Florida State’s fall to 0-3 has Mike Norvell’s team leading college football’s Week 3 Misery Index

Florida State’s fall to 0-3 has Mike Norvell’s team leading college football’s Week 3 Misery Index Show Caption Hide Caption US LBM Coaches Poll: Georgia shows weakness, but don’t read too much into it The latest US LBM Coaches Poll is out and Georgia remains at the top despite a close call against Kentucky in week 3. Sports Pulse The image of Florida State coach Mike Norvell frozen in place, almost expressionless as he tried to process his shock and anger over the Seminoles getting snubbed by the College Football Playoff last December, is the moment when everything changed. Before that, it all seemed possible for the Seminoles. They weren’t just in the conversation to win a national championship, they were here to stay. Chop on, baby. But what happened on Dec. 3, 2023 had an emotional reach nobody could have anticipated. To the sensible, logical college football fan, it was not a massive surprise that 13-0 Florida State — without injured quarterback Jordan Travis — was left out of the playoff in favor of SEC champion Alabama. Maybe it seemed unfair depending on which way your fandom leans, but excluding an excellent team without its quarterback in favor of another excellent team that had taken down No. And yet, the entire Florida State apparatus — from its fan base all the way up to its athletics director, Michael Alford — treated the snub like one big conspiracy theory. It harassed ESPN commentator Kirk Herbstreit, who had nothing to do with it. It blamed ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, who could not have changed the decision even if he had snuck into the CFP committee room and personally lobbied each one of the members. It kicked and screamed and wouldn’t let it go for days, which turned into weeks, which became months. From 13-0 after last year’s ACC championship game, the Seminoles have now lost four in a row including Saturday’s 20-12 disaster against Memphis, the program Norvell coached for four seasons before landing the promotion to Florida State. 10, the Seminoles have now lost to Georgia Tech, Boston College and Memphis. That means the 2024 season is over in Tallahassee, for all intents and purposes. It means that some of the typical excuses — they weren’t ready to play, they overlooked their opponent, they just need time to gel — are all out the window. HIGHS AND LOWS: Winners and losers from Week 3 in college football Across the ACC, there will of course be a lot of laughter and schadenfreude. Florida State is currently suing to get out of the contract that grants the school’s broadcast rights to the ACC until 2036, and if the Seminoles somehow win that lawsuit, it could very well spell the end of the conference as a power player in college sports. There are two main theories, which probably work in concert to some degree. Heavily reliant on the transfer portal to stack its roster last year with stars like receiver Keon Coleman and defensive lineman Jared Verse, the 17 transfers Florida State brought in this year — led by quarterback DJ Uaigalelei — just aren’t adequately replacing their top-end production. They can’t run the ball at all, they don’t throw it well, and the defense isn’t living up to expectations. Sometimes you’re going to hit the jackpot, sometimes you’re going to make some bad evaluations and come up empty. But Florida State’s issues this year seem so profound, there has to be a deeper problem. Is it possible that Florida State, collectively, just never got over what happened at the end of last season? Already facing significant financial pressures brought on by its desire to exit the ACC, Florida State cannot snap its fingers and make a coaching change. But now that the 2024 season is basically in the dust bin, it’s time for a deep dive at FSU. Something has gone seriously wrong in the last 9½ months, and Norvell must fix it. 1 on the Misery Index, a weekly measurement of which fan bases are feeling the most angst. Four more in misery Florida: The Seminoles’ in-state rivals are even deeper in the mud than they are, but the only thing saving the Gators from being No. Still, it’s a true illustration of Billy Napier’s current predicament that the Gators have failed to even clear the lowest possible bar anyone could have set for them. Saturday’s limp 33-20 loss in the Swamp to Texas A&M was even more one-sided than the final score and illustrated one of the main issues with the Gators. But when you are on the wrong end of a 3-0 turnover ratio and make just 2-of-9 third downs, you’re not going to beat anyone with a pulse. It’s hard to say South Carolina was the better team on Saturday because they committed a whole lot of penalties (13 for 123 yards), had too many turnovers (three) and didn’t have an effective passing game to get them out of trouble (11-of-20 for 155 yard). But there’s little doubt South Carolina should have taken one of the many chances it had to close out LSU, which is a tough pill to swallow when your next three SEC games are against Ole Miss, Alabama and Oklahoma. Mississippi State: When athletics directors feel like their reputation is on the line in a coaching search, they will often default to people they know. But sometimes, comfort and familiarity is actually a bad thing because it obscures the truth. But the strange thing is, Lebby wasn’t the most popular guy in town for his two years in Norman. And his track record before that includes stints under Lane Kiffin and his father-in-law Art Briles, which is problematic for entirely different reasons. Point being, Lebby never really established offensive bona fides on his own. Air Force: There haven’t been a lot of terrible seasons in nearly two decades under Troy Calhoun, but this might be shaping up as one of the worst he’s experienced. This came merely one week after Air Force lost 17-7 to San Jose State and had just 197 yards. But there’s also a bigger picture issue for Air Force, which has won 61 percent of its games under Calhoun. In the transfer portal/NIL era, recruiting is tougher than ever at service academies. It wasn’t a loss, thankfully for Bulldogs fans. If you remember two years ago, the Dawgs were fortunate to escape Missouri with a 26-22 win after trailing in the fourth quarter and then rolled to the title. But earlier this week, cornerback Daniel Harris became the sixth Georgia player in 2024 to be arrested for a driving offense. It’s an embarrassing trend, and the fact that it hasn’t stopped reflects poorly on coach Kirby Smart. But even for a program used to underachieving, there aren’t going to be a whole lot of results that stand out more than losing 42-13 to Indiana in the Rose Bowl. UCLA is just out of its depth in the Big Ten, particularly coming off the Chip Kelly era where the program flat-out did not recruit to a Pac-12 level much less put together a roster that can compete in the Big Ten. UCLA had just 238 yards of offense in this one, and all we can say is good luck to first-year coach DeShaun Foster. They’re gone, thanks to a 36-32 loss at Georgia State on Saturday. On the other hand, it wasn’t a complicated assignment. Still, Vanderbilt finally took the lead with under two minutes remaining and couldn’t hold it as the Panthers marched 75 yards in seven plays to score the winning touchdown with 15 seconds left. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/columnist/dan-wolken/2024/09/15/florida-state-college-football-week-3-misery-index/75233766007/