While Billy Napier’s seat boils, heat at Florida State won’t roast Mike Norvell

Florida boils, LSU exhales, Florida State fumes and Georgia squirms after Week 3.
What had been billed as one of the lamest weeks of the college football season overdelivered the drama.
Brian Kelly experienced sweet relief only after South Carolina missed a last-second field goal. Florida fans fantasize about dream coaching candidates – “make Urban say no!” – after Billy Napier’s latest flop. And Kentucky celebrated another moral victory against Georgia, also known as the Mark Stoops special.
Let’s answer some lingering questions.
Yes. All that’s left is the writing of the check, so unleash the hot boards.
Well, maybe one element remains left to determine: Who will hire Napier’s replacement? Athletics director Scott Stricklin hired (and fired) Dan Mullen and replaced him with Napier. He’s squandered the right to lead this coaching search.
When Florida fires Napier, he’ll become the fourth consecutive Gators coach to be axed before the end of his fourth season. Stricklin argued before the season that Florida can’t keep cycling through coaches at this rate. True. So, get the next hire right. The only thing worse than firing Napier in Year 3 and paying him a buyout of more than $25 million would be sticking with a hopeless coach for a fourth season that no Florida fan wants to pay to see. It’s over.
Where should Florida turn after Napier? Lane Kiffin fits the bill, but his Ole Miss Rebels are on the shortlist of national championship contenders. Kiffin has no reason to leave. Eliah Drinkwitz (Missouri), Jedd Fisch (Washington), Alex Golesh (South Florida) and Lance Leipold (Kansas) form my next tier.
Not yet. LSU awarded Kelly a 10-year contract worth mega-millions to plunder him from Notre Dame. That means a couple of things:
No. 1, LSU expects more from Kelly than Saturday’s stressful, mistake-filled 36-33 victory at South Carolina.
No. 2, he’s still got some leash with which to work.
Kelly had hoped to position LSU into national championship contention by his third season. He’s fallen short of that aspiration. The Tigers perhaps will develop into a playoff contender, but they’re too undisciplined, too soft on defense and not well-rounded enough on offense to be considered among the elite.
That’s a short-term problem.
And long-term?
As long as Kelly’s 2025 recruiting class, ranked No. 3 nationally by the 247Sports Composite, holds its shape, an argument can be made that he’s not peaked at LSU.
Tigers fans will be rightfully frustrated if this season doesn’t yield a playoff bid, but don’t lose sight of the big picture.
Kirby Smart is a motivational maestro. He can use Saturday’s 13-12 victory in Lexington to his advantage. Georgia dropped to No. 2 in the AP poll. That’ll be to Smart’s liking, too.
The Bulldogs don’t play this week, so they’ve got two weeks to prepare for a Sept. 28 clash at Alabama. Between now and then, I expect Smart to take every opportunity to remind his players about their Kentucky clunker and plant the belief that everyone doubts them now.
That’s when Georgia thrives.
Georgia’s feeble offense against Kentucky raised some caution, but consider Smart’s last three wins at Kentucky: 13-12, 16-6 (2022) and 14-3 (2020). That’s to say this is no cause for panic.
Also, there’s this: Georgia’s defense has not allowed a touchdown through three games. As long as Carson Beck’s bad outing in Lexington was an aberration, the Bulldogs can recover.
No. Fans’ angry tweets and FSU message board angst won’t change this: Norvell would be due a $65 million buyout if he’s fired. Also, he’s fresh off FSU’s best season in a decade. Meanwhile, FSU engages in a combative, costly standoff with the ACC. Its conference future is unclear. The Seminoles can’t afford a coaching search with crippling expenses.
So, peck away at those keyboards, Noles fans, but Norvell won’t be going anywhere except back into the transfer portal after this season to try to fix this mess.
When Norvell hits with transfers, it works (see 2023). When he misses, you get this atrocity.
Embracing Norvell’s roster-building philosophy creates a herky-jerky ride akin to investing in the energy sector, rather than the smoother ride of signing and developing No. 1-ranked recruiting classes.
Unsightly though FSU’s freefall is, Norvell’s 2023 peak obtained him enough security to outlast one bad season.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.
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