Mike Norvell addresses key position change on offense, makes lofty comparison for Josh Burrell

The running back depth at Florida State took a hit on Tuesday when the Seminoles announced CJ Campbell would miss the year with an injury. But Mike Norvell got creative and moved wide receiver Josh Burrell to running back — and made quite a comparison in the process.

Norvell looked back to his time at Memphis, where he turned another wide receiver into a running back: Antonio Gibson. That ended up working well considering that player now starts for the Washington Commanders. He added it’s a benefit of having players who can do a little bit of everything.

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“To make the comparison right now … a guy like Antonio Gibson was a receiver for us at Memphis that as he got his senior year, we put him more at the running back position and he took it very naturally,” Norvell said. “He had done some things — Wildcat, different things like that. We’ll see. Obviously, that guy’s starting in the NFL, so we’ll see where that goes.

“When you have versatile players that can do a lot of different things, that’s a rate benefit for us. Josh has always been good with the ball in his hands and I’ve kind of had that in the back of my mind if we got to a position where we needed that … he’s also almost 220 pounds and he’s got really quick feet. What I liked was some of those vision runs that he hit today, which was really good. I’m excited to see where it goes.”

Mike Norvell on Josh Burrell’s adjustment to running back

Norvell said although he’d thought about putting Burrell at running back if the situation called for it, he hadn’t talked it over with his rising sophomore receiver. But even though he’s going to help with the RB depth, that doesn’t mean he’s done getting work in at wide receiver.

“It was something I’ve had in my mind, but obviously with CJ going down, it opens an opportunity,” Norvell said. “Josh has really come on at receiver, but we’ve had a lot of guys that are pushing there. Even today, he still got reps at receiver, but he’s going to have to jump in.

“Josh is one of the smartest football players we have on this team. He understands all positions across the board at receiver. Now, we’re just going to incorporate a little bit of the running game and some of the things, protection and route-wise, there from the backfield. We talked to him over the weekend, we had a couple of days, and it was something that he embraced and he showed up well today.”