‘They responded in the right way’: How a canceled trip to see U2 helped turn around the Predators’ season
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Ryan S. Clark, NHL reporter
SEATTLE — Practically everyone in hockey has heard that the Nashville Predators‘ trip to see U2 in February at the Sphere in Las Vegas was canceled because of how poorly the team was playing at that time.
They’d lost six of eight games before the NHL All-Star break and would lose two of their next three games after returning from the break. They allowed more than four goals in eight straight games and lost seven of those games, including a 9-2 loss to the Dallas Stars on Feb. 15 at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
“We’re having trouble getting our mind around what’s important and that’s hockey,” Predators coach Andrew Brunette told reporters after that seven-goal loss to the Stars. “It’s not everything else that goes around hockey. It’s the game of hockey. I don’t know if we’re understanding the importance that our mind has to be in the game and it can’t be in our vacations.”
A message needed to be sent. That prompted Brunette and Predators general manager Barry Trotz to deliver one by canceling the team trip to see U2.
Thanks to Ryan O’Reilly, there’s another story about the Predators, Las Vegas and U2 that has a much different ending.
Back on Feb. 20, the day after they would have seen the concert, the Predators had a game against the Vegas Golden Knights. A smiling O’Reilly shared recently how an unnamed teammate got clever and started playing U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” as the Preds were coming into the dressing room after morning skate.
The irony in playing that U2 song is the music video shows the band performing and walking the streets of Las Vegas.
“We all just started dying,” O’Reilly recalled. “Trotzy was not there. I don’t think any of the coaches heard it, but all the guys in the room were all laughing about it. It was pretty funny.”
This would be the start of a turnaround for the Predators.
IT WAS AROUND this time a year ago when the Predators were in a completely different place — with little to laugh about.
A franchise that had already gone through quite a few changes by the trade deadline was on the verge of going through even more. They would miss the playoffs for the first time in eight seasons and headed into the offseason hoping some combination of a rebuild, restructure and/or a retool would see them return to the postseason sooner rather than later.
What Trotz did over the offseason created a belief that the Predators could be ahead of schedule with their plans.
The story of the Preds’ season was that they would start seeing some success only for progress to slip away.
That’s what made canceling that team trip to U2 so necessary from the perspective of coaches and management.
It was a bold move, and could have had one of two distinct outcomes: Either they could have spiraled, or used it as an intervention to save their season.
“We sort of addressed that and you saw the response,” Trotz said. “That says a lot about your group and the men that are in that room. It’s the response to our actions after the All-Star break and with the leadership they had, they responded in the right way.”
What gets lost in O’Reilly’s story is the context of what happened after the Predators heard U2 in their dressing room. They beat the Golden Knights for their second straight win in what turned into an eight-game winning streak that has since become their current 15-game points streak.
The streak itself is proof the Predators have found the consistency within their system that eluded them at times this season. That consistency has allowed them to create separation in the Western Conference wild-card race. Seeing that type of commitment and those results is what prompted Trotz to add a pair of top-six wingers at the trade deadline.
Above all, the streak has shown the power of patience and transparency for a franchise that’s gone through several big changes in the past 12 months.
“It was a lot of change all at once. Player personnel, coaching, management. It was kind of the whole gamut,” Predators center Colton Sissons said. “But when you bring in good people and great coaches like Bruno and really high character guys like O’Reilly, [Gustav] Nyquist and [Luke] Schenn who have been leaders on other teams and have had great careers, you’re able to turn things around pretty quick.”
REACHING THE PLAYOFFS hadn’t been the issue for the Predators in recent seasons. Getting beyond the first round was. They had been knocked out in the first round or qualifying round in their four most recent postseason appearances.
It forced the Preds in February 2023 to make a decision about their future, and they believed making changes could help them win even more.
David Poile, the only GM in franchise history, announced he was retiring. Trotz, the first coach in team history, would take over. That set the stage for the Predators to move on from Mattias Ekholm, Mikael Granlund, Tanner Jeannot and Nino Niederreiter ahead of the 2023 trade deadline, when they added quite a bit of draft capital.
Despite the subtractions, the Predators finished three points shy of the final wild card — without two of their best players in Filip Forsberg and captain Roman Josi. Forsberg sustained a season-ending concussion on Feb. 11, while Josi also was diagnosed with a concussion in mid-March that saw him miss the final weeks of the regular season.
