Florida State must improve significantly in 2024 after last season’s historic 2-10 collapse, or major changes could be coming to the program, according to ESPN’s Matt Barrie.
“It better be better than that,” Barrie said on the Gramlich & Mac Lain podcast. “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.”
The partnership between offensive coordinator Malzahn and head coach Mike Norvell needs immediate results.
FSU’s dramatic fall came just one season after a 13-0 regular season and controversial College Football Playoff exclusion.
“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 pointed to roster construction as a key issue.
“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 described the 2024 season as “a bad, bad outlier” that FSU cannot 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.”
Despite the program’s struggles, there remains a path back to contention.
CBS Sports’ Chip Patterson sees the ACC schedule as favorable for a potential turnaround.
“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, that scenario might not just represent a successful season — it could determine his future in Tallahassee.
