The more Florida State talks, the less I believe in a return to relevance
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“Do Something.”
They’re 2 words that live in infamy for Florida State. Neither word is remotely offensive, but when you put them together and slap them on a photoshopped Martin Luther King Day image of him doing the tomahawk chop, well, you know where I’m going with this. “Offensive” is an understatement. Calling that decision “offensive” would be like saying that 2024 Florida State had a “transition year” when it did the impossible and regressed by 11 wins.
Of course, FSU’s official recruiting account did its best to move on from the “Do Something” blunder of Jan. 2019, but it lives in infamy because the internet never forgets.
If you can believe it, “Do Something” was marketed as the rallying cry for the Willie Taggart era. FSU picked the 2-word phrase that dejected fans directed at the Seminoles they floundered in the latter half of the 2010s. The program’s relevance consisted of gaffes like that off the field, which was the preamble for a 1-2 on-the-field start, wherein the only victory was the result of Louisiana-Monroe shanking an extra point in overtime after accepting a $1.6 million paycheck to play in Tallahassee.
Fast forward 5 years, and FSU’s 2024 season had an entire fanbase haplessly muttering variations of “Do Something” at a team who insisted on doing anything but that. The offseason storyline in Tallahassee is whether that was a slight detour on the path back to relevance, or if Mike Norvell’s post-2023 extension is going to continue to age like an avocado as one of the 2 worst contracts in college football. In case you were wondering, the buyout after the 2025 season will still be nearly $54 million because of the 8-year, $84 million extension that Norvell signed so that he wouldn’t leave for Alabama.
Whoops. Did I say that out loud?
The irony is that Norvell’s pivotal 2025 season will start against, of all teams, Alabama. By now, the entire college football world has been made aware of that because in a fitting throwback to the 2010s, the Seminoles can’t stop putting their foot in their mouths.
Thomas Castellanos got the party started earlier in the offseason when he decided to take direct aim at Alabama in the post-Nick Saban era.
I don’t have time to revisit all the issues with a quarterback fresh off a benching at Boston College taking aim at a unit that delivered its best scoring defense since 2017, nor do I want to bore you with why a quarterback who put up putrid numbers under pressure shouldn’t have been the one to give Alabama any more of a reason to make sure that his FSU debut is unpleasant.
But hey, what if I told you that Castellanos doubled down at ACC Media Days by saying that he “stood on what he said” while also not meaning any disrespect to Alabama? Would that make you think he’s got the right mindset to lead FSU out of irrelevance?
I mean no disrespect to Castellanos by saying that he reminds me more of Scrappy Doo than Diego Pavia. You see, the latter has actually gone out there and walked the walk.
Yes, it takes the right level of confidence to beat a team like Alabama, even if it isn’t the immovable force that rolled every unranked foe from 2008-20. No, calling out Alabama isn’t the prerequisite to beating Alabama.
If anyone knows that, it’s Gus Malzahn. During his time at Auburn, Malzahn saw his net worth substantially increase as result of taking down the Tide on 3 occasions during his 8 seasons on the job. Shoot, Malzahn’s meteoric rise from Arkansas high school coach to SEC head coach — he had just 7 seasons between those 2 jobs — could be attributed to an Alabama win. The 2010 “Cam Back” lives in Iron Bowl lore thanks in part to Malzahn’s efforts as Auburn’s offensive coordinator, as well as Cam Newton, AKA the ultimate offensive cheat code in the history of the sport.
Fast forward to this past offseason. Norvell’s answer to fix the nation’s No. 131 offense was to hire Malzahn, who was on the heels of his second consecutive losing season at UCF and about to show up on every “hot seat” list in America if he returned for a Year 5.
Whoops. Did I say that out loud?
Norvell said something out loud at ACC Media Days that felt less like a vote of confidence and more like the ramblings of a desperate man.
If we’re all getting hyped up for our 2010 feats, I’d like to be celebrated for my elite ability to construct my college course schedule to never include Friday classes. Additionally, I’d also like recognition for my 2010 bounce-back ability after getting 5 hours of sleep and not having any caffeine.
Is that how this works? No?
What Norvell failed to mention when justifying his hire of Malzahn to take over the offense that while he did win a national championship in his last OC job, his 2011 Auburn offense also regressed by 16 points after it lost Newton. That’s the last season that he was in the OC role. More recently as a head coach in the 2020s, Malzahn failed to produce a top-30 scoring offense, and his best job developing a quarterback from 2015-24 was … John Rhys Plumlee? And I’m not even sure how much credit Malzahn gets for that because Plumlee came to UCF in Year 4 after 3 seasons at Ole Miss, 2 of which were with Lane Kiffin.
(Fine. I’ll give you 2017 Jarrett Stidham as long as you acknowledge 2018 Jarrett Stidham’s regression and all the conversation about how he was ultimately the wrong fit in Malzahn’s run-first scheme that was predicated on quarterback mobility.)
But I digress. Let’s all just go back to celebrating things that happened when Norvell’s freshmen class — one that barely out-ranked Mizzou — was still figuring out how to use the toilet.
In a way, that feels like an all-too-real metaphor for what FSU has become in the last decade. Norvell was supposed to be the guy who turned that around. I say that as someone who thought FSU was robbed by getting left out of the 2023 College Football Playoff, and believe that group forever earned the right to feel jaded by college football decision-makers. I say that as someone who would’ve praised Alabama and dogged FSU had Norvell become the second Seminoles coach in the Playoff era to willingly leave for an SEC job.
It’d be an understatement to say that things have gone downhill since then. Just like Castellanos, I don’t mean any disrespect by saying this out loud.
I just don’t see FSU stopping the “Do Something” era flashbacks anytime soon.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