Trotz remained aggressive in the offseason. He hired Brunette, who was an assistant with the New Jersey Devils, in May. He bought out Matt Duchene and traded Ryan Johansen. Duchene had three years left on an eight-year contract that saw him earn $8 million annually. Johansen, who also had an eight-year deal worth $8 million a year, was moved with two years left and the Predators retaining 50 percent salary.
Moving on from Duchene and Johansen gave the Preds more financial flexibility.
“I think what we did last year was sort of a retool,” Trotz said. “I felt it was really important. We had too many people that were comfortable. We knew we were going to have a real young team coming up. We’ve got a really good [AHL] team in Milwaukee. Obviously, on July 1 we picked up a couple of cultural pieces in O’Reilly, Nyquist and Schenn to really help our young guys.”
Signing those veterans was partly motivated by discussions Trotz had with other GMs who had been in a similar situation. Trotz recalled that one of them said his biggest regret was not keeping veteran players around who could help shape a team’s culture during a retool.
“He said, ‘Our thought was to let the kids play and just go from there,'” Trotz said. “But what happened was the kids didn’t develop because they were trying to survive and just couldn’t develop. So you need to insulate some of those young guys.”
That became even more evident with how the Predators ended last season. Trotz said watching veteran and two-time Stanley Cup winner Ryan McDonagh lead a young team that was missing Forsberg and Josi made him appreciate the value of having experienced players who could mentor younger teammates.
Having those veterans, coupled with young players such as Dante Fabbro, Cody Glass, Luke Evangelista and Tommy Novak, among others, is why Trotz was open about the team’s chances and goals. He told reporters and others that the team could be “not that good” or “sneaky good,” but that it was about getting better for the future.
Trotz’s transparency extended to Brunette and the players. Trotz told O’Reilly, Nyquist and Schenn that he wanted them to feel comfortable voicing their thoughts to him whether they saw something good or bad within the team. He also told Brunette that he wanted to be there for him, but not be over his shoulder because he had faith that Brunette could guide the Predators to the next phase in their plan.
In fact, Trotz went to visit the Predators’ AHL team after this year’s trade deadline so he could tell their prospects they’re also going to have a part to play in the club’s success.
“He is someone you can talk to and I think it’s pretty valuable for him to have been a coach for a number of years, knowing what it’s like inside a locker room over a season. He’s been there and he’s done that,” Nyquist said. “Not a lot of GMs probably can say that they’ve been in the locker room and have gone through that. He’s been a great voice of reason and found a way to form this team into something new.”
Trotz changed a roster that had been largely rooted in consistency for several years. Josi said all the changes meant the Predators felt like they were a new team coming into the season. Josi is one of eight players still on the roster from when the Predators last made the playoffs back in 2021-22.
“As someone who has been here for a long time, it’s a different team for sure,” said Josi, who has been with the club since 2011. “But the guys we brought in were quality people. That’s the first thing. It’s guys who’ve been leaders on teams. … I think you need that with a lot of young guys coming up. It made my job real easy this year. We have five or six guys who are leading this team. That’s a huge help.”
PRACTICE DAYS CAN be optional in the NHL, with the understanding that everyone is going to do some sort of work. As the Predators get in a practice at Climate Pledge Arena, the players who are not on the ice are still doing workouts.
All of them are wearing a navy blue hat that has “Relentless” in cursive across the front. This has become the credo for how the Predators are approaching their business.
“The way we’ve been playing, everybody’s been playing the same way within their different skill sets, I think,” Josi said. “Everyone brings something different to the table but we’re all playing the same. Every line is relentless. Every line is backchecking. Our forwards are doing an amazing job with back pressure and forechecking. That’s relentless.”
Every player from Josi to Nyquist to O’Reilly to Sissons used “relentless” at least twice to describe what has made the Predators different during the past several weeks.
Josi said the Predators were able to reach that stage of their evolution because Brunette was patient with them, and his belief in the group never wavered. Brunette joked that the Preds never deviated from the system because of stubbornness.
“I don’t think it was ever a question of buy-in. It was an understanding of ‘Why is he asking me to do this? Why is he asking me to put all this work in? Why is he asking this?’ And you’re not seeing the rewards,” Brunette explained. “That’s always the hard thing. But once they started seeing the rewards and why I was asking to skate that hard, to work that hard, they started to see why.”
