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Bill Connelly, ESPN Staff Writer
It was easy to wonder if there might be a little bit of a hangover this season. Mike Norvell weathered a strange, stair-stepping climb to greatness with Florida State — his Seminoles went 3-10 in his first 13 games, then 9-6 in the next 15, then won 19 in a row — but endured one of the most gut-wrenching season finishes you’ll ever see. First, the unbeaten Noles were snubbed out of a spot in the final four-team College Football Playoff; then, with a number of starters having either opted out or opted for season-ending surgery, they got completely humiliated 63-3 by Georgia in the Orange Bowl.
Norvell said all the proper things in spring ball, and despite 14 new starters, his reputation for finding difference-makers in the transfer portal got FSU ranked 10th in the preseason AP poll. But instead of a hangover, or a slow start, his Noles have completely no-showed in 2024.
Florida State’s win percentage has fallen by 82.9 percentage points at the moment, from 0.929 to 0.100. In the history of top-division college football, there have been 14,788 teams; only three have had their win percentage fall by more than that, and two played during World War I: 1917 Colorado State (from 6-0-1 to 0-7-1), 1919 Colorado Mines (from 4-0 to 0-4-2) and 2012 Southern Miss (from 12-2 to 0-12). The Seminoles are likely to finish 2-10, beating Charleston Southern this coming weekend and then losing to rival Florida. Those results would drop them to merely the eighth-largest win percentage collapse ever, behind four more teams from 1950 or earlier.
If you prefer advanced stats, FSU has also cratered by that measure: The Seminoles finished ninth in SP+ last season but are currently 92nd. In terms of percentile ratings, they’ve fallen from 94.1% to 33.0%. Granted, there’s still a sliver of friendly preseason projections impacting the current ratings, so the Noles could fall even further over the last couple of games, but that 61.1% drop is still the 40th largest on record and the fourth largest of the 2000s behind 2018 Louisville (from 87.8% to 15.1%), 2012 Southern Miss (from 73.1% to 4.5%) and 2009 Ball State (from 75.6% to 12.5%).
Like FSU with Jordan Travis, all three of those 21st century peers lost star quarterbacks from breakthrough teams — Southern Miss lost Conference USA-winning Austin Davis, Ball State lost Nate Davis and Louisville lost Heisman winner Lamar Jackson — and both BSU (Brady Hoke) and Southern Miss (Larry Fedora) had lost their respective head coaches to bigger jobs. Louisville, meanwhile, ended the Bobby Petrino era 10 games into 2018, as his Cardinals kept getting worse and worse.
Norvell isn’t a first-year coach, and by all accounts it appears he will keep his job into 2025, even if it has required the jettisoning of assistants. I like turning to the history books to get an idea for what might happen in the future, but this one’s tricky: When a team collapses with this level of force, it’s usually at either the start or end of a coach’s tenure (or, in the case of Southern Miss’ Ellis Johnson in 2012, both).
Acknowledging both the uniqueness of the coaching situation and the severity of the fall, however, I did find 10 reasonably decent comps. Here are 10 postwar, major-conference teams (or major independents) that (a) collapsed by at least 50.0% in terms of both SP+ percentile rating and win percentage, (b) did so with a coach that was not in his first season and (c) kept that coach for the following season. How long did it take each program to rebound? Did it happen under the same coach? Let’s take a look.
1946 Oklahoma State
Head coach: Jim Lookabaugh (eighth year)
Change in record: from 9-0 to 3-7-1
Change in SP+ ranking: from seventh to 82nd
What happened: Like Mike Gundy, Lookabaugh was a former OSU player who thrived as the Cowboys’ head coach. In 1944-45, they went 17-1, winning a Cotton Bowl and a Sugar Bowl and claiming a share of the 1945 national title. But in the postwar years, his program fell back to where it was prewar. Following their collapse in 1946, they went 3-7 again in 1947 before rebounding to go 6-4 with a Delta Bowl bid — they lost 20-0 to William & Mary — in 1948. Following a 4-4-2 season in 1949, Lookabaugh retired and moved into real estate.
