there's a direct sincerity in saying, no,
I've I'm making mistakes and how I'm putting this scheme
together and utilizing it.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
You definitely give him some credit for that, and it's
better than the alternative. You know, we've seen times in
the past where coaches have blamed everything on execution, and
you know, he could do that to some degree. But yeah,
it just seems like, I don't know, and this is
a small sample size. We've not covered Tony White for
very long. This is six games in, but it just
seems like there's there's huge overreactions to what happens one
(02:23):
week to next You know, if you go back to
the Virginia game, they couldn't stop the run. One week
later they stopped the runn against Miami, but then they
give up big plays. Then the next week against Pitt,
it seemed like they were so determined to not give
up big plays that they just sat back deep in
zone coverage and let Pitt take everything underneath, whether that's
eight passes to the running back for one hundred and
(02:45):
fifty five yards or the quarterback scrambling for first downs
in a bunch of different situations. So it just seems
like they're they're playing whack a mole. To some degree,
he's fixing one problem, but then that creates another problem.
Sometimes at some point you have to to be com
it in all areas.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I was at the game Saturday, and I'm gonna I'm
gonna share one overall observation and get your thoughts to it,
and to me, it's on both sides of the ball.
One is when you've got guys that you know the
scheme is dialed up, they've got the quarterback, and inexplicably
they leave their the ground and let this big kid
(03:24):
just kind of waltz around them and make a big play,
just not fundamental discipline there. And then you know a
guy who's been great all year, Deuce Robinson, his personal
foul cost us a touchdown because it pushed that offense
back to a first and twenty and then we punt deep,
it gets blocked and it's a short field and a
quick seven. I just look at undisciplined plays being made
(03:47):
by players that should know better.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, there's definitely a lot of that, and in fact,
I'm touching on it and something I'm about to post
on our website. You know, just a lack of situational awareness. Yeah,
from the very first drive, you know, the pick goes on.
There's three fourth downs on that drive, the pick goes
for and converts, and on all three of the third
down stops. You got Florida State players kind of celebrating
(04:10):
that they stopped pit before the first down marker, almost
as if like the drive was over. And it's like, man,
it's fourth and short and it's twenty twenty five and
you're playing a team that has nothing to lose. Once
they went forward on the first fourth down, if they're
on thirty four yard line, yeah, there's a good chance
they're gonna be going forward on the next two for
fourth downs two And it's just you know, it was
(04:31):
kind of fitting that the game ended with Florida State
jumping off sides when Pitt's trying to run off the clock,
and so yeah, they're they're you know, listen, man, it
was a bad football team a year ago and they're
trying to learn how to win. But I gonna if
you're gonna win these close games, you have to be
smarter than this team has shown.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
I think my my grace for high profile college football
players is now gone because they're paid professionals. These are
professional football player and the position of quarterback is is
pretty much everything with most college football teams as it
is in the pros. Tommy Castellanos can't throw inside the pocket.
(05:12):
He's too short. Uh, does gust need to do kind
of borrow what you know? I've read your column with
George Henshaw. He said, Look, if Tommy's my quarterback, I'm
he is no way throwing from the pocket. Ever, do
they have to make a decision on whether they're going
to keep Tommy because if you're going to lose football games,
you might as well lose with the future of your program.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, you know, it's hard. It's hard to put it.
It's hard for me to go there right now. I'm
pretty disappointed in him against Miami. I thought he played
better to some degree against against Pitt. Now, if he's
not going to run the ball, and he seemed to
be not willing to run in that game, you know,
he in Gus Malsan. We asked Tommy about it after
(05:55):
the game. He said he's fine. Gus Malesan said, yeah,
he got hurt again basically the first play of the game,
and that limited his ability to run. Well, if he's
not going to run, if he's not going to keep it,
this offense isn't going to go very far, especially when
you don't have some of the receivers that they didn't
have in that game. You know, they had several receivers
out too, right, So I will say this, if he
can't run, then I think you might want to look
(06:18):
at going to somebody else just to kind of open
up that part of the game as well. But you know,
I don't know. I'm not putting a ton of the
problem in that game on it. I do think Gus
could call the game better for Tommy, But I'm not
ready to say he was the problem on that game.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
So when you look at the offense sort of shooting
itself in the foot sometimes we then so we accept
that the possibility is that Tommy's not not able to
run the plays, run the offense the way Gus needs
it run. So we're back to that, well do we do?
