Mike Norvell on losing wide receivers to transfer portal: 'There had to be some real conversations'

Florida State football coach Mike Norvell had a surplus of receivers this spring. He knew he couldn’t play everyone, forcing him to have some hard conversations with players about what was best for their individual careers.

That led to three former Seminoles receivers — Hykeem Williams, Jordan Scott and Jalen Brown — all entering the portal during the spring cycle. Norvell opened up in a press conference to cap off spring ball about what led to some of those decisions.

“We were over at the number,” he said. “There had to be some real conversations. At the end of the day, really nothing happened that I can say was just absolutely unexpected at that position. You look, you evaluate. It’s a challenge. It’s competition. Then you gotta go do it too. I’m really pleased with some of the newcomers that joined the program in January and I really believe that the growth of guys that have been here.”

Coming off a 2-10 finish this past season, it was clear FSU needed more dynamic playmakers all over on offense. They went out and got a couple in the transfer portal by signing former Tennessee receiver Squirrel White and former USC tight end Duce Robinson, who will play receiver for the Seminoles.

Those two should immediately step in as the primary options for transfer quarterback Thomas Castellanos, but Florida State also brings back some players from last year’s team. Former four-star receiver Lawayne McCoy is potentially in for a bigger role as well as Elijah Moore.

Overall, Norvell likes the progress that the younger players have made and sees them blending in well with the transfer pieces. He hopes the end result is a receiving corps that is a lot stronger and can help the Seminoles bounce back from their poor performance a year ago.

“I mean, you look at last year, we had three freshmen that played,” he said. “You’re seeing steps from them. Obviously, we’ve added some experienced guys that have come into the room that we believe have very, very high ceilings of what they can do, how they can lead. We’re gonna continue to build upon the competition within that room. If there’s an opportunity to add an experienced playmaker, then yes, that’s something we’ll look at.

“I think we also have a lot of versatility when you look at our tight ends room and you look at the way that all that can kind of, you’ll be guided in personnel utilization. I think there’s a lot of flexibility that we will have and I’m excited about just the skill position players that we have here. So we’ll continue to evaluate all things, but really when it came to receiver, we were over. So there was gonna be some real conversations.”