How Mike Norvell keeps Florida State moving forward after a stunning CFP snub
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David Hale, ESPN Staff Writer
DANIA BEACH, Fla. — There’s a moment, a split second, really, just as the weight of the College Playoff Committee’s verdict takes hold for the rest of the Florida State team, that it seems as if the impenetrable wall of optimism and enthusiasm that is Seminoles head coach Mike Norvell might finally collapse.
In the video from the team’s watch party Dec. 3, which was broadcast on national TV following the committee’s most controversial decision in its 10-year history, Norvell is seated center frame, surrounded by his players, including injured QB Jordan Travis just a few feet away. The announcement is made. Groans echo through the room. Travis covers his face with a towel. Players turn to each other in disbelief. Norvell is still.
He taps the tips of his fingers together. He tilts his head downward. It’s instantly obvious he was completely unprepared for this eventuality, and it’s not hard to imagine a war of will roiling in his mind between the entirely reasonable furor that must’ve been his natural response and the measured determination that has become his stock-in-trade through four years leading this program.
This is the moment it should come — the eruption, the anger, the outrage, the flurry of epithets directed at a faraway group of people who upended his worldview, the worldview he’d sold to this team for years, the one that had carried Florida State to 19 straight wins and an undefeated season.
But Norvell catches himself.
He says nothing. He turns and looks at his players. He is still and silent for nearly 10 seconds, though it feels so much longer.
And then he stands up, and he addresses his players.
“This has been the most challenging couple of weeks of coaching I’ve ever had,” Norvell would say 17 days later, the emotion still raw in his voice.
The challenge got bigger after that moment. Nearly two dozen key contributors from this season have opted out, entered the transfer portal or been sidelined with an injury. Florida State won’t play for a national championship, but it will play the two-time defending champs in Georgia in the Capital One Orange Bowl (4 p.m. ET on ESPN) with a third-string QB and a host of new faces at the offensive skill positions. Moreover, Florida State will take the next step — the final step of the 2023 season — knowing the ethos that was the foundation of this year’s 12-0 season was dismantled in a single moment.
And yet, for those who remain at Florida State, the motivation to move forward came in those 10 seconds of silence when Norvell decided to meet the most difficult moment of his coaching career not with anger but with resolve.
In the aftermath of the lowest point of his coaching career, Norvell is doubling down on what he’s always preached.
“I haven’t seen Mike blink at all,” defensive coordinator Adam Fuller said.
HE’S STILL ANGRY. He’ll always be angry, he said.
But before FSU’s title hopes were dashed, Norvell started every day with a boisterous “Good morning!” and, more often than not, ended it the same way — a tongue-in-cheek “Good morning!” at 11 p.m., an in-joke to illustrate just how consistent he is.
So even if he’s still seething over the committee’s decision, each new day at FSU begins the same way.
“You get the ‘Good morning!’ because he’s the same Coach Norvell every day,” linebacker Kalen DeLoach said. “That’s him, 365 days a year.”
There are other quirks of the Norvell experience that have been repeated to the point of obsession over the past few years at Florida State.
There’s the “CLIMB” mantra — an acronym for commitment, little things, intensity, mental toughness, brotherhood — which is etched over a photo of a mountain’s peak that hangs in his office. It’s about growth and progress, with the implication that today’s improvement is more important than the place where yesterday ended.
There’s the tagline he’s applied all season — “for years, actually,” offensive lineman Maurice Smith said — that “all we got is all we need.” In the early days at Florida State, it was an insistence that Florida State was good enough to win, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary on the field, but it’s evolved as the Seminoles have crept ever higher on their journey, and it now serves as a badge of defiance, less about convincing the guys inside the locker room that they’re enough and more about insisting to the world outside that it’s overlooked something essential.
And there’s the old trope about controlling what you can control. There’s probably not a coach in the country who hasn’t said it, but Norvell lives it. He didn’t rage against COVID restrictions that kept him from meeting with his team for the vast majority of his first seven months on the job, and he didn’t throw up his hands in disgust when FSU blew a coverage on a Hail Mary throw to lose to FCS Jacksonville State, and he even laughed off a viral “Fire Mike Norvell” social media campaign after he lost top recruit Travis Hunter to Deion Sanders and Jackson State.
That’s what made his silence in the aftermath of the committee’s announcement so significant. It’s as close as he’s ever come to letting his emotions win out, he said, but if he’d done that, it would be evidence that some things outside his reach could still dictate his actions, and he refuses to allow that to happen.