You know, we saw brock Glenn coming in for a
(06:54):
fourth down that never happened. Clearly that was that was
something they were thinking of aut doing. Do you think
they just needed to do more of that and get
him out there.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Well, whether it's Brock Lynn or Kevin Sperry, I you know,
I think it looked like maybe they decided they were
going to have to run the quarterback in that situation
and they were kind of out of some of the options.
You know, Randy Pittman, the tight end, has done some
of the wildcat before he was out for that game.
You know, if Tommy didn't, if they didn't feel Tommy
could get a big enough push because his ankle's bothering
him whatever it is with his foot, then maybe that's
(07:27):
why they brought Brocklenn in that situation. But I also
think Kevin Sperry would be an option. Now, the question,
I guess what we don't the information we don't have
is is are those would those guys turn the ball
over more? You know, Tommy did a better job of
protecting the football in this game. He didn't have the
interceptions he had had the last two games, So you
don't know what you get with those guys from that standpoint.
(07:49):
But yeah, running the football is the backgrount of this offense.
And if I was surprised they were able to run
it as well as they could when it was clear
Tommy didn't want to keep it in the second half.
But going forward, if teams realized tom he's not going
to be willing to keep it because he's not one
hundred percent, then it's going to be much harder run
the football.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
If you look at the rest of this schedule, is seven,
seven and five the best it's going to look.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I mean, that's probably about as optimistic as you could be.
Right now. It's possible that they could go eight and four.
You know, it's certainly possible. It's not like they've got
a lot of great teams left on the schedule. Clemson
will be tough, but they're not great. Florida is certainly
not great on the flip side though, the way they're
playing defense right now. Unless they can get back what
(08:33):
they had earlier the season, and I'm not sure they can,
then they can lose to everybody. I mean, they literally
could lose at Stanford, they could lose to Wake Forest.
If you can't defend, you could lose to anybody. So,
you know, yeah, I think seven to five is possible
in the eight and four as possible, but I also think,
you know, six and six are worse as possible if
they don't start playing some defense.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
We were going to get to the topic that I
know that a lot of you want to hear about,
and so we'll just ask Iris Chaffell straight out. Are
you going to go to Savannah Banana baseball games in
February as a member of the media or as a fan?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
That is that is the big question in our household.
I can tell you that my wife put in for
the tickets. He's in the lottery, but if there are
media passes, I will probably be trying to go that
route as well.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yeah, if you didn't hear friends, Savannah Bananas announced Tallahassee
as one of the spots for that. I mean, it's
crazy that that things come to this point where they're
doing ticket lotteries, but they're going to play a couple
of games a Thursday and a Friday at Dick Hawser
before going to Dope Campbell Stadium for a Saturday game
of baseball. I can't get that in my mind. But
there truly are some pretty pressing matters on the football front,
(09:43):
and I don't think any of us really enjoy these topics.
