Florida State University
Football Media Conference
Monday, October 27, 2025
Tallahassee, Florida, USA
Coach Mike Norvell
Press Conference
MIKE NORVELL: Good morning, everybody. Good to get
back into game week. I thought coming off the bye, had
some good competitive practices. As we talked last
Wednesday, it was good to get on the road, get out
recruiting there this past weekend for the coaches to get
within the state and obviously out to see a lot of top
targets.
Coming off this weekend, got back yesterday, was able to
get out, get back on the practice field. Obviously Wake
playing this Saturday gave us another game to evaluate,
and obviously they’re coming off a big win in a very tight
contest against a good SMU team.
As we go into this week, it’s about our football team
continuing to come together, continuing to rise up and
obviously to go put our best game out there on the field
come Saturday night.
I would like to recognize Seminole Heritage game. This is
a great game for us, and just to celebrate the partnership
with the Seminole tribe of Florida and what that relationship
means to us and this university and to be able to bring
awareness to that through this game and then also with
this week being homecoming, it’s a great opportunity for all
Seminoles, past, present, to be able to celebrate the great
things of all things with this university and having people
back on campus. Excited for the night kick and obviously
the opportunity ahead for this football team.
Q. With all the games being one-score games, they’ve
all been close. During the bye week do you take time
to look at things you could be doing differently, or is it
more just trying to do better what you do already?
MIKE NORVELL: No, you go back and you reflect in all
situations. There are different things schematically that we
can do, making sure that we’re putting our players in the
best situation offensively, defensively, special teams.
When you come up short in four games that are one-score
games, there’s a lot to be able to digest. You try to do that
throughout the course of the season after every match-up.
But obviously we need to — it’s all about the result. When
you find yourself in a negative stretch where you haven’t
been able to overcome that, you go and you look at it
collectively big picture and then you try to break it down
into each phase positionally, personnel-wise, and there’s
different dynamics of things that have showed up that have
cost us.
We’ve talked throughout the previous weeks of the
importance of owning the ball, creating takeaways, being
able to do things that hurt us through that middle stretch.
Obviously we were able to do a better job of owning the
ball there in our last game. Unfortunately there were some
other areas that showed up that kept us from putting points
on the board like we’ve been accustomed to.
We had a lapse with just too many penalties, some
unforced errors in this previous game. For us this week,
and my challenge to coaches, players and everybody
involved, we’ve got to go out there and we’ve got to do our
job. Coaches have to do a great job of putting together a
wonderful plan against a well-coached football team, one
that has ability and is playing with a lot of confidence, and
we’ve got to put our players in the best position to go make
plays.
Then our players got to trust and believe in the technique,
the fundamentals, and obviously their skill set of what
they’re going to bring to this game. In all reality, I don’t
need our players to go do anything exceptional. I just need
them to come out and to be able to put forth their best
effort, and I do believe exceptional things can happen.
That’s where it’s just the simplistic focus of doing our job,
everybody being part of the program, and go out there and
have fun playing and coaching this game.
Q. With Tommy, we see he’s listed on the depth chart
as a starter. How is he health-wise? Obviously he had
a bye week to heal up. Do you expect any challenges
with him this week?
MIKE NORVELL: We’ll see how everything plays out this
week and just big picture approach with guys that have
dealt with injuries, we will have the availability report here
towards the end of the week, but coming off the bye,
Tommy probably would not have been able to play if we
had to play last week, but saw some real progress towards
the end of the week off, and we’re trying to be real careful
with him just as we went about it.
It was good to see the guys practice. He was able to get
some work towards the end of the week, and excited about
what’s ahead for this week, but we’ll have to take it day by
day as this week unfolds.
Q. One more thing on injuries. Jayvan Boggs wasn’t
listed on the depth chart. I know he was out, came
back. Was that something that —
MIKE NORVELL: Yeah, unfortunately he’ll be a guy that
will be out this week. Going into this week, he’s had an
up-and-down last few weeks. We were hopeful that we
were kind of over the hump with it, but he had a little
setback, and we’ll see how he progresses, and we’re going
to push this week to work and get ready. You don’t see
that in the timeline of his availability, so he’s one that we’re
pretty certain will be out this week.
Q. When you look at Wake Forest, statistically they
don’t look to be outstanding necessarily in any area,
but they find a way to just be in these games and
they’ve pulled out some of these wins. When you’ve
watched Wake Forest, what have you seen from them?