“There’s opportunity, and that provides choice,” Norvell said. “The thing we continue to hammer with our guys through this journey is this could be a defining moment for you. Focus on your improvement and being better than what you’ve been. It’s hard. A lot of them were hurt. But I believe we’re going to continue to build through our experiences.”
It all would seem like a convenient set of gimmicks to bolster a wounded team after the nadir of its season, except that Norvell has been preaching the same things every day all season long.
“Leadership is not about making a speech,” Norvell said. “It’s about what you do on the field and in meeting rooms and how you approach every single day. You can talk, but if your actions don’t back that up, then nobody’s going to listen.”
WHEN BRADEN FISKE first arrived at Florida State last spring, a highly regarded but unproven transfer from Western Michigan, he was nursing an injury and couldn’t practice fully. But each day before practice, his head coach would sprint the length of the field at FSU’s indoor facility. Occasionally other players would join in, racing Norvell — 20 years their senior — into the end zone. Fiske figured he’d give it a try.
“Fiske can run, man,” receiver Keon Coleman said. “He’s got these little legs he gets going and — it’s funny.”
If Fiske’s sprints were good for a laugh, they also turned heads. It was during those runs folks around FSU realized they might have a star in Fiske. But it was also when Fiske realized how much different his coach at Florida State really was.
“He never misses a race,” Fiske said. “I miss a couple every now and then, depending on how the hamstrings feel, but he never misses a race, and that’s just the person he is and the coach he is.”
Fiske’s racing days are over, he said. He’s got a boot on his foot now as he prepares for Saturday’s Orange Bowl. But he’s still playing, still driven to win, and that’s due, in large part, to his coach.
“You can’t lack motivation when [Norvell] is walking through the building,” Fiske said. “People on the outside only see snippets but if you’re in the program and around it every day, it’s different. It’s different being with a man like Coach Norvell. When I first got here I thought for sure he was going to crack. It never happens. He’s the same man every day no matter what’s going on in his life or his program. That’s why we’re headed where we’re going.”
It’s hard to know exactly what this game means for Florida State now. Is it the final chapter of 2023’s magical season? Is it the first chance to turn the page on the committee’s decision and move forward toward something new? Is it some strange purgatory that is neither an end nor a beginning, but rather a placeholder, a rote exercise that exists on its own timeline?
The oddsmakers certainly don’t think Florida State has much of a chance to win. Norvell and AD Michael Alford have downplayed any interest in celebrating a de facto championship even if the Seminoles do claim victory in the Orange Bowl. And either way, when the calendar turns to 2024 and Norvell surveys what remains of his roster, he will find little similarity to the team that marched off the field in Charlotte with an ACC title and assurances that they’d done enough to earn something more.
“The worst part about it is that [watch party] was the last time that this team — players, coaches, staff — that we’ll all be together in one setting,” Fiske said.
And that’s the true significance of Norvell’s restraint in that moment. What the world will remember is the immense disappointment on the faces of every player in the room, the sadness at Travis’ tweet in which he wished he’d been injured sooner, the outrage that followed from FSU officials apoplectic at being passed over.
But what Norvell hopes the men in that room will remember is that, in one of their last moments together as a team, their head coach was the same guy he’d been in all the other moments they were together.
“We’re still at the beginning of where we’re going,” Norvell said. “There are great days ahead for this program. It still doesn’t give it back for the guys who’ve played their last game here at Florida State, but ultimately we’re excited for our opportunity.
“There’s going to be times in life where things don’t go the right way. What you’ve earned, you don’t always receive the reward for that. But you control your response — what you do with it, the attitude you bring — and that’s what’s going to define your identity.”
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Greg Wyshynski
Kyle Palmieri has signed a new two-year contract with the New York Islanders, as one of the better options among free-agent scoring wingers is now off the market.
Palmieri’s contract carries a $4.75 million average annual value. He’s coming off a 4-year, $20-million deal with the Islanders that was signed in Sept. 2021. According to PuckPedia, the new deal has a full no-trade clause in the first year with a modified 16-team no-trade list for the 2026-27 season.
Palmieri, a 34-year-old Long Island native, scored 48 points (24 goals, 24 assists) in 82 games with the Islanders last season. He’s scored more than 20 goals in seven of his last 10 NHL seasons.
In 900 career games with the Islanders, New Jersey Devils and Anaheim Ducks, Palmieri scored 527 points (270 goals, 257 assists). He scored 32 points (18 goals, 14 assists) in 68 Stanley Cup Playoff games.