I think anyone that's been around Mike Norvel they like
him as a person, his public persona IRA. You know,
we've we've talked. He's he's tough to listen to in
a press conference because it just sounds like, you know,
he's saying a lot of the same things over and
(10:04):
over and over. Is he on the hot seat as
much as your colleague Corey Clark thinks he is.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, I mean he's definitely in the hot seat. If
this season goes the way last season did, and it
seems to be turning in that direction right now. You've
lost three straight games and you couldn't get out of
the tailspind last year. You know, it's hard to predict
right now that they're going to come out of this
and start playing good again, and if they don't, Yeah,
he's definitely on the hot seat. That's why that game
was so big. It would have been an end If
(10:33):
you won that game, it would have been an indication that, Okay,
you're probably gonna win these next two against Stanford and
wake Forest. Then you'll have a chance later in the
season get at Clemson, Florida, NC State those games. But
right now it's hard to believe that. So, yeah, he's
definitely in the hot seat. As far as like his
personality and speaking and why people get angry is I
just think it's you know, the two times that the
(10:54):
couple times that fans have gotten most they've been most
excited about things Mike Norvell has said. Was the big
one was a few years ago when he responded to
a question about recruiting and gave this long, passionate answer
and was really fired up and really determined, and there
was a conviction and a real belief in what he
was saying. But a lot of times, yeah, it just
(11:16):
seems like he's trying to come up with the right
words to not offend his players, to not offend his coaches,
to not you know, it's just it just doesn't feel
very authentic at times, and when you're losing, that's the
last thing you need. So but again, the results are
going to be what determines whether or not he lasts,
and they have to turn around quickly, and he hasn't
shown He certainly didn't show it last year. He had
(11:36):
the ability to turn it around, so we'll see if
he can this time.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Well, you've had a staff overhaul for the most part,
and so at this point it's the only piece that's
left over. If they can't turn the ship around, you know,
you're Corey Clark made a point in his column about
the losing streaks of three games or more in Florida
state history. They're not a ton of them in the
last six decades. But the fact that coach Norvel owns
(12:01):
six of the ten, I think is the number that
I read is pretty pretty reflective of kind of where
things have gone.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yeah, it is, And you know, and I listen, I've
spent most of the last five or six years not
excusing things that he's done, but looking trying to look
at and give him the benefit of the doubt and
share situations. You know, those first couple of years. You know,
you come in, you inherit a program going in the
wrong direction, and it's during COVID you can't even be
around your team physically, you can't and you can't really
(12:29):
go on the road and recruit for like almost two years.
Those were legitimate reasons. I don't think there were excuses.
And then you start having success. Well then last year
goes the way it does, and it's like, okay, well
you get a mulligan maybe after those two good years
in twenty twenty two and twenty three, but if this
happens again, you just there's no more benefit of the doubt.
And so yeah, you start looking at those losing streaks
(12:52):
and and you know, after the game Saturday, Mike Norvel
said something that he said several times last year. He said,
I know what it's supposed to look like, and that
that phrase stuck with me because, yeah, you know what
it's supposed to look like. You've been around good teams,
but you also haven't proven these last couple of years
that you know what it takes to get there. And
again he's got a chance here to do it and
(13:14):
prove everybody wrong. But right now he is what he is.
He is the record that he's put on the field,
and it's it's going to come back to haunt him
if he can't turn around quickly.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
I'm curious, just big picture, what do you make of
the fact, Okay, he's successful at Memphis, comes here and
now here's where we are. We have, you know, more
than enough time to judge kind of where the program is.
But Memphis is still back being Memphis. They're not you know, juggernauts,
but they're a good football program. Where does that leave
(13:44):
Mike Norvell at this point?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Well, I mean, listen, we have to acknowledge that he
didn't build Memphis into a good program. Justin Fwente, who
was the coach before him, who then got the Virginia
Tech job and then failed there. He's the one that
kind of got Memphis to where it got. Micro inherited
a good program and then took it to a different level.
He did. He got into the Cotton Bowl, something that
never seemed conceivable, won their conference, did a lot of
(14:09):
good things there. But it's not like you built that
program from scratch. So you take that into account, and then,
like you said, they've been successful since he left. This
deal with Florida state is it's it's a unique situation.
And I think it's why you need to understand when
you're hiring these coaches and why I think that they
need to get out of the business with something I'm
writing about this week is you know, getting out of
(14:29):
the business of these long term, ridiculously expensive coaching contracts
because you never know how it's going to work. I mean,
if you fire Mike Norvell, there's no guarantee, even if
you hire Lane Kiffin or whoever it is, that you're
going to be successful. Every job is unique, every situation
is unique, and there's it's a little bit of a
craft shoot. So I just I think that you know
when you're judging these coaches that none of them are
(14:52):
going to be a slam dunk and and and Jimbo
Fisher looked like a slam dunk until he wasn't. So again,
I just think the biggest key is not carrying these
long term contracts to these coaches and giving yourself an
out if it doesn't go well. And I think the
new realm of college football where you're paying the players now,
I think it gives you some leeway to maybe go
in that direction.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
IRA's always fascinating insights. I appreciate your time. We'll talk
again next week. Thank you sir, Thank you Press. I
appreciate it. Iraschaffell with warchant dot com
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