Mike Norvell dismisses concerns about confidence, College Football Playoff amid Florida State skid

Florida State is coming off a second straight loss, this time to powerhouse Miami at home. It was a tough loss, one in which the Seminoles attempted to avoid with a late surge. They came up just short.

But coach Mike Norvell isn’t concerned about where his team is at right now. He was asked about potentially having the chance to reach the College Football Playoffs still and he was having none of it.

“To be honest with you, I could care less about all the next however many weeks that we have,” Norvell said. “I want this week.”

Though the team’s record is just 3-2 at this point, Florida State has looked worlds better than it did a year ago when it won just two games. But is it a playoff contender?

“I know what we’ve played,” Norvell said. “I know what it looks like. And we’ve played three top-25 teams. We have two losses and we turned the ball over six times in the two losses. We have a top-10 win against a formidable opponent that we didn’t turn the ball over. Or maybe the punt deal, but we played a lot cleaner football game and we showed that we could perform at a very high level. Yeah, for all the stuff that’s in front of us, go take care of this week.”

Norvell was asked pretty pointedly whether he’s concerned about the team’s confidence level now, coming off a second loss. Things spiraled quickly last year. Can Florida State avoid that this year?

“No, I mean ultimately I don’t worry about confidence because I’m in there with the guys and I hear and I see and they understand these are the things that ultimately we control,” he said. “Now, there’s times that if you just line up and, man, everything is your best and you just — I’ve been a part of that. There was part of that at times last year. That tests your confidence.

“But for us in the situation that we’re in, it’s disappointing because there are controllable factors that we need to be better at. It’s our job as coaches, it’s our job as players. You see it, you hold it accountable. The players holding themselves accountable to what we need to do. But man, that’s part of this game.”

Norvell broke down his approach in a team meeting after the Florida State loss to Miami. He was very direct with his players.

“First thing I started off with in our team meeting yesterday was just telling them how much I love coaching them,” Norvell said. “Because this is a fun group to coach. They’ve got it. The edge of what they bring, the desire, the passion, the emotions, I mean all of that is there. You can have all of that, but you’ve got to be able to hone in and just to be able to put it all on display, 11 guys playing as one. That’s where it’s exciting for what can be. And we need to see it this week.”

So as Florida State moves forward, the goal is to take things one week at a time. Win and move on to the next.

“I’m not worried about the confidence of this team, because it’s easy to go back and watch and say, ‘We’re putting ourselves in a really tough situation because of this action or because of this decision or because of that alignment.’ Whatever that contributing factor within a play,” Norvell said. “Not just, hey, we’re just not good enough. That’s not the case.

“But there’s winning football and there’s losing football. You’ve got to choose what you’re going to be able to apply in the moment. Obviously when you’re playing good teams, as we have played, three really quality opponents this year, you better be on the right end of it.”