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Mike Norvell Under Pressure at Florida State | College Football Top 25
Florida State is warming up the guillotine for Head Coach Mike Norvell. This week, the Seminoles fired Athletic Director Michael Alford. The move comes after the football team had a week off following a 1-1 start, raising questions about timing, and the future of the coach Alford hired. In his press conference previewing the Alabama game, Norvell was keeping his head down. “In today’s age, it’s a crazy world in college athletics” Norvell said, not getting questions about how it affects his future. “We are going to move forward with all the focus into this week and make sure we are getting the job done.”
The writing is on the wall for Coach Norvell. It is clear the FSU administration does not want Alford picking the next head coach because he picked this one and gave Norvell an extension that makes little sense after one undefeated regular season. Norvell faces a tough road ahead going to Alabama this week to face a Crimson Tide team angry they lost at FSU last year. The Noles are also already 0-1 in ACC play, languishing at the bottom of the conference. Before a decision is made on Norvell, the university will have to come up with somewhere between $45 and $51 million according to various media reports. While that is extremely rich for Seminole boosters, there is also a cost to inaction. Donors who don’t like the coach are far less likely to contribute to the program.
UCF’S PERPETUAL QB WOES
My heart aches for UCF. One of the things they need to do to become more successful in the Big 12 is have better defensive line play and do better at stopping the run. The team accomplished those things in a 12-7 loss in a monsoon at Pitt but lost starting quarterback Alonza Barnett in the process to what Head Coach Scott Frost called a “significant” hamstring injury. “We are kind of reevaluating to see how long we think it will be, but he’ll miss some time for sure” Frost said at his weekly press conference.
“Mostly I feel bad for Alonza. I felt like he was getting more and more comfortable in our scheme. I loved to see him run around and look like he was just playing football and making some throws and runs late.”
As the Knights prepare to play Georgia State, their last nonconference tuneup, the team will most likely turn to FIU transfer Keyone Jenkins who has 32 starts over his college career. The other options have no starts, Boise State transfer Kaleb Annett and two true freshmen. Frost is ready to move forward, knowing Barnett will “fight his tail off” to come back from the injury. “We have a tight knit team. I think the guys believe in the guys we have at quarterback, Alonzo and the guys behind him.” More bad news for a team that just cannot catch a break. UCF’s starting quarterback has missed starts in each of the past three seasons.
THE SCOOP ON THE RANKINGS
For the rankings this week, there are still a lot of teams opening the season with cupcakes, and it exhausts me. I think Georgia is good, but how am I supposed to know when their opponents to date are Tennessee State and Western Kentucky? Same thing with Indiana. They are the defending National Champions, and seem like they will be good, but you do not get credit with me when you open the season with North Texas and Howard.
What is wrong with Oregon? They struggled with Boise State, then laid an egg at rebuilding Oklahoma State. QB Dante Moore was a possible number one overall draft pick in the NFL coming into the season but sure doesn’t look like it now. They’ll have to beat someone excellent before I’ll consider ranking them again. It was a pretty poor week overall for the Big 10. Minnesota beaten at home by Mississippi State. Purdue lost at home to Wake Forest. Illinois lost at home to Duke, and Rutgers lost at Boston College. The top of the conference remains strong, but the middle and bottom are not very good so far.
TOP 25 FOR THE WEEK BEGINNING SEPTEMBER 14
- Texas (2-0) Comeback win over Ohio State tops all other wins by all teams
- LSU (2-0) Not as impressive over La Tech, but dominating Clemson keeps them high
- NOTRE DAME (2-0) On strength of crushing Wisconsin
- MICHIGAN (2-0) Not sure where to rank them since they’re as much 1-1 as 2-0 after the Western Michigan game. Still, beating Oklahoma is a major accomplishment
- VIRGINIA (2-0) If FSU fires Norvell, Coach Tony Elliot should be a top candidate
- OLE MISS (2-0) Huge showdown this week with LSU. Winner to be ranked 2nd next week
- MISSOURI (2-0) Don’t think they’ll stay here all year, but winning at rival Kansas looks great two weeks in. See: play somebody!
- MIAMI (2-0) Fell because other teams have better wins than their complete win at Stanford in week 1
- UCLA (2-0) Beat Cal, then Cal went to Syracuse and won. Also handled San Diego State easily
- ALABAMA (2-0) I consider their win at Kentucky fairly equal or just below UCLA’s at Cal
- SMU (2-0) Routed an inferior opponent but won at FSU last week
- MISSISSIPPI STATE (2-0) Went to Minnesota and waxed a Big 10 team
- TEXAS A&M (2-0) Ran away from Arizona State late
- BYU (2-0) Winning over Arizona is decent. Their QB can sling it
- DUKE (2-0) Went to Illinois and beat what should have been a more physical team
- TULSA (2-0) Beat the Oklahoma State team that knocked off Oregon
- TENNESSEE (2-0) Handled Georgia Tech easily
- UTAH (2-0) Waxed lower SEC team Arkansas
- KANSAS ST (2-0) Beat Washington State a lot worse than Washington did
- PITTSBURGH (2-0) Survived UCF in a monsoon with a tough defense
- CINCINNATI (2-0) Win over Boston College in week 1 keeps them in top 25
- HOUSTON (2-0) Oregon State win less impressive this week
- COLORADO (2-0) Not convinced they’ll be here next week
- IOWA (2-0) Beat Iowa State, but not convincing in doing so
- AUBURN (2-0) Stays on strength of close win over Baylor
