The Seminoles have rebounded from back-to-back losing seasons to become College Football Playoff contenders in 2023.
Take a look back at Florida State's perfect season so far as the No. 4 Seminoles have a date with No. 16 Duke on Saturday. last month, waiting for his players to come off the field and into the locker room. Hands on his hips, head tilted toward the sky, a look of relief washed over his face.
During his very first game as head coach, Florida State led Georgia Tech 10-0 at halftime. But at the first sign of adversity in the second half, the way it did the year before and the year before that, the team folded. Heads sagged, fingers pointed. Florida State lost. Outside, it was chaos -- fans wanted answers, pundits suggested Florida State's program was in a tailspin and anyone with a keyboard was ready to crack a joke on social media at the Seminoles' expense.Norvell took over a program in desperate need of leadership and stability, but even amid low expectations, his first 18 months at Florida State were a mess. He arrived in 2020 just before COVID-19 shut down the program, which hampered Norvell's ability to build any sense of culture.
It's a joke, but it's also symbolic, Gibbons said. Norvell is the same guy -- every day, morning and night.That's the key to the climb. To stop and look back is perilous. To linger too long in the same spot is a waste. Good or bad, the job is to inch a little higher." Norvell can't say when Florida State figured things out, when all those small steps up the mountain opened into a clear path to the peak. Or, maybe, he won't say. Norvell is quick to suggest Florida State"has not arrived" because that's the thing about the climb. There's always a little higher to go, always another peak left to scale.
Now in his 30th season with the Seminoles, Haggins connects Florida State's glorious past with its present, serving as defensive tackles coach and associate head coach. He played for Bobby Bowden in the 1980s, and after a brief NFL stint, embarked on his coaching career under Bowden in 1994. Once again, Haggins led Florida State to bowl eligibility. That season, he said, was painful."I had to learn to trust again in this profession." He had opportunities to leave multiple times during his Florida State career, but he chose to stay every time."My mother always taught me, 'Son, when adversity hits, you've got to dig your heels in. You may fall, it's not how you fall, it's how you get up,'" Haggins said.
Alford said the ACC commissioned a study looking at various ways its league members invested in football over a 10-year period between 2012 and 2022. In one key category -- percentage growth in football expenses -- Florida State ranked last. Florida State has broken ground on a long-awaited standalone football facility, expected to open in 2025, and has plans for a $275 million renovation to Doak Campbell Stadium that Alford said will allow the venue to become a major revenue driver. The final payment to Taggart is scheduled for Jan. 31, 2024.
According to Gibbons, Atkins told him:"Come in, earn a spot and earn the trust of the group. You'll have to do that before I put you on the football field."After four years at Notre Dame, Gibbons had a good idea of what a successful offensive line room should look like and how to create it. That job, he said, started with earning buy-in from his teammates.
Johnson went on to become a first-round NFL draft pick. Gibbons was a two-time All-ACC lineman. But that's just the beginning of the impact they had on Florida State. "There's a lot of schools where you choose them," Verse said,"but Florida State chooses you. You have to be the right fit for this program. You have to have the right personality, you have to have the right work ethic."
"I know that I ended up helping them get other guys because they could just use me as a pitch and Florida State did so much more for me," Johnson said."That's the least I could do."Following Florida State's season-ending loss to Florida in the 2021 season, quarterback Jordan Travis told his team,"We're not going to feel this way again." was hurting.
"I remember it like it was yesterday," former tight end Wyatt Rector said."Everybody's emotional, and Jordan comes up and daps everybody up in the locker room and says, 'This isn't happening again.' That whole offseason, we attacked it. We didn't want to feel this feeling anymore. We're tired of it. And that's when that culture flip switched, and Novell he didn't even have to coach -- we were getting on each other.
In 2022, Travis emerged as a genuine star. He blossomed as a passer, used his legs to keep defenses on their heels and finished the season with 3,631 yards of offense, 32 touchdowns and just eight turnovers and a Total QBR just a tick behind Heisman winner. More importantly, Florida State beat both of its in-state rivals last year and won its 2022 bowl game against Oklahoma -- the Seminoles' 10th win of the year.
"It was a special moment," Norvell said."It didn't turn out the way we wanted on the field, but he willed himself to come back and play. That was heart, it was character and it was something our team saw that even in the hardest of moments, he rose up. He's got a special story, and he's lived up to it."had a brief conversation."One of us needs a pick-six, or a fumble, something to keep the turnover game going," Bethune said to DeLoach.
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