During Brunette’s time as the interim coach of the Florida Panthers in 2021-22 and as a Devils assistant last season, his teams scored goals — lots of them. The Panthers averaged a league-high 4.11 goals per game in Brunette’s lone season in South Florida, while the Devils were tied for fourth with 3.52 in 2022-23.
Having such prolific attacks overshadowed Brunette’s defensive philosophies. He said those systems have never been only about offense. It’s about finding ways to play with quickness by moving the puck faster, skating faster and transitioning faster, with the hope that it can lead to having the puck more.
Brunette and his coaching staff have implemented a system in Nashville that relies on all five players doing whatever they can to gain possession.
In order for the system to work there needs to be a checking mentality, which can play a major role in getting and then keeping possession for as long as possible.
Working as a collective has yielded results over their points streak. In that time, the Predators are scoring a league-high 4.33 goals per game. They’re tied for the fewest goals allowed per game, at 1.93. They’re fourth in shots on goal per game, and are 10th in fewest shots on goal allowed per game.
“Our game has been pretty constant all year. We just didn’t always get rewarded for it,” Brunette said. “Until we had that little bit after the break when we had three games when we didn’t play really well. That was our worst stretch of hockey. We were able to find our game and when we found it, we worked hard to keep it.”
Brunette said that’s what made canceling the U2 trip a hard decision. His experience as a player allowed him to appreciate what it meant to have fun with teammates. But it also allowed him to understand that the only way to have fun is to put hockey first.
“We weren’t on our game and we had to get our game going before we could have some fun,” Brunette said. “That’s almost the premise of our whole team identity. Put the work in and then we can have fun.”
Fun for the Predators can be measured in more ways than playing U2 in the locker room for a laugh, or getting a point in 15 straight games. Josi, O’Reilly and Sissons said they’ve had fun watching young players such as Novak get a three-year extension for his contributions, or seeing a rookie like Evangelista become a more well-rounded player beyond the 15 goals he’s scored this season.
Even the trade deadline is an example of that fun. A year ago, Sissons was watching some of his friends go to other teams. This year, he watched the Predators give him a pair of new wingers in Anthony Beauvillier and Jason Zucker, in a season that could also see Sissons hit the 40-point mark for the first time in his career.
“It happened pretty quick and we probably changed our mindset coming up to the deadline after a tough scenario with us canceling a team trip to Vegas everybody heard about,” Sissons said. “We rallied around each other and really came together. When you can be one of those teams that can add at the deadline, that says a lot from the management in that, ‘Hey, we believe in you guys and we want to give you the opportunity here.'”
Sports
‘This didn’t happen overnight’: Why the Mariners are built to be back after a crushing ALCS loss
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David Schoenfield
Seattle Mariners pitcher Bryan Woo was being interviewed in the clubhouse following the team’s Game 7 loss in the American League Championship Series to the Toronto Blue Jays when, suddenly, in the background, you can hear an anguished scream.
Mariners’ fans understand heartbreak — they can relate to that scream.
For most of the 49-season existence of the Mariners, fans of the club relied on hope: hope for the first winning season, hope the franchise didn’t relocate, hope of making the playoffs for the first time, hope to end a 20-year playoff drought. Hope for a World Series. And with one crack of the bat on Monday night, that hope was crushed.
It didn’t start out that way, though. The Mariners won the first two games of the ALCS on the road in Toronto — and teams that won the first two on the road in a best-of-seven series had gone 26-3 in MLB history (excluding 2020).
After dropping the first two games in Seattle, they won a dramatic Game 5 on Eugenio Suarez‘s grand slam to take a 3-2 series lead. The winner of Game 5, when a series was tied, had gone on to win a best-of-seven series 69% of the time in MLB history.
The Mariners went on to lose Game 6, playing about as sloppy a game as you can play, and then lost Game 7 on George Springer‘s three-run home run in the seventh inning — only the second come-from-behind home run while trailing by multiple runs in a winner-take-all game in playoff history (Pete Alonso hit the first last year for the New York Mets).
That’s a lot of qualifiers, but it hammers home the despair: That was an especially difficult defeat, eight outs away from the franchise’s first ever World Series, a moment Seattle sports fans will forever remember, alongside not giving the ball to Marshawn Lynch in Super Bowl XLIX. The Mariners remain the only one of the 30 franchises never to play in a Fall Classic.
The pain will linger. Soon enough, however, thoughts will turn to 2026, as they must — and Seattle is well-positioned not only for next season, but for the long term.