MIKE NORVELL: It’s a team that plays extremely hard. I
think defensively they’re towards the top of our league
defensively in a lot of statistical categories, but you see a
defense that’s really playing at a high level. They are
confident in what they’re asked to do. Obviously new
coordinator, new staff there, so they’re growing each and
every week. I thought they did an outstanding job this past
weekend against SMU and really made things difficult for
them in all ways.
This is a team that they’ve got talented players. They’ve
got guys that you look at their front, they’re going to show
you three down, four down, they’re going to be aggressive
in their movements, and it’s going to be a team that they’re
going to play sideline to sideline. They play fast. Like I
said, they’re a high-energy group and they can present
some different schematic challenges with talented players.
Offensively they’ve kind of gone through some of the ups
and downs throughout the course of the year. I know that
right now they’ve dealt with some quarterback injuries that
have showed up, but I think both the quarterbacks have
shown the ability to play at a high level. They’ve got some
really good skill players. The Barnes kid at receiver I think
is extremely talented. He’s explosive. You’ve got to
always know where he’s at. Obviously Claiborne is one of
the best running backs in our league, and he will be a guy I
think that will be a pretty high draft pick you’ll hear this
spring.
But this is a team that can present challenges. Obviously
you see that they’ve found a way in a lot of contests, and in
all reality they got screwed out of the Georgia Tech win just
at the end of it.
But this is a team that can compete with anybody in our
league, and we’re going to have to play our best game as
we go into this week.
Q. When you go on the road recruiting, what is the
message — I guess what questions are you getting
from coaches and players and parents when you meet
up with them or talk to them?
MIKE NORVELL: Yeah, this past week it’s evaluation
period so there’s not a whole lot of sitting other than with
coaches. Coaches, they live it. They watch it. They
understand. You see it still comes down to the result, but
you see the style of play, you see it’s all about the
individual players and how these guys will be able to
transition in to be able to make an impact, to be able to
fulfill what they want from their collegiate experience.
We’ve got great relationships and I believe have done a
good job of building that, but also you see great
opportunity. You see a bunch of double-digit true
freshmen that have come in and played, had the ability to
play and have been playing at a high level.
You see an offense that’s one of the best in the country in
what we’ve been able to do with explosive plays, and
obviously getting a lot of yards, scoring points.
Defensively you see the opportunity to be able to go and
attack and just some of the things that we’ve been able to
accomplish, creating takeaways and explosive plays and
the opportunities to be able to impact quarterbacks.
Guys are looking at what is the place for me, how can I be
put in position, and then they’ve got to visualize themselves
with the opportunity to impact.
Coaches, they see that. We played in a lot of close games
that we’ve got to go take that step and finish for the result
that we desire, but for recruits, when they’re looking at hey,
where do I want to be, who do I want to be with, what do I
want to be a part of, there’s a lot of confidence in what that
is, and really for them, it’s just being able to stay focused
on that because everybody on the team experiences
losses. We lose a game, and the first question, are you
still considering them, are you still with them or whatever,
and then you stack that upon going through a negative
streak, obviously there’s going to be a lot of questions.
But it still comes down to the fit. It still comes down to
where these guys see themselves in the best situation, the
best place. There’s a lot of excitement for the opportunity
that’s ahead and what they can be within this program.
Q. We’ve asked you before about how current players
deal with outside noise and distractions, and this week
was obviously louder than most. How did they do
handling that? How did you address it? Was it any
different than usual?
MIKE NORVELL: Yeah, you have to address it as a coach
because when you see — there’s sometimes that we talked
about it after the Pitt game I know was one that you saw
some guys play with a little bit of hesitation and some
unnecessary situations with the plays there. Just trust that
you’re going to go make the play rather than trying not to
miss it. This last week, I did think there were some times
we were trying to almost do too much in certain situations,
and that’s from inside as a player just trying to go do all
that you can to make the play to try to help get over the
hump of when you feel that, whether it’s within, whether it’s
from the outside. You want it so bad. You’ve got to stay
true and trust who you are, trust who you’re being asked to
do, and then just go out there and execute and have fun.
But you talk about it as a coach; anytime there’s a lot of
opinions, which there’s always going to be, whether it’s —
sometimes opinions within your group, sometimes opinion
from the outside, sometimes from friends, family, loved
ones, and sometimes opinions from anybody that can get
to you. You do talk about it, and it’s just, like I said at the
beginning, it’s about doing your job. It’s about showing up
and putting everything that you have, regardless of
sometimes the chaos that can go on around you in the
course of a game, sometimes just in living life with
whatever circumstance might show up, it’s about showing
up and giving all that you have with a detailed approach of
going in and executing whatever the responsibility or task
that you have in front of you.
