GJ Kinne looks back on time at Tulsa, playing for early career Mike Norvell

After his freshman season at Texas, GJ Kinne opted for a change of scenery. His decision to transfer – long before the age of the transfer portal – led him to Tulsa to play for a team that included plenty more future head coaches.

Kinne, of course, is now at Texas State, and he immediately built a rapport with Brennan Marion. A star receiver at Tulsa, he went on to invent the GoGo offense and is currently the offensive coordinator at UNLV. But on the staff was Gus Malzahn, who went on to coach at Auburn and is currently at UCF. He was Todd Graham’s assistant head coach and co-offensive coordinator, and played a pivotal role in getting Kinne to Tulsa.

But there was also a second-year graduate assistant establishing himself in college football: Mike Norvell.

Norvell spent the 2008 season as a GA before moving up to wide receivers coach in 2009 and director of recruiting in 2010. But his involvement with recruiting began long before that, according to Kinne, and he got an up-close look at the Florida State head coach as he was just starting his career.

“Look at all those great players we had at Tulsa at the time, and [Norvell] was responsible for 99% of them,” Kinne told Andy Staples on Andy Staples On3. “It was funny, too, he would always like when we had a big time recruit – I was sitting out that year and I had a pretty nice apartment. So they’d always put the recruits with me all the time. I was constantly going in there and talk with Coach Norvell because he was kind of like a recruiting coordinator. I don’t know if on paper he was or not. But he was an awesome coach, a great recruiter.

“You could tell he was going to be a real star and just an awesome person. Someone I still talk to this day. But yeah, we had a lot, a lot of great coaches. Really good players, too. That’s what makes great coaches, really good players. It was a really special time at Tulsa.”

At the time, Norvell was 27 years old, fresh off his first-ever coaching job at Central Arkansas. It’s worth wondering if he ever got mistaken for a player. After all, even at age 42, Staples pointed out he doesn’t exactly look his age.

But GJ Kinne said that wasn’t the case because of how Norvell carried himself around the facility. He set high expectations, and the players had plenty of respect for him.

“I think one thing about Coach is that he always demanded that respect,” Kinne said. “He might have looked like a player, but I don’t think anyone saw him as that. We knew he was a great coach and a great recruiter, and really demanded excellence from that receiver room.”

Norvell, of course, went on to turn Florida State around and won the ACC last year. As for Kinne, he is gearing up for Year 2 at Texas State after leading the program to its first-ever bowl victory in 2023.