While the Mariners have just two playoff appearances in the past five seasons, they’re one of the most stable organizations in the sport, one of just six with winning records every season since 2021 and seventh in wins in that span. They have a strong farm system that features eight players ranked in Kiley McDaniel’s August top 100 prospects update, including shortstop Colt Emerson, the No. 7 prospect, and pitcher Kade Anderson, the No. 3 pick in the 2025 MLB draft, who ranks No. 16.
The Mariners also have a stable group of core players: Of the 17 who were worth at least 0.8 WAR in 2025 — MVP candidate Cal Raleigh led the way with 7.3 — all except free agent Josh Naylor and second baseman/DH Jorge Polanco are already signed to new contracts or remain under team control (Polanco has a $7 million player option that he will likely opt out from).
Both remain good fits in the lineup after strong 2025 campaigns, especially Naylor. Other than a couple of solid years from Ty France in 2021-22, first base has been a revolving door — and a problem — for the Mariners ever since John Olerud was traded more than 20 years ago. Re-signing Naylor, in part because he also provides some much-needed contact skills in a strikeout-heavy lineup, feels imperative.
It’s not an old team either. Polanco (31), J.P. Crawford (30) and Randy Arozarena (30) are the only regulars older than 28 years old, while Luis Castillo (32) is the only starting pitcher older than 28. Castillo is signed for two more seasons while the other rotation members are also under control for at least two more years — Logan Gilbert (2027), George Kirby (2028) and Bryan Woo and Bryce Miller (2029). Having that kind of potential stability in the rotation is an enviable position — with Anderson likely to move fast through the minors and Ryan Sloan, a second-round pick out of high school in 2024 and now No. 43 in ESPN’s prospect rankings, flashing top-of-the-rotation stuff in his first minor league season and also capable of a quick rise to the majors.
The foundation for the team’s current success can be traced back to the 2018-19 offseason. Jerry Dipoto, the president of baseball operations, took over the top job for the Mariners after the 2015 season. They had winning seasons in 2016 and 2018, but after the second one, Dipoto was worried about the future of the organization.
“We were just coming off an 89-win season,” he told ESPN during the ALCS. “At the end of the regular season, I’ll sit down with our owners and talk through what the plan is for the year ahead. I thought the right thing to do after visiting with our front office group was just to reboot. We were a little too old, we were a little too top-heavy, and we had very little in the way of prospect capital. We weren’t going to be able to continue to beat that engine and sustain a competitive, championship-level team.”
The front office produces a flowchart of the organization each year that maps out the next six seasons, trying to estimate what those six years will look like. It didn’t look good, so the Mariners committed to a rebuild. It began with Crawford, acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies for Jean Segura (after the Phillies had first asked for Edwin Diaz, who was instead traded to the Mets), and he’s been the team’s starting shortstop ever since.
Seattle also watched Julio Rodriguez, signed as a 16-year-old in 2017, flourish and develop into an immediate star as a 21-year-old rookie in 2022. His inability to lay off sliders low and away — like the final pitch of the 2025 season — can certainly be frustrating, but he’s had two 30-30 seasons by age 24 while averaging 5.7 WAR. His 6.8 WAR in 2025 ranked fourth among AL position players.
That he’s turned into a potential Gold Glove center fielder (he’s a finalist for the award this season) is just an added bonus.
“We all thought that he was going to wind up being a corner man,” Dipoto said. “And, you know, between the ages of 19 and 21, he leaned out, turned into athletic Adonis, and unbeknownst to us, coordinated with his agent, Ulises Cabrera, and invested in an Olympic running coach. He came to spring training in 2022, and he said, ‘You think I can play center field?’ Because he made it a goal of his to be a center fielder.”
Rodriguez not only impresses on the field, but off as well, with Dipoto speaking highly of his star player’s focus, how he wants to be great and how he has studied the careers of great athletes.
“When Julio is in a quiet space, he’s a deep thinker,” Dipoto said. “He is focused on becoming as great as he can become.”
Maybe there’s even more to come — especially if Rodriguez can learn to lay off those sliders.
Along the way, with Dipoto at the helm, the Mariners were drafting pitchers — and doing a great job of developing them. In 2018, they drafted Gilbert in the first round. In 2019, it was Kirby in the first round. Miller was a fourth-round pick in 2021 while Woo was a sixth-rounder that year. They acquired closer Andres Munoz and setup man Matt Brash in two separate trades with the San Diego Padres on the same day in 2020, giving up nobody of major consequence in either deal.