Q. In that last game against Stanford, there were a
couple instances on the sidelines with guys getting
frustrated and emotional, which is understandable
given the circumstances. Do you go back and revisit
that with those guys individually in the days following
MIKE NORVELL: Oh, absolutely, and sometimes it’s days
following, sometimes it’s immediately after a game,
whether it’s — this is an emotional game. You want great
emotion but you want to be in control of your emotion.
That’s all part of it as players, coaches, everybody
involved. There’s certain things where the awareness of
every action and how important the details, the focus,
being able to execute in the moment, that’s going to
magnify — that needs to be magnified throughout the
course of the game.
Ultimately it’s still about what you do with it. It could be the
first quarter, it could be the fourth quarter; you have to be
on point because every play is going to matter. You could
sit back over the last four weeks and pick any one of 100
plays and you’re going to find a different result to probably
the overall outcome of what that contest was.
You’ve got to control what you can control. We’ve also
seen and of course four weeks there’s plenty of things that
can’t control that can go for you or go against you. But as
long as we can stay locked in on that, you can’t allow — we
had a situation where there was a very questionable call in
a situation where a player — players’ emotions to what that
call was really affected the next play. That’s where it’s just
like, man, you’ve got to — you’re not going to get every call.
There’s going to be some good ones, there’s going to be
some bad ones. There’s going to be some good plays and
some bad plays that you experience, but you’ve got to
make sure that you can refocus, lock in, be able to make
any adjustment that’s necessary and then go and be your
best for that next snap and that next play.
That’s one of the reasons why you see the emotions of
what they are sometimes from coaches to players,
sometimes from coaches to coaches, just the awareness,
man, this has to be fixed, this has to be dealt with in the
moment, and then you follow up with that obviously after
the game. You follow up and remind that throughout the
course of the week and throughout the course of the
season.
There’s been plenty of players that I’ve coached over the
years that might have started their career a certain way
and how they reacted to circumstances. As you continue
to point that out, as you continue to give them ownership of
and confidence of what they can do in those situations, you
see that growth and you see that carry on.
A lot of the guys — I saw Renardo Green when we were out
in California, Jarrian Jones came back last week, and to
see the confidence of what they speak of, of how they can
handle situations that are showing up at the next level
through their time here. Both those guys had the ups and
downs throughout their Florida State careers and dealt with
a lot of pressure, noise, outside. They can do this, they
can’t do this. They both became great players here and
now they’re guys that are playing a lot starting there at the
next level, and some of those lessons that they had to get
harped on during their time here is now a real asset for
them, you’ll hear, later in their career.
Q. Kind of a follow-up to that, knowing how important
eye contact is to you and your players when you’re
talking to them, at halftime at the Stanford game, it
didn’t look like guys were fully listening to what you
were saying before going into the locker room. Do you
notice that at all? Is that a concern at all? Is that
something that ends up being addressed?
MIKE NORVELL: Yeah, I address all of it. There’s times
that it’s still — even in that moment, why do those things
show up. Well, you’re disappointed or this or whatever the
feelings are. You can allow yourself to be distracted or you
can — you make the choice to lock in on it. That’s why I
always like seeing that eye contact.
There’s plenty of games throughout our career or
throughout my career where I’ve seen that guys are doing
a good job, and really it’s an awareness to me where the
follow-up needs to go. That’s all part of a process of what I
do to make sure that there is the connection.
What I like is the follow-up afterwards and the ownership
afterwards of you can point to, hey, it might not have been
exactly what you wanted or this is not where you want it to
be at that point.
But if you allow yourself to stay removed or to stay
frustrated in feelings or whatever that might be, you might
miss the next handful of plays that can continue to cost you
or can continue to keep you from where you are and then
you see the positive results from it, too, where guys can
flush everything else that’s on the outside and stay focused
on the task at hand, and that you can overcome even bad
momentum or something that’s not going the way that you
want it to go.
Q. We always ask in camp about leadership and guys
evolving as leaders. In difficult times, have you seen
any signs of guys who are trying to keep guys headed
in the right direction?
MIKE NORVELL: Yeah, we talked about that last week,
and we’ve had a lot of guys that have taken a great deal of
ownership in just where we are, some of the good and the
bad, and it’s about trying to go and push and to make the
difference through your work, through — you pour into
others, you try to be the example, you try to encourage
guys that might be at different places with where they are
in performance or feelings or just overall emotions.
