Column: 4 months into the FSU football offseason, vision for 2026 remains unclear

As crimson and cream confetti rained down on Hard Rock Stadium on January 19th, the Florida State athletic department avoided a true DEFCON 1 scenario of Florida and Miami each winning national titles in major sports less than a calendar year apart. And while it felt good to see Miami’s titleless streak running to a quarter century, the truth remained that it was a hollow victory — one that came two months after FSU football’s season ended, a stretch that has emphasized the point that the Seminole football program is in disarray, the only glimmer of hope coming from a rival’s loss.

On January 16, the last day players could enter the portal, Florida State ranked 11th in the country in outgoing transfers with 35. Of the 10 schools ahead of them, eight had new head coaches, and the other two were Colorado and Mississippi State, who combined for 17 losses last season.

FSU experienced more than roster attrition; it also saw significant losses from prominent players who were expected to be the future of the Florida State program. Six of the top 10 players in Mike Norvell’s 2024 recruiting class, the best in his seven-year tenure at Florida State, are committed to another school. Four of the top seven recruits in his 2025 class at one point declared their intention to leave Florida State or ended up transferring from the school.

As Florida State’s offseason lacked momentum following the departures from the program, the Seminoles tried to regain it with 22 incoming transfers, but most do not appear to be needle movers. Only five of the incoming 22 transfers played at a P4 school with a winning record in 2025. 247Sports ranked FSU’s transfer portal class 26th after the Seminoles had finished in the top 10 each of the four years before that. The Athletic also did not include Florida State in its top-25 transfer portal class rankings released on Tuesday.

The Seminoles’ and Norvell’s biggest call out of the portal was who to take at quarterback, and it seems to be their largest whiff. Florida State had multiple quarterbacks on campus with the portal window open, including Anthony Colandrea, who went over 4,000 all-purpose yards in 2025, and DJ Lagway, one of the most coveted high-school recruits and a player who would bring plenty of eyeballs to Tallahassee. Instead, the Seminoles ended up with Ashton Daniels, who has 24 touchdowns and 22 interceptions over his career, never logging a single-season completion percentage over 63%, as well as JUCO signee Malachi Marshall and FCS quarterback Dean DeNobile. And while there’s some excitement to be had about what Marshall (who was the 2025 NJCAA Division I National Offensive Player of the Year) might bring to the table, DeNobile is more of a depth piece than a potential contributor.

The quarterback conundrum, already confusing, has become even more inexcusable after the announcement of Gus Malzahn’s retirement from coaching on Monday. Florida State built its offense to fit the style of its offensive coordinator, the main selling point to fans on taking Daniels, but after only 14 months on the job, the Malzahn era is over in Tallahassee.

Malzahn’s retirement will most certainly save FSU money, but even that benefit makes you loop back to the idea that the administration has pulled back on its support. Would Florida State, which already had a tumultuous hiring cycle that included Brandon Harris flipping to the Florida Gators, have shelled out for an offensive coordinator who likely would be spending a single season in Tallahassee?

Not likely. And now, in for Malzahn will be Tim Harris Jr., who was already promoted once this offseason to co-offensive coordinator, with Norvell’s one-year experiment as a CEO-type coach coming to a close as he picks up playcalling duties once again. The changes follow a trend, with two of the three new position coaches in 2026 being internal hires, and are a reminder that the purse strings have been tightened.

What all of this comes down to — coaching changes, a poorly-thought-out transfer portal haul, mixed-messaging from the administration — is that there appears to be no plan heading into 2026, nothing to point to as proof that FSU has corrected anything from an embarrassing series of seasons. Forget improvement, the result of all of these failures appears to be an FSU team less talented than one that went 5-7.

It’s been such a bewildering approach that you start to think of hypotheticals to explain it. Maybe the administration’s plan is to force Norvell to coach with one hand behind his back to justify letting him go halfway through the year?

The issue here is that, even if there was some sort of rational to punting on a season, there is no benefit to tanking in a sport where there is no draft capital to gain. I wrote in November that FSU should not throw good money after bad, but the financial harm of a third-straight wasted season could be greater than the $100 million it would have cost to fire Norvell and hire a new staff last offseason.

College football in 2026 rewards the smartest programs, not those that are historically great or have the best tradition. Even schools with tremendous financial backing do not always get it right. Indiana not only won this year because they invested in the portal, but they also basically rolled out an NFL team that does not make mistakes and understands how to find solutions to their problems, on and off the field. Florida State does not have that. In year seven of the Mike Norvell era and year five under Michael Alford, Seminole football is still stuck in the mud without a clear plan to get out of it. What is the difference between 2018 FSU and 2026 FSU outside of a football-only facility that ruined the schools’ financials? Time is not on either Norvell’s or Alford’s side, and without a road map or an obvious plan in place, their seat will only grow warmer.