FSU’s Mike Norvell faces harsh reality check from ESPN analyst over 2025 pressure

Florida State's 2–10 collapse in 2024 wasn’t just a low point — it was historic. And if the Seminoles can’t bounce back this fall, ESPN’s Matt Barrie believes serious changes could be on the way in Tallahassee.

Speaking on the Gramlich & Mac Lain podcast, Barrie didn’t sugarcoat the situation.

“It better be better than that,” Barrie said when asked how much FSU needs to improve. “And I’ve called a couple of [Boston College] games with Castellanos as their quarterback. And I think Florida State’s getting a quarterback. You bring in Gus Malzahn, it’s gonna be a good marriage. It’s gonna be a marriage that has to work, or else there’s gonna be change in Tallahassee.”

That marriage between Malzahn and head coach Mike Norvell will need to click quickly. After a 13–0 regular season in 2023 and College Football Playoff snub, the Seminoles looked ready to reclaim elite status. But last season’s disastrous freefall exposed deeper concerns — especially with how the roster was built.

“And I just can't wrap my head around being that good the year before,” Barrie said. “Like, bad for Florida State, with that tradition-rich program, like, I'm being serious here. Bad Florida State is 9–3, 8–4 right? You go to [2–10], you’ve hit rock bottom.”

Barrie was especially critical of Norvell’s reliance on the transfer portal.

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“What I believe Mike Norvell found out… is you can’t live and die by the portal. Every year, you need to build a program that [is] 75% recruit and develop, 25% plug the holes,” he said. “Florida State’s one of those programs, you can retain them, recruit and develop and not worry about going to the portal, because it’s Florida State, you want to stay.”

He called the 2024 season “a bad, bad outlier” — one that FSU can’t afford to repeat. “You want last year to be the one of people saying, like, ‘Oh, that’s not Florida State,’” Barrie added. “You don’t want the reverse.”

Yet despite the fallout, not all hope is lost. CBS Sports’ Chip Patterson sees a path back to relevance for the Seminoles — and it runs through the ACC.

“No one is mentioning Florida State as a title contender now, but a quick glance at the ACC schedule shows just two games (Clemson, Miami) where the Seminoles will need to play above their talent level to win,” Patterson wrote. “If Florida State can knock off one of those rivals and run the table against their other six conference foes, it could be in the hunt for a spot in Charlotte at the end of the year.”

For Norvell and Florida State, that scenario might not just be a best-case outcome — it could be a job-saving one.