That’s what I’m looking for from leaders, guys that are
willing to be the example, guys that are willing to step up
and go and challenge themselves to another level but also
continue to push to uphold the standard of how we
operate, what we do, whether it’s within the meetings,
whether it’s out on the practice field, whether it’s within the
community.
The work that’s being done there, it’s all about giving of
yourself by being available to be the example as a leader
within the team. Anybody can get up and say, hey, this is
what we need to do and this is what it looks like, but if
you’re not doing it, if you’re not willing to actually go and
put that on display, then you’re not a leader, so no one is
actually going to listen to you anyway.
That’s what I’m watching for, and that’s what I’ve been
really pleased, even through the course of this last week,
seeing guys truly take ownership, but also bringing that to
the areas that it has to show up, bringing it to the practice
field, bringing it within our locker room and within our
facility on a daily basis, just trying to push this program and
trying to push themselves to go be better.
Q. Big picture for you here: I think you would agree
that it’s never been harder to win in college football,
period. It’s really hard from week to week to win.
Athletic departments have never been more impatient,
it would seem, and it happened last night in Baton
Rouge. I just wanted your overall opinions on the
coaching profession in college football in 2025?
MIKE NORVELL: I think being a coach is one of the most
gratifying and rewarding professions you can be in
because you get a chance to impact. If you’re a coach
college, 18 to 22 year olds. I was talking to some of the
high school coaches this last week, you’ve got 14 to 18
year olds.
There are — it is a different age. You look at even high
school — in the high school world with high school NIL,
players leaving and going to new schools and transferring
mid-season. There’s so much just unrest within the game,
I would say, because of some of the dynamics of what
we’re living in.
But it is important that as a coach that you are willing to
take hold of all the things that you can control in it and then
to show the character, show the identity, to push forward
and to be able to block out — because you can go look at
different circumstances of what happened at different
places, and that’s fine. But man, we’re blessed to be able
to do what we do.
I’ve been fortunate, this is my 10th year of being a head
coach. Been able to see a lot, and I’ve seen some really
good days. I’ve seen some extremely tough moments.
Every day when you show up, I tell our players this all the
time, we’re not guaranteed anything. We’ve had players
that have had extreme tragedies within their own lives,
whether it’s injury, whether it’s a tragedy on the outside that
keeps them from the opportunity to continuing to play
football, whether it’s a game, whether it’s a season,
whether it’s a career, whatever that might be.
You’re blessed to be in the moment, so you have to stay in
the moment. For all things that when it comes to college
football, it’s a wonderful game, it’s a wonderful sport.
Obviously we represent a great institution, and the pride
and the passion of college football is at an all-time high.
So there are a lot of emotions that go into it because it’s a
results-based business.
We all understand that. We all — it’s like you hear every
coach, this is what we signed up for. Still, you’ve got to go
live it. With all the passion, all the emotion, it’s still what
you’re willing to do on a daily basis as a leader or what
you’re willing to do as a coach and try and inspire guys just
to go be better and to put all that they have on display.
But yeah, it’s definitely a different time, and it’s a different
game than what it was five years ago. All the players,
coaches and everybody involved, it’s a great challenge, but
man, it’s so rewarding to be able to help guys on this
journey to go form and develop who they are as men and
to be able to make a difference to those that are around
you.
Q. New football building is open; you guys have
moved in. What’s been the response from players as
far as what it’s like for them day-to-day, and how can it
be more efficient as far as their day-to-day?
MIKE NORVELL: Yeah, it’s been incredible. It’s a
state-of-the-art facility. Obviously I think it’s one of the best
in the United States of America. It’s been something that’s
been on discussion for six years since I’ve been here, and
we’re one week into it, and the amount of gratitude that I
have — there’s been a lot of sacrifice from people that have
invested to make this a reality. There’s been a lot of
sacrifice within our program to — just with what we’ve had
to do operationally to make it happen.
Now that we’re finally in there, to see the gratitude of our
players, that’s one of the things even as we went in last
week, you talked about the leadership of just showing up
every day and representing those that made this happen.
That’s been something that has been hit on from guys in
that locker room, of how we respect it through the work,
how we respect it through how we take care of it. There’s
a great deal of pride in being a Florida State Seminole.
That’s a state-of-the-art first-class facility that this program
deserves.
This program deserves it because of all those that have
come before them and ultimately each individual, we’ve got
to earn that on a daily basis by what we’re willing to give
and who we’re pushing and aspiring to be.
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