Mike Norvell addresses Alex Atkins' role with suspension to begin season

The Florida State Seminoles are preparing to head to Ireland and open up the 2024 season with a Week 0 game. However, head coach Mike Norvell will be without one of his key assistants in offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Alex Atkins.

Atkins will be serving a suspension related to recruiting violations. The NCAA suspended him for three games and served him a two-year show-cause penalty. It’s a challenge that Norvell knows needs to be addressed.

“Alex will not be available there on game day,” Mike Norvell said. “So, we’re going to go through a normal week of practice, obviously everything leading up but on game day he’ll not be with us. We’ve got a plan in place, we kind of implemented the plan throughout our scrimmage opportunities here in fall camp.”

While Alex Atkins can’t be there for the game, he is traveling with the team and helping in the lead-up to things.

Instead, senior analyst Gabe Fertitta is going to step up and fill that role for Florida State. He’s worked closely with Alex Atkins and Mike Norvell clearly trusts him.

“Alex has done a wonderful job and continues to do a great job in helping prepare our players in all things. Coach Fertitta is going to take over that role on game day operation, a lot of confidence in him and what he brings and what he has brought to our program over the last few years,” Norvell said. “It’s going to be as smooth of a transition as we can have it on game day and like I said, we’ve kind of been preparing for that these last few scrimmages but that’ll be the status.”

Alex Atkins has been at Florida State since 2020, the first year that Mike Norvell was in charge of the program. He faced NCAA sanctions due to NIL-related recruiting issues and his current suspension is part of a negotiated resolution. Notably, however, these are issues that the NCAA now has very little ability to enforce following an injunction by the judge in the lawsuit from the Tennessee and Virginia attorney generals against the NCAA.

Mike Norvell ‘very confident’ in how FSU has prepared for Week 0 trip to Dublin

Ahead of the trip to Dublin for Week 0, head coach Mike Norvell shared that he’s very confident in the team’s preparation.

“It’s been probably a year and a half process to prepare everything. We’ve had multiple advanced trips, I got a chance to go out there over spring break to do some promos for the game, but also get a sense of the logistics of what that’s going to look like. A lot of research from your past coaches and teams that have been a part of it. You talk a lot with the games in Europe there in the NFL, we got a couple guys on staff that have been a part of that as well,” Norvell said.

“So just trying to make sure that everything we do is going to put our players in a position to go be their best. There are some unique dynamics to this trip, but I feel really good about the team that we have. All the work that’s gone into that from the administration to our operations staff. I mean they’ve done a remarkable job and definitely feel very confident in how we’ll be able to transition over even though we’re having to go nine hours away, but I feel very confident in how smoothly that will transition.”