Dipoto credits Scott Hunter, his scouting director since 2016, and Hunter’s staff, as well as Justin Hollander, who is now the team’s general manager. It’s rare to find rotation stalwarts such as Miller and Woo at that point in the draft — let alone two high-leverage relievers in one day.
“Every player that’s been acquired in a trade or drafted was acquired while we were here, and that makes it really special,” Dipoto said. “This didn’t happen overnight. We’ve bumped our head, we’ve stubbed our toe, we’ve put our foot in our mouth. Literally. And you learn.
“To see J.P. Crawford out there since 2019. He’s the rock. To see Julio, who we signed as a 16-year-old, standing out in center field, doing things that really are on a Hall of Fame trajectory. To see Cal Raleigh, who we drafted and developed, go out there and have maybe the best catcher season in history. To see a starting rotation that is 80 percent homegrown.”
Dipoto first signed Crawford to a long-term deal in 2022, then Rodriguez later that same summer and Raleigh before this season. With J-Rod and Raleigh signed through at least 2031, the offensive foundation in Seattle is there, with that group of prospects on the way.
The ultimate key for 2026 sits with the rotation — it struggled in the ALCS with a 6.37 ERA and averaged less than four innings per start. Its collective WAR took a big dip from 2024:
Baseball-Reference
2025: 7.8 (19th)
2024: 11.7 (10th)
FanGraphs
2025: 11.0 (14th)
2024: 14.9 (fourth)
Some of the decline can be attributed to injuries — Gilbert, Kirby and Miller each missed significant time with them — but note the home/road splits in ERA for Seattle’s starters over the past two seasons:
2025
Home: 3.30
Road: 4.67
2024
Home: 2.74
Road: 4.05
Given the quick hooks manager Dan Wilson deployed throughout the postseason, it seemed he didn’t exactly trust his starters to go deep either (Woo, the best starter in the regular season, wasn’t at full strength and pitched only out of the bullpen in the ALCS).
It makes you wonder: Does this team need an ace? Perhaps one like Tarik Skubal, who is entering his final year with the Detroit Tigers before free agency and will see trade speculation follow him all winter if the Tigers don’t sign him to an extension. The Mariners have the prospects and the pitching depth to at least make a serious inquiry into Skubal.
Emerson is likely to take over at third base in 2025 and will eventually replace Crawford at shortstop in 2027 after Crawford’s deal runs out. That means letting the popular Suarez, the third baseman who the Mariners traded for at the deadline this year, leave as a free agent. Second baseman Cole Young (No. 57 on the preseason top 100 prospect list) played 77 games as a rookie this season and will get another shot after starting well before slumping to a final line of .211/.302/.305. He hit just four home runs, but he’s only 22 years old and there might be more power to come (“You should see his BP sessions,” Dipoto said). Rookie catcher Harry Ford, No. 65 in the August update, should take over the backup duties behind Raleigh after a strong showing at Triple-A, perhaps letting Raleigh take a few more DH at-bats and rest those legs after playing all but three regular-season games for Seattle in 2025.
Everyone around the team says that the oft-mentioned good vibes with the Mariners were the real deal, with a clubhouse that got along and a good-natured group of players. The ALCS defeat was disappointing, but the Mariners will be back.
“Players come here and they fall in love,” Dipoto said. “They fall in love with the environment. It’s a beautiful ballpark. It’s the clubhouse. It’s the camaraderie. It’s the 25 teammates. That’s an awesome thing that’s been happening here for a number of years.”
The foundation has been set. Now the organization just needs to figure out how to go one — or, preferably, two — steps further.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Florida Gators are turning to Steve Spurrier to help fix the team’s floundering offense.
Steve Spurrier Jr., anyway.
Interim coach Billy Gonzales said Wednesday the younger Spurrier, who was hired as an offensive analyst earlier this year, will be more involved with quarterback DJ Lagway when the Gators (3-4, 2-2 SEC) play No. 5 Georgia (6-1, 4-1) in Jacksonville on Nov. 1.
Gonzales will have tight ends coach/offensive coordinator Russ Callaway organize the offense alongside quarterbacks coach Ryan O’Hara in the booth. O’Hara will be on the headset calling plays to Lagway.
Spurrier, meanwhile, will be on the sideline working directly with the sophomore quarterback.
