Florida State coaching candidates: Seven options to replace Mike Norvell, plus two wild-card names to watch

Florida State has fired Mike Norvell, and the athletics department, in the middle of a rebuild after a shocking fall from grace following an undefeated regular season three years ago, has begun searching for a new head coach.

Plenty of candidates will be interested in taking over one of the ACC's crown jewels, but who? Money will be a question. So will the attractiveness of the situation inside the athletic department. The school fired athletic director Mike Alford in September, and it doesn't yet have a permanent boss.

But everyone knows you can win big in Tallahassee. Norvell won 19 straight games across 2022 and 2023, went 13-0 in the 2023 regular season and was the first undefeated Power Five champion left out of the College Football Playoff. Florida State went 10-23 in the 33 games that followed, including 4-17 in the ACC since the start of 2024. They've lost 12 straight road games, tied for the longest streak in school history. 

The wholesale changes coming at FSU won't be cheap. The program has also spent a lot of money over the last several years and is deep in debt after building and renovating football facilities.

Buyouts for Norvell and assistant coaches could eclipse $65 million. Norvell is owed $47.1 million to $50.3 million, either of which would rank as the third-largest buyout in college football history, but that could be offset by the salary Norvell earns at his next job.

Then there is the cost of hiring a new head coach and staff.

FSU closed fiscal year 2025 with $437 million in athletics-related debt, up from $237 million a year earlier. Most of the debt is tied to bonds for the renovation of Doak Campbell Stadium and a new football operations building.

All of that will factor into who Florida State hires next to take over a program that seems lost in the mix of an evolving ACC, where Miami has emerged as the superpower over the last two years as NIL spending increased.

CBS Sports spoke with industry sources and compiled a list of seven candidates who make sense for the Seminoles.

Manny Diaz, Duke head coach

Manny Diaz started his coaching career in Tallahassee, breaking into the business as a graduate assistant under Bobby Bowden and longtime defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews. Now he's one of the sport's hottest names, pushing Duke into bowl eligibility for a third straight season after winning the ACC Championship Game in 2025. Diaz is 24-11 in Durham, which is impressive on its own, but how much will his previous stay at Miami hurt his candidacy?

Miami fired Diaz in December 2021 after recording a 21-15 record across three seasons. They hired Mario Cristobal, who has since led the Hurricanes to the national championship game and a No. 1 ranking. 

Diaz knows the ACC, the state of Florida and the Florida State standard from the inside. He grew up in Miami, where his father once served as mayor, and his recruiting roots in South Florida run deep. Duke signed Diaz to an extension in April. Could the diehard FSU faithful look past his days at Miami and hire him to lead the program?

Eli Drinkwitz, Missouri head coach

Eli Drinkwitz is 64-32 as an FBS head coach, including a 12-1 season at Appalachian State and an 11-2 season at Missouri in 2023 that ended with a Cotton Bowl win over Ohio State. Missouri is ranked again this season, with a huge showdown against Texas on Saturday that carries playoff implications.

He signed a six-year contract in December averaging $10.75 million through 2031, but that wouldn't stop FSU. Drinkwitz would only owe Missouri $5 million if he leaves before Dec. 1, and $4 million after that. 

Drinkwitz has a clear vision for building a roster, mixing portal additions like Ole Miss quarterback Austin Simmons with players developed in the program, and that is precisely where Norvell failed. He also has ACC experience from his time at NC State. His teams win the games they are supposed to win, unlike Norvell's time at FSU. Missouri's victory Saturday against Arkansas was its 29th straight over an unranked opponent, tied for the longest active streak in the FBS.

The questions are whether Florida State can match a $10 million salary after committing $50 million to the last coach, and whether Drinkwitz can win the big games, which he has struggled to do at Mizzou. Despite his great overall record, he's 3-10 against AP Top 25 teams since 2024, including a 1-2 record so far this fall.

Jake Dickert, Wake Forest head coach

Wake Forest is the story no one is talking about, but the Demon Deacons are 7-1 and in sole possession of second place in the ACC. Dickert is 16-5 in two seasons at a school picked to finish next to last in the league before his debut. His first team went 9-4, the most wins by a first-year coach in program history.

Dickert's roster-building approach worked at Wake Forest, so why wouldn't it translate to FSU? Bringing along general manager Rob Schlaeger would be a huge win for the Seminoles. FSU fans will also be happy to hear that Wake Forest plays a physical brand that they lost along the line of scrimmage under Norvell. Virginia ran for only 16 yards in the Demon Deacons' 51-7 victory Saturday, and the Deacons rank sixth nationally in rush defense (82.9 yards per game).

