Nick Saban Doesn’t Hold Back on Florida State
By: Robert MacRae September 22, 2024

Legendary former Alabama coach and current ESPN analyst Nick Saban was candid and didn’t hold back on his thoughts about the Florida State football program.

During a College GameDay segment Saturday, Saban called out head coach Mike Norvell and Florida State for its “microwave fix” approach, as it relates to the NCAA transfer portal.

“Now, when it comes to Florida State, they’ve always taken the microwave fix, I call it — to take a lot of guys from the portal,” Saban said. “Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t, especially when things go bad. You know, those guys were all in the portal for a reason.

“So now you take these guys out of the portal, things don’t go the way they thought they were going to go, and maybe you don’t have the kind of culture and leadership on your team and the people buying into the leadership that you need to be able to be successful. So, this is a real challenge for Mike.”

Norvell’s Seminoles got off to a disastrous start this season, going 0-3 before edging Cal, 14-9, in Tallahassee on Saturday for their first win of the season.

The defending ACC champ, FSU was picked to win the 2024 conference title in the ACC preseason media poll. But the Noles haven’t looked anything like a conference title contender this season, and after sputtering out of the gate, they became just the third team to go from being ranked in the preseason AP top 10 to unranked in the first regular-season poll.

Clemson will travel to play at Florida State on Oct. 5.

–Photo courtesy Ken Ruinard / staff / USA TODAY NETWORK