How Florida State rose to the top of college football again - ESPN

Florida State coach Mike Norvell stood inside the visitors tunnel at Clemson last month, waiting for his players to come off the field and into the locker room. Hands on his hips, head tilted toward the sky, a look of relief washed over his face.

It was perhaps the biggest win in his Florida State tenure, a 31-24 overtime triumph over the Tigers that signaled a changing of the guard atop the ACC. Norvell, now in his fourth year at FSU, had never beaten Clemson. In fact, Florida State had not won in Death Valley for 10 years.

So Norvell waited until each and every player came in. He hugged them all because he wanted to remind them just how far they had come to get to this point.

The program he inherited in 2020 was not the college football behemoth of decades past. It had slipped in the final years under coach Jimbo Fisher and during the Willie Taggart era. The Seminoles were coming off consecutive losing seasons for the first time since the 1970s, were underfunded and had disarray in the locker room.

During his very first game as head coach, Florida State led Georgia Tech 10-0 at halftime. But at the first sign of adversity in the second half, the way it did the year before and the year before that, the team folded. Heads sagged, fingers pointed. Florida State lost.

In his 11th game as head coach, Florida State lost for the first time in its history to an FCS opponent, falling at home to Jacksonville State. Negativity swirled outside the program. Pundits wondered whether Norvell was on the hot seat in his first season.

Now, in his 38th game as head coach, he had finally beaten Clemson and put the Seminoles in position to chase championships again. It took a village: from Norvell and his staff, from the administration,