But Dickert's contract may complicate things. Wake Forest assistant coaches have a noncompete clause in their contracts that forbids them from taking another job in the ACC for at least one year after their employment ends, sources tell CBS Sports. The question is whether a similar clause is included in the head coach's contract. If Dickert has similar language in his contract, that could take him off the table at Florida State. 

Wake Forest is a private school, so coaches' contracts aren't available through open records requests. The school announced a new "long-term contract" with Dickert in December but did not reveal details, including salary.

Dickert, 43, is a Wisconsin native with no ties to Florida. He had no ties at Washington State or Wake Forest, either, and won at both.

Kenny Dillingham, Arizona State head coach

Kenny Dillingham was Norvell's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Florida State in 2020 and 2021, the first two years of the rebuild, after holding the same job for Norvell at Memphis in 2018. 

Dillingham took over his alma mater in 2023, went 3-9, then won the Big 12 and reached the College Football Playoff in 2024. Arizona State has cooled since, but the Sun Devils pushed BYU to the brink last week. The Sun Devils are 4-4, and Dillingham is 26-21 overall. Rumors of Michigan pursuing him led to a new five-year deal averaging $7.5 million annually. 

Dillingham brings an offensive mind and a fresh approach. He seems frustrated at times at ASU, and has gone public about wanting more financial muscle behind his program. He's coaching his hometown school, and his close relationship with Norvell could complicate any conversation.

Jason Eck, New Mexico head coach

Jason Eck is the hottest name on the Group of Six level. He's 16-5 over the last two seasons at New Mexico, and his defense leads the nation, allowing only 11.9 points per game. 

Eck's gregarious personality would be a hit in Tallahassee. He's also a builder. He was an offensive lineman under Barry Alvarez at Wisconsin, and when he became head coach at Idaho, he led the program to the FCS playoffs in all three seasons. He is 42-18 as a college head coach.

Florida State's offensive line never seemed consistent under Norvell. Eck's teams will be founded on the offensive and defensive lines. FSU may want a proven coach, and Eck has no experience leading a power-conference program. He also has no ties to the Southeast. 

Blake Baker, LSU defensive coordinator

The highest-paid assistant coach in the country turned down feelers from Tulane and Memphis last December to stay at LSU. Florida State might be the job that moves him.

Baker has fixed defenses everywhere he's been. At LSU, he took a defense that ranked 81st nationally in scoring before his arrival and held opponents to 18.3 points per game in 2025, the program's best mark since 2016. He was defensive coordinator at Louisiana Tech from 2015 to 2018, at Miami under Diaz in 2019 and 2020, and at Missouri under Drinkwitz in 2022 and 2023, when the Tigers went 11-2 and held Ohio State without a touchdown in the Cotton Bowl.

His two seasons at Miami allowed him to build recruiting relationships in South Florida, and he's been recruiting the Southeast over the last four years at Missouri and LSU. 

Glenn Schumann, Georgia defensive coordinator

Schumann was born in Valdosta, Georgia, less than 100 miles from Tallahassee. His grandfather, Jack Haskin, coached at Florida State and is in the school's Hall of Fame. 

Schumann, 36, has spent his entire career inside two of the sport's elite programs as a graduate assistant under Nick Saban at Alabama before following Kirby Smart to Georgia in 2016. He was co-defensive coordinator on Georgia's back-to-back national title teams in 2021 and 2022, and no assistant has been with Smart longer. He's also regarded as one of the country's best recruiters. Schumann interviewed for the North Carolina job before the Tar Heels hired Bill Belichick two years ago.

He checks the regional and recruiting boxes. The risk is that he has never been a head coach. Georgia's defense is always among the nation's best, though it struggled to pressure the quarterback last season with just 20 sacks to rank 117th. The Bulldogs are back in the top 10 now, averaging over three sacks per game. 

Wild cards

A couple more wildcards include SMU's Rhett Lashlee and former Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher. Lashlee is well compensated at SMU, and his NIL coffers are among the conference's deepest, so pulling him from Dallas for any job could be difficult. He also signed a new deal last December.

Fisher's name immediately perks the antennae, of course. He left FSU with an 83-23 record and a national championship in December 2016 to take over at Texas A&M, where administrators practically promised Aggie fans a national title, and he never got close. He was fired in 2023 with a 45-25 record. Still, some boosters in Tallahassee are intrigued by the idea of bringing Fisher on board, perhaps at a discount, to rebuild a program he knows intimately. He also still has a home in Tallahassee.

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