“What we’re trying to do right now is tweak a couple things so we can put our players in a better situation to go out and make plays and perform at a higher level,” said Gonzales, named the interim after Billy Napier was fired Sunday. “We all understand that’s what we need to do. So that’s the No. 1 goal for us as a coaching staff right now.”
Napier was dismissed, in large part, because he failed to get Florida’s offense on track in his four seasons. The Gators totaled a combined 50 points in losses to South Florida, LSU, Miami and Texas A&M this fall, and they rank 15th in the league in scoring.
Facing the Bulldogs without Napier could show how much of a hindrance he was to an offense that believes it has enough talent to compete in the SEC. Gonzales has made it clear he wants to open things up more and get the ball down the field to receivers.
Spurrier is a part of the plan. The 54-year-old son of a Hall of Fame player and coach who is a living legend in Gainesville, Spurrier spent the past two years at Tulsa. He also worked at Mississippi State (2020-22), Washington State (2018-19), Western Kentucky (2017) and Oklahoma (2016). Before that, he spent a decade working under his famous father at South Carolina (2005-15).
“Whenever you’re around one of the greatest offensive minds in history, it’s obviously going to rub off on you as well,” Gonzales said. “He’s been involved, but now he’s going to have more of a role because he’s going to be down there on the field with the quarterback looking in his eyes and getting a chance to talk to him and review the film that’s being relayed.
“It’s going to put us in a great situation to help DJ and the quarterbacks perform on the football field.”
Lagway has thrown for 1,513 yards, with nine touchdowns and nine interceptions, this season while playing behind a shaky offensive line. He has looked better of late as he moves closer to fully recovering from a derailed offseason that included core-muscle surgery, nagging shoulder pain and a strained calf muscle.
“It’s been a long journey, and I’m thankful for the good and the bad,” Lagway said. “God doesn’t make any mistakes. I’m just excited to see where my journey continues and how I can continue to get better.”
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Andrea Adelson
Florida State coach Mike Norvell vowed Wednesday that he and his team “are going to get it right,” as questions swirled about his long-term future following a 3-4 start to the season.
In his first comments since athletic director Michael Alford issued a statement Monday that said there would be a full program evaluation when the season ends, Norvell said he knows the results have not been good enough.
The low point came last week in a 20-13 loss to Stanford, the ninth straight ACC loss for Florida State. After opening the season with a win over Alabama, the Seminoles are now in danger of their season snowballing for a second straight year. Florida State went 2-10 in 2024, a year after winning the ACC championship.
“I know and understand the expectations. There’s no higher expectation than what I have,” Norvell said. “I know it’s not been good enough.”
Florida State is on an open date this week, trying to correct the mistakes that have plagued them in four straight losses — all by one possession. Norvell said different issues have cropped up in each game that have cost them — from penalties, to blown assignments on defense, to turnovers, to an inability to sustain drives and score.
“The team, the staff we’re working extremely hard to get it right. We are going to get it right,” Norvell said.
He added that the statement Alford issued did not come as a surprise, because he is in constant contact with him, university president Richard McCullough and other decision makers on campus.
“I know we have to win games,” Norvell said. “I take great ownership in our results. It’s not been good enough. I hate it for Michael. I hate it for our players. I hate it for the program. I hate it for everybody. That’s on me and this staff and this football team to get that right.
“We’re going to get it fixed, and we’re going to get better.”
Norvell revamped his roster and coaching staff after what he called a disastrous 2024 season, hiring Gus Malzahn as his offensive coordinator and Tony White as his defensive coordinator and going into the transfer portal to add starters across the board. But the recent results harken back to the problems Florida State had a year ago, only adding to the frustration among Seminoles supporters.
Asked how his team could go from dominating Alabama in a 31-17 victory in the opener to losing on the road to Stanford, Norvell said, “It’s college football. There’s great parity. Every team, if you give (them) opportunities, they’re all capable. It’s a weekly focus. Is your best going to show up? If you’re not able to execute to your best, if you’re not able to respond, if you have a bad play or a bad moment, anybody can give you challenges. I believe in this team. I believe in the talent that we have, the way that we will finish. I know what we’re capable of.”
Norvell was also asked whether finishing the season strong will be enough for him to return for a seventh season at Florida State.
“I have a lot of confidence in the long term of what this will be. Until somebody tells me different, I have the absolute belief in the long term,” Norvell said.
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