Winning Football at FSU to be Reborn with New AD Purinton

New Florida State athletic director Jeff Purinton addressed the media on Tuesday.

Purinton’s talking points included the search for a new head football coach, program competitiveness, the FSU standard, and evaluating coaching talent.

The search for a new football coach has produced several short lists of candidates, as well as rumors throughout the media.

“Yeah, so I think we need to do all our work behind the scenes,” said Purinton. “We'll get our list together. will work the three of us and Daniel Parker (and Associates) and others to identify candidates. Of course, no coach at still in season is going to have conversations. We're going to explore every candidate and hire the best coach for Florida State.”

When it comes to evaluating coaching talent, Purinton talked about what he looks for.

“To me, most important is the product that you see on the field,” said Purinton. “How do they play the game? Do they make mistakes? Do they play pretty clean football? To me, that matters and coach Bowden and coach Saban were some of the most successful to do it. You watch their teams, and they play the game the right way and they play hard all the time.”

Coaching names like Jake Dickert (Wake Forest), Manny Diaz (Duke), former Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher, Glenn Schumann (Georgia DC) and even Ryan Day (Ohio State) have fueled speculation.

Mike Norvell led Florida State to an undefeated regular season in 2013 and an ACC title.

Norvell was fired as head coach after leading the Seminoles to a dismal 10-23 record dating back to the Orange Bowl loss to Georgia at the end of the 2023 season.

After that, the program’s competitiveness was gone. Florida State football is a program and a fan base that is starved for success.

At the time of Norvell’s firing, Florida State President Richard McCullough stated he thought the next football coach “needed to be a Florida State guy.”

Purinton talked about the “FSU standard”.

“I think Florida State guy can mean a couple of things, but we want to get the best coach and the best person to lead this program,” said Purinton. “And I think our leadership would agree, that could be somebody with a degree from somewhere else. It could be a Florida State person. But we want to get the right one and build this thing back the right way and win a bunch of football games.”

Over the last few weeks, Fisher’s name had repeatedly come up as Norvell’s possible replacement, a Florida State guy if there ever was one.

Fisher was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach under Bobby Bowden, before taking over as head coach. He posted an 83-23 record (.783) and had only one losing season.

Fisher led the Seminoles to a national title in 2013.

As athletic director at Arkansas State, Purinton learned to get creative and to do more with less, especially as it related to limited funding.

Now he is the man who will lead Florida State to the next level. They have the resources, and they have the facilities to compete with any athletics program in the country. As they should.

Purinton is in position to make Florida State an unconquered force in college athletics for years to come.

With the hiring of Purinton as AD, Florida State could (and should) be one of the most attractive coaching jobs in the country.

Purinton plans to do a lot of listening over the next month or so to get a clear understanding of the issues and what to improve on. He will also use his eyes.

The future of Florida State athletics is bright. Purinton’s vision is a super nova of success.