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After spending three days in South Florida covering Florida State's free youth football clinics, there is one thing I can tell you for certain about this Mike Norvell fella -- he is in it for the long haul.
Oh, I'm sure he wants nothing more than to win a lot of football games this season. He knows he needs to show real improvement in Year 2 if he wants to keep the recruits coming in and the boosters and administration off his back.
That's just the nature of big-time college football in 2021. No one has patience for lengthy turnarounds or rebuilds, no matter how big of a mess a coach inherited. Everyone wants results overnight.
Which is what makes these free youth clinics Norvell is running over the next few weeks really something of a marvel.
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There is not one element of these events that will make a significant impact on Florida State's win-loss record this fall. Nothing that will make a difference next year, either. The year after that? Probably not.
To avoid any issues with the NCAA, which won't allow in-person recruiting of high school athletes until June 1, the clinic's participants are required to be in the second through eighth grade. That means the oldest players involved must be in the Class of 2025.
So even if Norvell and his staff make the greatest impressions possible, they won't be able to recruit any of these young athletes to their program for four more years. At the earliest.
And truth be told, the vast majority of the kids participating in these clinics, which continue today in Jacksonville, will never be college football prospects. Most will probably never be Florida State students, and some will not even grow up to be Seminole fans.
But you would never get a hint of that by watching Florida State's traveling road show.
This is a major-league production.
It's not a case where FSU is lending its name to an event and letting other area coaches actually do the work. This is all Florida State Football from top to bottom.
Every assistant coach on Norvell's staff is running a drill. The offensive and defensive analysts and graduate assistants are right there with them. Support staff members are unloading trucks, setting up equipment and working the registration tables.
They've got free T-shirts for every youth who participates. Each boy or girl gets to take a picture with Norvell as well.
And the coaching is legitimate coaching.
At any given moment, you might hear offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham barking at young quarterbacks about throwing on time and not having a hitch in their delivery. Or defensive line coach Odell Haggins ordering a youth to drop and give him five push-ups for not listening to instructions. Or linebackers coach Chris Marve harping on the execution of a tackling technique.
