Mike Norvell’s teams are 20-5 in November in 2016-22, including a 4-0 record last season that featured a rivalry sweep of Miami and Florida.
Florida State struggled early in Norvell’s tenure in Novembers, results in part that are attributed to young teams — statistically among the youngest in college football in 2020 and 2021. Some of the results from the condensed COVID season can also be reflected in year 1 for a new staff as well as the strength and conditioning challenges due to the pandemic.
But after a 4-0 mark in November 2022, as well as the 8-0 start this fall, there is optimism about what the Seminoles can accomplish this month. Norvell said plans for how to prepare the Seminoles for a marathon season begin early, including discussions with strength and conditioning coaches Josh Storms and Jackson Schafer.
“We sit down in the off-season and try to go through every element of how we practice, how we structure things, what is that going to look like as the season goes on,” Norvell said. “But it truly is about mindset, improvement, technique, fundamentals, continuing to build upon the things that allow you to get better as the season progresses. Still comes down reps, and we want to be as confident in what we're doing and what we're facing and seeing.”
While there are questions about the quality of opponents FSU has beaten in the last four games — Duke defeated Wake on Thursday to improve to 6-3, the best of the bunch — it can be argued the Seminoles have played some of their best football of late. FSU has controlled (if not dominated for large portions) wins over Virginia Tech, Syracuse and Wake while showing its response in the second half to put away Duke.
The Seminoles also appear to have learned a lesson from the close call at Boston College, a performance that looked like they were sleepwalking in an early road start.
“That's one of the things that is good, is that early in the season there was some ugly looking plays, whether it's coverage or whether it's an offense-defensive play that you get to learn through those experiences,” Norvell said. “If you miss out on those opportunities, then you get stuck where you were.”
Norvell is clearly proud of the Seminoles’ hard work, how they have taken “ownership to the mistakes that are made” and seek to ensure they have learned from missed assignments. Power 5 opponents Pittsburgh, Miami and Florida are not ranked but they should not be taken lightly — especially given what’s at stake for FSU as the CFP No. 4 team.
“That's something that we've held true to over the years, and when you get to November, that's where you want to be playing your best ball,” Norvell said. “As it continues to go on, you want to continue to grow from there.
“Our guys, they put in an awful a lot of work. They're trained extremely well. We lift hard throughout the course of the season so we're stronger at the end than we were at the beginning. I think that's something that I know I mentioned these last few weeks of practice, you see it in explosive efforts. Speed, the physicality.”
Florida State is undefeated entering November for the first time since 2014 and the 12th time in program history. The last three Seminoles teams that were unbeaten going into November (2014, 2013 and 1999) finished with perfect regular seasons:
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