Mike Norvell addresses FSU's identity after second scrimmage: 'They love to compete'

Mike Norvell was hired as Florida State‘s head football coach ahead of the 2020 season, and it has been an up-and-down tenure thus far. He led the Seminoles to a 3-6 record in 2020 before improving to 5-7 last year. Now, Norvell wants to lead Florida State to the next level.

Florida State recently had its second scrimmage of fall camp, and Norvell was incredibly pleased with the compete level from his team. Even with some unfortunate circumstances, he liked how the Seminoles competed.

“I think it’s a team that’s tough, I think they’re building their mental toughness,” Norvell said of Florida State’s identity. “The physical toughness is something that’s shown up. They’re passionate. You’re seeing that yesterday in a day that didn’t start the way it needed to. You see the energy, the excitement, the competitiveness and that showed up again tonight.

“Like tonight, I was disappointed we weren’t going in Doak. I wanted to be able to do that. But the uncertainty of time and about how long a delay would be, we decided we wanted to get to work. I want these guys to have these next two days off, and so we went ahead and moved it to the IPF and it was great energy and I thought they came out to compete today. That was really pleasing for me, just coupled with the schedule what we’ve held leading up to this point.”

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Norvell liked what he saw from Florida State during ‘identity week’

Entering the week, Norvell looked ahead and called these seven days “identity week” for Florida State’s entire program. He planned to push his team to see if they are capable of living up to the challenge. And coming out of this critical stretch of fall camp, Norvell thinks they might have done just that.

“So I mean I do believe it’s a team that they really love to compete and we’ve got to continue to clean up the details,” said Norvell. “We got to continue to focus on those little things. But I like the identity of what they’re showing and it’s a team that definitely cares about each other.”

Even though Florida State went 5-7 in 2021, the Seminoles lost four one possession games. Norvell thinks his team is right there, and he will be tested early on in 2022 as Florida State plays in Week 0 against Duquesne before hosting LSU in Week 1.