The Islanders also signed defenseman Adam Boqvist to a one-year contract. He had 14 points in 35 games last season between the Florida Panthers and the Islanders, who claimed him on waivers in January.
New York has had a noteworthy offseason thus far. They won the NHL Draft Lottery for the first time since 2009, earning the first overall pick in next month’s entry draft. They also replaced general manager Lou Lamoriello with Tampa Bay Lightning executive Mathieu Darche, who was named the Islanders’ GM and executive vice president.
According to multiple reports, the contracts for Palmieri and Boqvist were agreed to before Darche was hired, and the new general manager honored them.
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Kiley McDaniel
As the NCAA regionals begin in college baseball, award voting and regular-season stats give you a good idea who performed well this season, while my draft rankings and mock drafts let you know who will go early in this summer’s draft. But which colleges can claim bragging rights for having the most pro talent on their rosters across all draft classes?
I have a bit of an obsession — but also detailed spreadsheets sourced from advanced data and scouts, so I can answer this question by examining how many players (regardless of class) project as future draft prospects.
Because the draft and projections for pro success look heavily at tools and age, those things are emphasized through the process once you get past the surface statistics in my formula.
I’ll remind you that these margins are really tight — if you add one second-rounder to any of the teams below, it will probably move up a few spots — and I used all pro-caliber players to formulate the ranking, even though we list just the top-two-rounds prospects on each team’s current roster below. Players who are currently injured count for this exercise, but I dinged the team rating a bit if you won’t see the player this postseason, and all players listed are 2025 draft-eligible unless otherwise indicated.
Without further delay, here are the most loaded rosters in college baseball:
1. Tennessee
Top-two-rounds prospects: LHP Liam Doyle, SS Gavin Kilen, 3B Andrew Fischer, RHP Marcus Phillips, C Levi Clark (2027), 3B Dean Curley, RHP A.J. Russell
Before I started this process, I figured the Volunteers would win, and they did, carried by a really strong 2025 draft class highlighted by Liam Doyle — who is projected to go No. 2 in my most recent mock.
And Tennessee has even more talent than the names listed above. RHP Tanner Franklin and Nate Snead are two key bullpen arms who reach the triple digits and didn’t qualify, while a number of other players could step up into top-two-round relevance with expanded roles next season, such as RHP Tegan Kuhns and 2B/CF Jay Abernathy.
2. Arkansas
Top-two-rounds prospects: SS Wehiwa Aloy, RHP Gage Wood, C Ryder Helfrick (2026), LHP Zach Root, OF Charles Davalan, LHP Cole Gibler (2027), RHP Gabe Gaeckle
The Razorbacks weren’t the first team I thought of when guessing who would be near the top of this ranking because they don’t have as many top-of-the-first-round prospects as some others, though they annually have tons of pro talent, so this isn’t a shocker.
Aloy is probably the one prospect projected for the top half of the first round of the group, but the rest of the list belongs in the late-first to early-second range, with a number of intriguing talents beyond that, including 3B Brent Iredale and about a half-dozen different pitchers.
3. LSU
Top-two-rounds prospects: LHP Kade Anderson, OF Derek Curiel (2026) RHP Casan Evans (2027), RHP Anthony Eyanson, SS Steven Milam (2026), RHP William Schmidt (2027), 2B Daniel Dickinson
The Tigers are often loaded with pro talent under skipper Jay Johnson, and this year is no different. Scouts soured a bit on Curiel as a high school senior, but he has proved them wrong as a freshman, looking like a first-rounder so far. Evans and Eyanson were revelations as newcomers, and Schmidt has the potential to fit that description in an expanded role next season.
4. Texas
Top-two-rounds prospects: 3B Adrian Rodriguez (2027), LHP Dylan Volantis (2027), RHP Jason Flores (2027), RF Max Belyeu, 2B Ethan Mendoza (2026)
Texas is stocked with underclassmen with early-round upside as Mendoza and Rodriguez will anchor the infield next season and I’d guess Volantis and Flores will both move into the rotation after strong relief performances as freshmen. LHP Jared Spencer would’ve easily qualified before his injury earlier this month.
5. Florida
Top-two-rounds prospects: RHP Liam Peterson (2026), RHP Aidan King (2027), SS Brendan Lawson (2027), RHP Luke McNeillie (2026)
The Gators are the first team with no 2025 draft-eligible players listed, though 2B Cade Kurland would probably qualify if he were healthy all season, and SS Colby Shelton would also likely sneak in if he were 21 years old rather than 22. Peterson is the top college arm for 2026 and King looks like one of many future 2027 first-rounders who popped as freshmen this season; most of them are listed here.
