u/OpaqueNightmare

Through the 1980s, the ACC was plagued with the sinful, mediocre football. Florida State descended from the heavens into this conference to salvage the teams within it. By introducing national championship caliber play into the ACC, Florida State expelled the demons of mediocrity and irrelevance from our conference colleagues. Our glorious, humble program has faced much of the same banter and hostility as Jesus, and the crucifixion of our team by Mike Norvell and Willie Taggart has made our fate a seemingly dark one. But Florida State still watches over this conference from the heavens. We witness the worship of false idols (Clemson) and the rise of the antichrist (Miami). In near time, we will return even more glorious than the first time, and Miami will be decisively stricken down by he who they defied. Those who have doubted us will face judgement for their sins, and order will be restored to college football.

The common argument for Mike Norvell’s retention is that the university’s athletic department is “too broke” and too heavily leveraged to afford his buyout. Let’s break down why this is nonsensical.

It is reported that the 2025 season generated roughly 23.6 million dollars in ticket sales. Let’s assume that Norvell is retained and apathy continues to grow. On the low end, let’s estimate that this leads to 7.5-8% reduction in ticket sales. We can then expect a net annual loss of 1.7-1.9 million dollars in revenue as a result of his retention.

Now let’s talk about the ACC’s new revenue distribution model. Florida State has not made the postseason for 2 years straight. As a result of our settlement, the ACC allows its programs to keep 100% of their postseason earnings rather than distributing it across the conference. A mid-tier bowl game pays out somewhere from 1 to 5 million dollars. Let’s assume we earn 2 million dollars from participation in one of these contests. Additionally, the following bonuses are earned from participation in the college football playoff:

Make the First Round: 4 million dollars
Make the Quarterfinals: 4 million dollars (8 million total)
Make the Semifinals: 6 million dollars (14 million total)
Make the National Championship: 6 million dollars (20 million total)

If we assume, under competent leadership, that we make the playoff and lose immediately once every 3 seasons, and make a mid-tier bowl game the other years, the rough annual loss from retaining Mike comes out to approximately 2.67 million dollars.

Now let’s discuss the salary of our next hire. Florida is paying Jon Sumrall 7.45 million dollars per year. Auburn is paying Alex Golesh 6.75 million dollars per year. These are both former Group of 6 head coaches. Alternatively, if we choose to hire a coordinator from a major program, we can estimate the price tag to be around 6 million, based on the 5.5 million/year salary of Will Stein at Kentucky (former Oregon OC). Mike’s current salary is 10.3 million dollars per year. A new head coach saves us anywhere from 2.85 to 4.3 million dollars per season. We will assume 3 million, on the lower end.

At the bare minimum, the costs of retaining Norvell are roughly 7.37 million dollars per year. The cost to buy him out would be roughly 9 million per year, meaning the net expense to our program is relatively low at 1.63 million/year. Remember, this all assumes the bare minimum. I did not account for the nearly 10 million dollars in additional revenue from the ACC lawsuit settlement (which is being continuously hurt by games such as FSU vs Clemson and FSU vs Florida being deployed to ESPN2 or ACCN). I did not account for more frequent playoff appearances or even a single postseason win. I did not account for the brand damage that results from every season of irrelevance. I did not account for offsetting language in his contract. I even assumed we pay our next coach the upper-end of what last year’s major hires received. When all of this is accounted for, a reasonably competent hire likely would make this move profitable rather than a serious expense at all.

It’s inexcusable that he is still here and it’s a result of blatant financial incompetence. It is costing us to retain him and this idea that we are “too broke” to afford it is looking at the situation in a much too simplistic manner.

This sentiment that it’s worth it to be atrocious at football for years on end in order to buy out of the ACC is going to bury this program. Some of this fanbase has gotten way too overconfident and way too full of ourselves to think we’re an immediate shoe-in with expansion. Are we the best brand available? Yes. And that usually is the primary consideration. But conference prestige and reputation is very important to these mega conferences, and there is a limit to how bad we can suck before it’s a serious concern. Why would the SEC choose us to lose all of our OOC games for them and dwell at the bottom of the conference every year? It just puts them further behind the Big 10. Two years ago, we were basically the indisputable #1 expansion target. Now Clemson and Miami are probably in front of us, and I even hear rumors of poverty programs like North Carolina and Virginia being preferable for TV markets. Some of y’all should be more concerned than you are about it. What happens if the SEC does actually vote to expel LSU on Thursday (which I don’t think is as unlikely as some people believe)? This administration is going to look like absolute clowns when Clemson or Miami is picked over us as a replacement.

As a disclaimer, I am NOT defending Mike Norvell in any way. He is a TERRIBLE coach and should be fired today. I’m just curious if anyone here thinks we would be able to reach a respectable season if we had a schedule like Miami’s. While the SMU game was extremely ugly and dissapointing, it was a competitive game against a ranked opponent with high expectations, and there were some good plays. Looking at the rest of the schedule, we start the season with FIVE currently ranked FBS opponents. #17 SMU, #12 Alabama, #25 UVA, #24 Louisville, and #7 Miami. Additionally, Pitt and Florida are sitting just out of the current top 25. Yikes.

Much of my despair after last night’s game is that basically that our entire P4 schedule outside of NC State, Clemson, and maybe Florida looks entirely unwinnable. However, for a second, imagine if we had Miami’s remaining schedule after that game. They play:

FAMU, Wake Forest, Central Michigan, Us, Clemson, Pitt, UNC, Notre Dame, Duke, Virginia Tech, and Boston College.

Would this change anyone’s feelings about the rest of the season? Would us being competitive last night make you feel like we have a shot at 8-9 wins with this lineup? For me personally (replacing us with their first matchup of Stanford), I would be feeling reasonably confident we could start 5-1 and finish 7-2 in the ACC with this schedule.

Again, this is NOT defending Norvell in any way or trying to argue that this team is good. I’m just trying to see if people’s perceptions looking forward would be different after the close game last night if we didn’t have the schedule of doom and despair ahead.

You may think because we “lost” that I am highly upset. Except I know that a significant nonzero amount of you bet SMU -3.5, and they didn’t cover, so your money is GONE. Enjoy BROKENESS haters!!!!!