MAILBAG: Terrible Cam Ward take, Mike Norvell hot seat talk, can Florida keep DJ Lagway if Billy Napier is fired

The Sunshine State has two programs wallowing in self-pity, while another is out for blood on a bad preseason take. 

The Week 3 Mailbag is an all-Florida affair, with reader questions about Miami, FSU and the Gators. 

As always, you can hit me up on X with a DM or tweet @JesseReSimonton or you can email me at [email protected] for all future questions.

Let’s roll.

From JimmyCane: Is this your worst take ever?

Cam Ward is the bell of the ball in the transfer portal right now.

With no shortage of options, the ex-Wazzu QB appears down to a pair of Sunshine State rivals.

Why Florida State, not Miami, would be the best landing spot for transfer QB: https://t.co/7TCdjFfnHz pic.twitter.com/hSh1VpCt5c

— Jesse Simonton (@JesseReSimonton) December 14, 2023

Well, you miss 100% of the takes you don’t make, right? 

Canes fans have flooded my mentions with ‘Old Takes Exposed’ type tweets, and rightfully so.

This was obviously a major whiff — from screwing up the belle of the ball joke in the tweet to the actual point that Cam Ward would be better off going to Florida State over Miami. 

Now, my original logic wasn’t totally off-base.

I noted in the piece that Miami had a strong receiving corps (led by All-ACC wideout Xavier Restrepo and veteran Jacolby George) and a really good offensive line. 

I simply put too much emphasis on Mike Norvell’s track record in the transfer portal, and the fact that Norvell and Alex Atkins had done wonders developing Jordan Travis from a gadget runner into a real quarterback — and Ward was already far more advanced than Travis as a passer. 

Ward’s decision to go to Miami has been a slam-dunk so far, though. He’s among the Heisman Trophy frontrunners. He is surrounded by a much, much better supporting cast (from tailback Damien Martinez, to the playmakers on the outside to the best OL in the ACC) and has been a seamless fit in Shannon Dawson’s Air Raid scheme. 

Florida State lost the battle for Ward’s services and were forced to settle for DJ Uiagalelei, which has been an unmitigated disaster. 

Ward has 12 touchdowns by himself in 2024, while FSU has four offensive touchdowns all season. 

Had Ward chosen the Seminoles over the ‘Canes, I believe Florida State would be a much better football team — but they’d still have major problems along the offensive line (where they’re down to their third and fourth-string tackles) and at receiver. 

Speaking of those 0-3 ‘Noles…

Steve asks: How did FSU get here? Is Mike Norvell on the hot seat now?

Let’s start backwards, first. 

Mike Norvell is in no danger of being fired this season. 

There are $65 million reasons why he’ll have the chance to turn around a sinking ship after FSU’s disastrous 0-3 start. 

Norvell is coming off consecutive double-digit win seasons, including 13 victories in 2023. After both years, he was rewarded with a raise and extension (the latter of which happened both because of FSU’s 13-1 year + Alabama coming after Norvell). 

Now, if Florida State continues to crater the rest of this season (and the Seminoles are no longer even projected to make a bowl game this fall) then Norvell will face real heat in 2025. 

The guess here is he will see what he has in some younger players — like quarterback Brock Glenn, wideout Jalen Brown and linebacker Blake Nichelson — and prepare to make a jump back up the ACC standings next season. 

But make no mistake, Mike Norvell’s program is suddenly at a crossroads — a rather remarkable statement considering we’re less than a year removed from last season’s success. 

For all of Norvell’s hits in the transfer portal, it’s a dangerous game to live paycheck to paycheck, and he’s found that the hard way. It’s not just missing on Cam Ward, either. 

There are holes up and down the roster. 

The staff lacks elite recruiters, and they misevaluated some of the talent they did land. Managing to ink just the 12th-best class coming off last season was a major disappointment. That’s not good enough, and Norvell knows it. 

In recent years I’ve really backed away from overly complimenting or criticizing a team’s culture because it’s so hard to actually gauge that if you’re not in the building every day. That being said, something clearly is different with FSU’s locker room this season with Jordan Travis and Jared Verse no longer around. 

The Seminoles are likely to hit the portal hard again this offseason, but with some staff upgrades, they need to emphasize high school recruiting at a much higher clip. 

Landing the right quarterback is paramount, too. 

BullGators asks: If Billy Napier is fired (seems like when not if) will we keep DJ Lagway?

Outside of the mechanics of when Florida will move on from Napier, who is actually making the hire, and who ultimately will get the job … no issue is more pressing than keeping 5-star freshman DJ Lagway on the roster. 

Lagway remained loyal to Napier and Florida last offseason, rebuffing a late push by Texas A&M to stick with the Gators.

In three games so far in 2024, the All-American from Texas has shown flashes of his tremendous upside (four completions over 40 yards in the win over Samford) but also the fact that he’s still a really raw, young player (three interceptions, just 4.3 yards per attempt against Miami and Texas A&M). 

He certainly hasn’t benefitted from this musical chairs dance he’s doing with Graham Mertz, but one would imagine that at some point (perhaps very soon) Lagway takes over on a full-time basis. 

Lagway has long represented a hopeful future for the Gators, but now that Napier’s hourglass is running out, he’s more akin to a guy who badly out-kicked his coverage and is forever frightened that his wife will leave him. 

Florida’s roster will be pillaged by the transfer portal this offseason (headliner players are already liking posts on social media calling for Napier’s firing), and no player is more attractive than a former 5-star quarterback with multiple seasons of eligibility remaining. 

In today’s new world of college football, Lagway will get to totally reset his market. Was it Napier that brought him to Gainesville? Or a major NIL deal?

Maybe both. 

But one of those is about to be out of the equation, so how quickly Florida is able to tab Napier’s replacement will go a long way in determining whether Lagway sticks around … or ends up at Texas A&M or Miami or somewhere else next season.