6. Florida State
Top-two-rounds prospects: LHP Jamie Arnold, LHP Wes Mendes (2026), SS Alex Lodise, 2B Drew Faurot
The Noles have solid high-end talent, with three possible first-round talents headlined by likely top-10 pick Arnold. The depth doesn’t stop there as OF Max Williams and RHP Cam Leiter (injured) might be third-rounders this year, and underclassmen C Hunter Carns and LF Myles Bailey are also showing flashes.
7. Wake Forest
Top-two-rounds prospects: RHP Chris Levonas (2027), SS Marek Houston, RF Ethan Conrad
Wake has graduated a number of standout players to pro ball in the past few years and has another solid crop coming this year, with Houston and Conrad both likely first-round picks. Levonas didn’t sign as a second-round pick out of high school last year, and early returns suggest he might be a high first-rounder in a few years.
8. Oregon State
Top-two-rounds prospects: SS Aiva Arquette, RHP Dax Whitney (2027)
The Beavers have only two players listed here, but both look like top-10 picks. There are also a number of interesting prospects in the third-to-fourth-round range for this year’s draft, including OF Gavin Turley, LHP Nelson Keljo and 3B Trent Caraway.
9. Oklahoma
Top-two-rounds prospects: RHP Kyson Witherspoon, SS Jaxon Willits (2026), C Easton Carmichael, RHP Malachi Witherspoon, LHP Cade Crossland
Oklahoma has five prospects listed here, though only Kyson Witherspoon is a clear top-50 pick; the other five are all later second-round or early third-round types of prospects. This rotation makes the Sooners dangerous in a postseason format.
10. TCU
Top-two-rounds prospects: RHP Tommy Lapour (2026), OF Sawyer Strosnider (2026), LHP Mason Brassfield (2027)
TCU’s crop of prospects who made the list (and OF Noah Franco, who was in contention) are all underclassmen, which bodes well for the future. Lapour has three above-average pitches and is the second-best college pitcher for next year’s draft.
11. Mississippi State
Top-two-rounds prospects: OF Nolan Stevens (2026), 3B Ace Reese (2026), RHP Ryan McPherson (2027)
Stevens and Reese both look like potential first-round picks for next year’s draft; Reese is an excellent hitter with medium power, while Stevens has some swing and miss to his game but easy plus raw power. McPherson is the best prospect among a number of interesting underclassman arms, though 22-year-old LHP Pico Kohn is the most impactful for this season.
12. Georgia Tech
Top-two-rounds prospects: OF Drew Burress (2026), C Vahn Lackey (2026), SS Kyle Lodise, 2B Alex Hernandez (2026)
Burress is in the running to go No. 1 in next year’s draft due to his standout power/speed combination. Lackey and Lodise look like solid second-rounders. Hernandez is a borderline second-rounder thanks to a strong freshman year.
The next half-dozen teams: Alabama, Auburn, Vanderbilt, Oregon, Ole Miss, North Carolina
HOUSTON — Soon after Lance McCullers Jr.’s family received online death threats following a tough start by the Astros pitcher, his 5-year-old daughter, Ava, overheard wife Kara talking on the phone about it.
What followed was a painful conversation between McCullers and his little girl.
“She asked me when I came home: ‘Daddy, like, what is threats? Who wants to hurt us? Who wants to hurt me?'” McCullers told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “So those conversations are tough to deal with.”
McCullers is one of two MLB pitchers whose families have received online death threats this month as internet abuse of players and their families is on the rise. Boston Red Sox reliever Liam Hendriks took to social media soon after the incident with McCullers to call out people who were threatening Hendriks’ wife’s life and directing “vile” comments at him.
The Astros contacted MLB security and the Houston Police Department following the threats to McCullers. A police spokesperson said Thursday that it remains an ongoing investigation.
McCullers, who has two young daughters, took immediate action after the threats and reached out to the team to inquire about what could be done to protect his family. Astros owner Jim Crane stepped in and hired 24-hour security for them.
It was a move McCullers felt was necessary after what happened.
“You have to at that point,” he said.
Players around the league agree that online abuse has gotten progressively worse in recent years. Milwaukee‘s Christian Yelich, a 13-year veteran and the 2018 National League MVP, said receiving online abuse is “a nightly thing” for most players.
“I think over the last few years it’s definitely increased,” he said. “It’s increased to the point that you’re just: ‘All right, here we go.’ It doesn’t even really register on your radar anymore. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. You’re just so used to that on a day-to-day, night-to-night basis. It’s not just me. It’s everybody in here, based on performance.”