The Cowboys’ next good season: 1953. Jennings Whitworth led the Pokes to a 7-3 campaign and parlayed that into the Alabama job a year later.
1956 Notre Dame
Head coach: Terry Brennan (third year)
Change in record: from 8-2 to 2-8
Change in SP+ ranking: from 12th to 84th
What happened: A star halfback for Notre Dame in the postwar years, Brennan was rushed into the head-coaching role at age 25 following Frank Leahy’s health-related retirement. He steered the ship well for a while, going 17-3 in 1954-55, but things fell apart during a massive youth movement in 1956 (albeit one in which Paul Hornung still won the Heisman). The growing pains produced improvement in the coming years, and Notre Dame was talented enough to end Oklahoma’s famed 47-game winning streak with a 7-0 upset in 1957 and finish 10th in the AP poll. But for the most part, the Irish were merely solid in 1957-58, beating poor teams, mostly losing to good ones and going 13-7 overall. Brennan was fired with a 32-18 record and replaced by NFL coach Joe Kuharich, who went just 17-23.
The Fighting Irish’s next good season: 1964. Granted, 1957 was pretty good under Brennan, but the Irish were mediocre for quite a few years under Kuharich and Hugh Devore before first-year coach Ara Parseghian engineered a 9-1 charge and No. 3 AP finish in 1964. They would win the national title two years later.
1960 SMU
Head coach: Bill Meek (fourth year)
Change in record: from 5-4-1 to 0-9-1
Change in SP+ ranking: from 34th to 91st
What happened: After landing his first head-coaching job at age 30, Bill Meek was 36 when he took over at SMU in 1957, with the team less than a decade removed from back-to-back top-10 finishes. Led by Dandy Don Meredith’s passing, the Mustangs finished 18th in the AP poll in 1958, and they began 1959 ranked fourth. But they went just 5-4-1 against a brutal schedule (they were 1-4 against ranked opponents), then totally collapsed in 1960 following Meredith’s graduation.
Meek stayed for 1961 but went just 2-7-1 and moved on to front office roles with the Denver Broncos and Dallas Cowboys. SMU replaced him with Hayden Fry.
The Mustangs’ next good season: 1966. Fry’s tenure began with four straight losing seasons, but he brought the Mustangs back to the Cotton Bowl, with a No. 10 AP finish, in Year 5.
1961 Illinois
Head coach: Pete Elliott (second year)
Change in record: from 5-4 to 0-9
Change in SP+ ranking: from 36th to 103rd
What happened: An All-America quarterback at Michigan, Elliott led Cal to the Rose Bowl in 1958 before returning to the Big Ten to succeed Ray Eliot in 1960. Eliot had gone just 32-35-5 since a Rose Bowl bid in 1951, and Elliott went just 5-4 in his first season before an absolute collapse in Year 2. He was building something, though. After going just 2-7 in 1962, a talented Illini squad led by All-Americans Dick Butkus and Archie Sutton charged to 8-1-1 and won the Rose Bowl. They were above .500 in 1964 and ’65, too, but Elliott resigned in 1967 when Illinois became embroiled in a slush fund scandal.
The Illini’s next good season: 1963. The Illini beat two top-five teams (Northwestern and Michigan State) and topped Washington 17-7 in the Rose Bowl. This collapse actually had a happy ending of sorts. As long as you ignore that whole “slush fund” thing.
1985 Boston College
Head coach: Jack Bicknell (fifth year)
Change in record: from 10-2 to 4-8
Change in SP+ ranking: from 11th to 62nd
What happened: We’ve heard a lot about the “Flutie effect” through the years, where a school that enjoys sudden football success sees a burst of notoriety, higher application rates and so on. The initial effects of losing Flutie, however, weren’t great for Boston College. Following Flutie’s Heisman run and BC’s 10-win campaign and top-five finish in 1984, the Eagles quickly fell back to earth with poor Shawn Halloran behind center in 1985. After a wobbly 3-3 start, they lost five in a row and finished 4-8.
