Head Coach: Mike Norvell is entering his 6th season as the head coach of the Seminoles with a 33-27 record. His tenure has come with some incredible highs such as the hot finish and 10 win season in 2022 and their 13-0 season in 2023 that came to an unceremonious end after they were turned away by the playoff committee. He started his time at Florida State fixing the mess that was left behind, however 2024 was an unmitigated disaster of his own doing and now he enters 2025 needing to get back on track.
Program Outlook: The Seminoles are a historic power and are certainly capable of winning a national title at any point, their most recent one was in 2013 behind an absolutely loaded squad. In the 10 seasons after they had 5 losing seasons, 2 undefeated regular seasons and 2 more 10 win seasons. It’s astounding how this program has flip-flopped between a contender and dumpster fire. At a minimum the Seminoles are never boring, this is truly a program that is capable of anything good or bad.
How does the 2025 Roster look?: Florida State ranks 29th in the country returning 62.5% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings, but depending on where you look they are all over the map, and it’s mostly because Mike Norvell loves to go heavy on transfers. This year is no exception. 247 Sports has the Noles portal class ranked 6th. They completely overhauled what was a putrid offense from a season ago. QB Thomas Castellanos was brought in to take the reigns, he’s an electric runner but his inconsistency as a passer led to him being benched at Boston College, but his running ability certainly fits what new OC Gus Malzahn likes. Squirrel White and Duce Robinson are talented transfer receivers who the Noles will be relying on to have a breakout year. The offensive line is a work in progress, they went extremely heavy on portal guys. Their defense will be led by Darrell Jackson Jr who is expected to be an all-american defensive lineman but who steps up around him in the front 6 of their 3-3-5 defense will be a bigger question. Florida State has to replace their starting corners but they have such a tradition of strong play here that I feel safe assuming new stars will step up.
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: Florida State has a mix of challenging games and winnable wins. Their non-conference is the definition of that with bookend games against Alabama and Florida. They also play Kent State who is coming off one of the worst FBS seasons of all time, and East Texas A&M (formerly Texas A&M Commerce) who went 3-9 in FCS last year but they finished the year 2-1 after making the name change. Clemson along with Miami FL will be tough ACC challenges but they also get Stanford, Wake Forest and Virginia who have all struggled in recent years. Despite some rough games, I don’t think Noles fans will handle it well if they miss a bowl again.
Final Thoughts: Florida State is one of those teams with enough of a talent base that they could turn it around quickly or fall flat again. They have one of the wildest outcome ranges, I could see them going 10-2 with losses to Alabama and Clemson but also failing their way to a 3-9 disaster. Ultimately I see it falling somewhere in the middle with 6-8 wins.
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