Mike Norvell may be the first Power 4 coach pushed toward the door this season, with Florida State’s 5-7 finish last year leaving him on the hottest seat and a brutal early stretch looming in Weeks 2 and 3.
That is why preseason football search traffic is landing here now: the question is not whether coaching changes can happen fast, but whether Florida State can avoid the kind of stumble that makes them happen. If SMU and Alabama both turn those first two checks into embarrassments, Norvell would be the clearest early-season firing candidate on the board.
The case gets sharper because last season showed how quickly schools can move. Brent Pry, Deshaun Foster and Mike Gundy were all fired after just three games, and that has changed the math around patience. A coach can begin September as a long-term answer and still be treated like a short-term problem before the month ends.
Luke Fickell sits in a different, but related, category. He is the coach some would already fire, yet the expectation is that he will still be on the sideline at season’s end. Wisconsin’s defense offered a reminder of how messy that patience can be: after Chris McIntosh announced Fickell would be coming back, it held three of its last four opponents to 17 points or less even while the roster, as Justin Williams reported, was at least $25 million. The results did not settle the argument. They only made it harder to sort out what should happen next.
That uncertainty is part of what has replaced the old preseason order. From 2013-22, Alabama was No. 1 six times and sat at No. 2 or No. 3 the rest of the time. Georgia inherited the No. 1 preseason mantle in 2023 and again in 2024. This year’s conversation is less about a fixed hierarchy than about how fast a season can turn and who gets judged first when it does.
Phil Steele put the mood plainly: “Truly nothing is sacred anymore.” In preseason football, that now applies as much to coaching jobs as to rankings. For Norvell, the next answer comes quickly. SMU in Week 2 and Alabama in Week 3 will tell Florida State whether this is just another uneasy preseason conversation or the start of a very short runway.