BC began 1986 in poor form again, starting just 1-3, but Halloran and the Eagles won eight straight from there, eventually beating Georgia 27-24 in the Hall of Fame Bowl.
The Eagles’ next good season: 1986. The rebound was swift. It was also short-lived. Bicknell would average just 3.5 wins over the next four seasons and, in 1991, he moved on to become head coach of the World League of American Football’s Barcelona Dragons, and in 1992-93 the Eagles surged briefly under Tom Coughlin.
1991 Louisville
Head coach: Howard Schnellenberger (seventh year)
Change in record: from 10-1-1 to 2-9
Change in SP+ ranking: from 32nd to 103rd
What happened: I’m including Louisville here even though there was nothing “major” about the Cardinals program before Schnellenberger got a hold of it. They had finished ranked only once — they went 9-1 under Lee Corso in 1972 and finished 18th as part of the Missouri Valley — but finished under .500 every year from 1979-87. After going 14-8 under Schnellenberger in 1988-89, however, they charged to 10-1-1 and walloped No. 25 Alabama 34-7 in the Fiesta Bowl. It was a miraculous building job, but with quarterback Browning Nagle off to the pros and replacement Jeff Brohm injured early in the season, the Cardinals fell apart in 1991. They would rebound to 5-6 with a healthy Brohm in 1992, then broke through the following season.
The Cardinals’ next good season: 1993. Brohm threw for 2,626 yards (a good number for the day), and the Cardinals upset No. 23 Arizona State as part of a 7-1 start. They capped a 9-3 season with an 18-7 comeback win over Michigan State in the Liberty Bowl. Schellenberger would leave for Oklahoma a year later.
1998 Washington State
Head coach: Mike Price (10th year)
Change in record: from 10-2 to 3-8
Change in SP+ ranking: from 14th to 71st
What happened: Mike Price built a cyclical power in Pullman. The Cougars would slowly grow as a roster core matured, break through with a certain level of experience and then start over again. However, following the success of quarterback Ryan Leaf & Co. in 1997 — Wazzu won 10 games, reached the Rose Bowl for just the second time and finished in the AP top 10 for the first time — it took a little while to put the pieces back together. The Cougs went just 10-24 from 1998-2000. But Price’s next awesome quarterback, Jason Gesser, led a charge starting in 2001.
The Cougars’ next good season: 2001. The Cougs started 7-0, lost only to Oregon and Washington, both ranked, and beat Purdue 33-27 in the Sun Bowl. Both Gesser and Wazzu would raise their game further the next year, winning 10 games, reaching the Rose Bowl and finishing in the AP top 10 for the second of three straight seasons. (The third season would take place without Price, who left for an ill-fated stint at Alabama.)
2007 Notre Dame
Head coach: Charlie Weis (third year)
Change in record: from 10-3 to 3-9
Change in SP+ ranking: from 26th to 87th
What happened: Congratulations to Notre Dame, the only team to show up on this list twice.
Following an impeccable 19-4 start as Irish head coach, Charlie Weis’ second season finished in disappointing fashion with blowout losses against both No. 3 USC and No. 4 LSU. Notre Dame lost eight offensive starters, including quarterback Brady Quinn (who was replaced by true freshman Jimmy Clausen), and Weis replaced defensive coordinator Rick Minter with Corwin Brown. The result: a historic collapse.
Like 2024 FSU, Notre Dame began the season 1-9, a run that included the Irish’s first loss to Navy since 1963. Notre Dame lost to three ranked opponents by a combined 96-24, and late-season wins over dire Duke and Stanford teams only redeemed things so much. They would improve in the following seasons, but only to 7-6 and 6-6, and Weis was dumped at the end of 2009.