And many players believe it’s directly linked to the rise in legalized sports betting.
“You get a lot of DMs or stuff like that about you ruining someone’s bet or something ridiculous like that,” veteran Red Sox reliever Justin Wilson said. “I guess they should make better bets.”
Hendriks, a 36-year-old reliever who previously underwent treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, said on Instagram that he and his wife received death threats after a loss to the New York Mets. He added that people left comments saying that they wished he would have died from cancer, among other abusive comments.
“Enough is enough,” he said. “Like at some point, everyone just like sucking up and dealing with it isn’t accomplishing anything. And we pass along to security. We pass along to whoever we need to, but nothing ends up happening. And it happens again the next night.
“And so, at some point, someone has to make a stand. And it’s one of those things where, the more eyes we get on it, the more voices we get talking about it, hopefully it can push it in the right direction.”
Both the Astros and the Red Sox are working with MLB security to take action against social media users who direct threats toward players and their families. Red Sox spokesperson Abby Murphy said they have taken steps in recent years to make sure players’ families are safe during games. That includes security staff and Boston police stationed in the family section at home and dedicated security in the traveling party to monitor the family section on the road.
“I think over the last few years it’s definitely increased. It’s increased to the point that you’re just: ‘All right, here we go.’ It doesn’t even really register on your radar anymore. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. You’re just so used to that on a day-to-day, night-to-night basis. It’s not just me. It’s everybody in here, based on performance.”
Christian Yelich, on players receiving threatening messages
Murphy said identifying those who make anonymous threats online is difficult, but “both the Red Sox and MLB have cyber programs and analysts dedicated to identifying and removing these accounts.”
The Astros have uniformed police officers stationed in the family section, a practice that was implemented well before the threats to McCullers and his family.
For some players, online abuse has gotten so bad that they have abandoned social media. Detroit Tigers All-Star outfielder Riley Greene said he got off social media because he received so many messages from people blaming him for failed bets.
“I deleted it,” he said of Instagram. “I’m off it. It sucks, but it’s the world we live in, and we can’t do anything about it. People would DM me and say nasty things, tell me how bad of a player I am and say nasty stuff that we don’t want to hear.”
The 31-year-old McCullers, who returned this year after missing two full seasons with injuries, said dealing with this has been the worst thing that has happened in his career. He understands the passion of fans and knows that being criticized for a poor performance is part of the game. But he believes there’s a “moral line” that fans shouldn’t cross.
“People should want us to succeed,” he said. “We want to succeed, but it shouldn’t come at a cost to our families, the kids in our life, having to feel like they’re not safe where they live or where they sit at games.”
Astros manager Joe Espada was livid when he learned about the threats to McCullers and his family and was visibly upset when he addressed what happened with reporters.
Espada said the team has mental health professionals available to the players to talk about the toll such abuse takes on them and any other issues they may be dealing with.
“We are aware that when we step on the field, fans expect and we expect the best out of ourselves,” Espada said this week. “But when we are trying to do our best and things don’t go our way while we’re trying to give you everything we got and now you’re threatening our families and kids — now I do have a big issue with that, right? I just did not like it.”
Kansas City‘s Salvador Perez, a 14-year MLB veteran, hasn’t experienced online abuse but was appalled by what happened to McCullers. If something like that happened to him, he said, it would change the way he interacts with fans.
“Now some fans, real fans, they’re going to pay for that too,” he said. “Because if I was him, I wouldn’t take a picture or sign anything for nobody because of that one day.”
McCullers wouldn’t go that far but admitted it has changed his mindset.
“It does make you kind of shell up a little bit,” he said. “It does make you kind of not want to go places. I guess that’s just probably the human reaction to it.”
While most players have dealt with some level of online abuse in their careers, no one has a good idea of how to stop it.
“I’m thankful I’m not in a position where I have to find a solution to this,” Tigers pitcher Tyler Holton said. “But as a person who is involved in this, I wish this wasn’t a topic of conversation.”
Chicago White Sox outfielder Mike Tauchman is disheartened at how bad player abuse has gotten. While it’s mostly online, he said he has had teammates that have had racist and homophobic things yelled at them during games.
“Outside of just simply not having social media, I really don’t see that getting better before it just continues to get worse,” he said. “I mean, I think it’s kind of the way things are now. Like, people just feel like they have the right to say whatever they want to whoever they want and it’s behind a keyboard and there’s really no repercussions, right?”
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