Kirk Herbstreit believes Mike Norvell's Florida State Seminoles can win a national championship.
It is still so insanely early, but count Kirk Herbstreit as one college football analyst who isall-in on the Florida State Seminoles this season.
During a Q&A over a conference call in preparation for this Saturday's big game between No. 11 Texas and No. 3 Alabama, Herbstreit was asked if he believed that Mike Norvell's Florida State team could win a national title. While the Seminoles were one of a few teams on the shortlist to potentially pull that off to begin the season, Herbstreit has seen enough: This team could be championship-caliber.
"Yeah, the Florida State answer would be yes, based on everybody that we watched. I try to really reserve judgment until we see these teams play for two or three weeks. I've learned the hard way going way back to when I first started, you see a team play once and you're like, "Oh my gosh, this is who they are." And then three weeks later, they're a completely different team. So trying to keep that in mind."
After a few trying years under Norvell, this fanbase has completely bought into their head coach.
"There's just enough to see from Florida State, again, a team that won 10 games last year, a team that I think even their own fan base was frustrated with where the program was over the last few years until last year. And this team played with a chip on their shoulder. I expect them to play like that. It's going to be one of these teams that achieves a big win and it's not enough."
No. 4 Florida State hosts the Southern Miss Golden Eagles at Doak Campbell on Saturday night.
Kirk Herbstreit sees Florida State as a College Football Playoff contender
To me, the idea of Florida State making, and potentially winning, the College Football Playoff seems to be far more than that in that it could be a reality. I had the Seminoles as the national runner-up in my playoff predictions after beating Michigan in the Rose Bowl before falling to Georgia in Houston in the title bout. Norvell's coaching staff has hit the transfer portal so hard and has built up such a monster.
I think the fact Florida State got a massive non-conference victory over a high-quality program the caliber of LSU is massive. It is the best win any team has on their resume up to this point, albeit only one week in. The question is if they can afford to drop a game in ACC play and still get in as a one-loss Power Five champion. Simply put, the league the Seminoles play in will need to hold up its end.
Overall, Florida State seems to have all of the right pieces necessary to go on a deep postseason run. A proven head coach, a strong Heisman Trophy-caliber quarteback, weapons galore and a potential top-five pick in the trenches. What's not to love? Ultimately, we are still so far away from seeing Florida State make its triumphant return to the College Football Playoff. 2014 was so very long ago...
We all may be getting sucked up in it a bit, but what we have seen out of Florida State is dominance.