The Fighting Irish’s next good season: 2012. Brian Kelly replaced Weis and went 8-5 in each of his first two seasons before an experienced squad, led by a strong offensive line and all-world linebacker Manti Te’o, went 12-0 in the regular season and reached the BCS championship game. It was the first of four top-10 seasons for Kelly in South Bend.
2021 Northwestern
Head coach: Pat Fitzgerald (16th year)
Change in record: from 7-2 to 3-9
Change in SP+ ranking: from 31st to 101st
What happened: Like Mike Price, Pat Fitzgerald succeeded in cycles. Between 2011 and 2019, Northwestern combined four losing records with four seasons of nine or more wins, and they likely would have won nine or more with a full season’s work in the COVID-abbreviated 2020 season too. They went 6-1 and qualified for the Big Ten championship game, where they led Ohio State late in the third quarter before succumbing 22-10. A Citrus Bowl win capped the school’s first top-10 finish in 25 years.
In 2021, however, the Wildcats entered the season with the nation’s lowest returning production. It showed. The defense went from great to decent, and the offense went from below average to horrendous. NU would go just 4-20 over the next two seasons, then Fitzgerald was fired for off-field reasons.
The Wildcats’ next good season: 2023. It didn’t turn out to be a sustainable recipe — Northwestern is right back to 4-6 this season with only a 5% chance of winning out to reach bowl eligibility, per SP+ — but under interim coach David Braun, the Wildcats went 6-2 in one-score finishes to reach 8-5 overall. That’s not as good as Fitzgerald’s best years, but it was still a seven-win improvement over the previous season.
2021 Indiana
Head coach: Tom Allen (fifth year)
Change in record: from 6-2 to 2-10
Change in SP+ ranking: from 18th to 94th
What happened: After an 8-5 campaign in 2019, their best season in 26 years, Tom Allen’s Hoosiers took another step forward in 2020, going 6-1 in the COVID-abbreviated regular season, losing only a tight game against unbeaten Ohio State and technically earning a spot in the Big Ten championship game before an emergency rule change left them out.
Michael Penix Jr. was brilliant until tearing his ACL in the sixth game, and the Hoosiers finished the season with a bowl loss against Ole Miss. Penix returned in 2021, but he was rusty and inconsistent, and he suffered another season-ending injury in early October. After a 2-2 start, Indiana lost eight straight games. Allen could never right the ship, going just 7-17 in 2022-23, his last two seasons in charge.
The Hoosiers’ next good season: 2024. A coaching change (to Curt Cignetti) and a roster flip have completely reversed IU’s fortunes. The Hoosiers are 10-0 for the first time; they are a modern turnaround story in terms of just how much you can change in a short amount of time. (The changes aren’t guaranteed to work — just ask 2024 Florida State — but there are new opportunities on the table now.)
Obviously an exercise like this is more anecdotal than scientific. Both collapses and rebounds are potentially easier, for better or worse, in an era with greater roster flexibility and potential turnover, and just because it took Hayden Fry a while to get SMU going again in the 1960s doesn’t necessarily mean much for Mike Norvell.
Still, from the old “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme” perspective, it is perhaps noteworthy that of the 10 teams above, only one rebounded immediately (1986 Boston College), but six had bounced back within three years, including six of the seven most recent examples. Only four of those six rapid rebounds happened with the same coach in charge, and each of the two examples from this decade turned around immediately with a new coach. Even Louisville, which crumbled so thoroughly to the ground in Bobby Petrino’s final season, bounced straight back to 8-5 the next season under Scott Satterfield.
Florida State probably isn’t going to be this horrendously awful for long, in other words. It was almost impossible for this to happen once — this genuinely is one of the greatest collapses this very old sport has ever seen — and it probably won’t happen again. But the odds of a full rebound under Norvell aren’t great either. He will bring new assistants and, most likely, another large transfer class to Tallahassee in 2025, but the collapse exposed a level of fragility within the program that might eventually require a head-coaching change to completely fix.
