Florida State coach Mike Norvell apologizes to fans after Boston College loss drops Seminoles to 0-2

Florida State head coach Mike Norvell immediately apologized to Seminoles fans after FSU fell to 0-2 with a 28-13 home loss to Boston College on Monday night.

The Seminoles struggled on both sides of the ball for the second straight game as Boston College bullied Florida State on the ground much like Georgia Tech did on Aug. 24. The inability to stop the run coupled with an offense that was plagued by pass protection issues, errant throws and dropped passes led to a game that wasn’t all that close.

Norvell said he was “sick” about the loss in his opening statement at his postgame news conference and said that he had failed as a coach.

“I apologize to our fans, I apologize to everybody associated with the program. That was extremely disappointing that we’re not better,” Norvell said.

Florida State has lost three consecutive games dating back to last season since the Seminoles were snubbed from the four-team College Football Playoff. FSU went 13-0 a season ago and won the ACC but missed the playoff because QB Jordan Travis suffered a season-ending injury in the penultimate game of the season.

That game against North Alabama was also the last time a Florida State quarterback had thrown a touchdown pass until DJ Uiagalelei hit Kentron Poitier in the third quarter for a 29-yard score on Monday. That was a streak that spanned over four games — the final three games of the 2023 season and the 2024 season-opening loss to Georgia Tech.

Uiagalelei was scattershot on Monday night. He completed just 50% of his passes and averaged 6.5 yards an attempt. When he did have time and delivered passes on target, his receivers had issues too. Florida State struggled with drops all evening as well.

The Seminoles also rushed 16 times for just 21 yards. It’s a total that’s deflated because sacks count against team rushing totals in college football, but FSU’s leading rusher was Kam Davis. He had three carries for 11 yards.

Florida State is off in Week 2 before playing Norvell’s previous school, Memphis, in Week 4. He did not directly answer a question about a potential quarterback competition in his postgame news conference either. FSU added Uiagalelei from Oregon State via the transfer portal in the offseason after Norvell and his staff were clearly uncomfortable with the in-house options they had to replace Travis this season.

“I wholeheartedly believed that we would come out and play better, there was definitely enough mistakes that we made that kept us from that there in the first half,” Norvell said. “And then obviously I thought there were some things in the second half when we started to press and just obviously did not play very well.”