Florida State officially moved on from Mike Norvell on Sunday, ending his seven-year tenure with the Seminoles after a 3-5 start to the 2026 season.

Norvell finished 41-39 at Florida State. His tenure peaked in 2023, when the Seminoles won the ACC championship and completed a 13-0 season before being left out of the College Football Playoff, but the program failed to reach a bowl game in each of the next two seasons and never recovered its momentum.

Florida State Hall of Famer Rick Stockstill will serve as interim head coach while the university conducts a national search for Norvell’s replacement.

PFN’s Jacob Infante identified six coaches who could make sense for the opening. These aren’t presented as a reported Florida State shortlist, but rather as candidates whose résumés, regional connections, and recent results make them worth considering.

Rhett Lashlee, SMU Head Coach

Rhett Lashlee has already shown he can build a consistent winner in the conference Florida State is trying to climb back to the top of.

SMU entered the ACC in 2024 and has gone 18-4 in conference play since making the jump. The Mustangs reached the College Football Playoff in their first ACC season, and although a 30-27 loss to Syracuse dropped them to 6-2 this year, Lashlee’s program has remained firmly in the conference picture.

Infante pointed to how seamless SMU’s transition into the ACC has been. The Mustangs didn’t need several recruiting cycles to become competitive against established Power Four programs; they immediately became one of the conference’s better teams.

Lashlee also brings the offensive background Florida State could find appealing. He rose through the Gus Malzahn coaching tree and has spent much of his career designing and calling offenses, including previous coordinator stops at Auburn, UConn, SMU, and Miami.

The primary obstacle would be convincing an established ACC head coach to leave a successful situation. SMU has invested heavily in football, and Lashlee isn’t coaching at a program that lacks resources or ambition.

Florida State still offers a different recruiting ceiling and history, however. If the Seminoles are willing to make a major investment in their next head coach, Infante believes Lashlee’s combination of ACC success and offensive expertise makes him one of the more natural names to explore.

Charles Huff, Memphis Head Coach

Few coaches on this list have produced as many immediate turnarounds as Charles Huff.

Huff went 32-20 in four seasons at Marshall, culminating with a 10-win season and Sun Belt championship in 2024. He then inherited a Southern Miss program that had gone 1-11 and took the Golden Eagles to 7-5 in his only season there.

Memphis hired Huff after that turnaround, and the results have continued. The Tigers improved to 7-2 on Saturday with a 49-22 win over Army, generating 554 yards of offense in the process.

That history of quickly raising a program’s floor is central to Infante’s argument for Huff. Florida State isn’t simply looking for someone to maintain a functioning operation. The next coach will inherit a program that has missed consecutive bowl games and needs significant roster and culture work.

Huff has repeatedly shown that he can get players to buy into a new direction quickly. His background also includes stops under James Franklin at Penn State and Nick Saban at Alabama, giving him experience inside programs with championship-level expectations.

There is an obvious parallel Florida State would have to consider: Norvell himself came to Tallahassee from Memphis. That doesn’t mean another Tigers coach should be dismissed, but the school would have to evaluate Huff on his own merits rather than assuming success at Memphis translates automatically.

Infante sees the résumé as strong enough to warrant the conversation. Huff has won a conference championship, engineered one of the country’s biggest one-year turnarounds, and now has Memphis positioned as one of the stronger Group of Five programs.

Manny Diaz, Duke Head Coach

No candidate on Infante’s list has stronger direct ties to Florida State than Manny Diaz.

Diaz graduated from FSU in 1995 and began his coaching career with the Seminoles as a graduate assistant in 1998 and 1999. He was on Bobby Bowden’s staff for Florida State’s 1999 national championship, giving him firsthand experience with the standard the program is trying to restore.

His current work at Duke has strengthened his candidacy for another major job.

Diaz led the Blue Devils to the ACC championship in 2025, their first outright conference title since 1962. Duke followed that season by starting 6-2 this year and became bowl eligible Saturday with a 47-2 win over Boston College.

The Florida State connection is only part of the appeal. Diaz already has Power Four head-coaching experience from his three seasons at Miami, extensive ties throughout the state, and decades of experience building aggressive defenses.

His Miami tenure was uneven, but what he has done at Duke gives Florida State much more recent evidence to evaluate. Diaz took over after Mike Elko’s departure and kept the program operating at a high level rather than allowing it to slide backward.

There would also be a real question about whether Diaz would want to leave. Duke is winning, he signed a contract extension earlier this year, and Florida State would require a much larger rebuilding project.

Still, the combination of current success and deep FSU ties makes Diaz difficult to leave off a list of potential replacements.

Jake Dickert, Wake Forest Head Coach

Jake Dickert has turned Wake Forest into one of the biggest surprises in college football.

Dickert inherited a Demon Deacons program with modest expectations before the 2025 season and immediately went 9-4, producing the most successful debut season by a head coach in school history. Wake Forest capped the year by beating Mississippi State in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl.

The encore has been even more impressive.

Wake Forest improved to 7-1 with a 51-7 demolition of Virginia on Saturday. The Demon Deacons have won five straight games and entered the weekend ranked No. 14 in the country.

Infante also pointed to Dickert’s work at Washington State as an important part of his résumé. He had to guide that program through enormous uncertainty surrounding the collapse of the old Pac-12, yet still produced winning seasons and multiple bowl appearances.

Doing more with limited resources has been a theme throughout Dickert’s head-coaching career. Florida State would present the opposite challenge: significantly higher expectations, but also greater recruiting access, brand recognition, and financial resources.

There is no guarantee that success at Wake Forest scales perfectly to a job like Florida State. That would be one of the central questions for the Seminoles in any interview.

But a coach who went 9-4 in Year 1 and has Wake Forest at 7-1 in Year 2 is going to attract attention. Infante believes Florida State should be part of that conversation.

Shannon Dawson, Miami Offensive Coordinator

If Florida State is willing to hire a first-time head coach, Shannon Dawson offers an intriguing combination of offensive production, quarterback development, and familiarity with the state.

Dawson is in his fourth season as Miami’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. The Hurricanes are 8-0 and ranked No. 1 in the country after Saturday’s 38-35 win over North Carolina.

His quarterback track record has been one of the biggest reasons his name continues to gain traction for head-coaching opportunities.

Cam Ward developed into a Heisman Trophy finalist and won the Davey O’Brien Award under Dawson in 2024. Carson Beck helped Miami reach the national championship game the following season, and Darian Mensah has kept the production going in 2026.

Mensah entered Saturday leading the nation in completion percentage and then completed 22 of 29 passes for 274 yards and three touchdowns against North Carolina.

Infante’s case for Dawson is straightforward: The coordinator of the nation’s No. 1 team has shown he can build an elite passing offense and develop quarterbacks, and Florida State needs an offensive identity as it tries to rebuild.

There would be risk. Dawson has never been a college head coach, so Florida State would be betting on his ability to handle recruiting, staff management, roster construction, fundraising, and every other responsibility that comes with running a major program.

It could also carry the added benefit of taking a key assistant away from Florida State’s biggest in-state rival.

Whether the Seminoles want another experienced head coach or are willing to make a projection on a coordinator will shape Dawson’s chances, but Infante believes his offensive résumé puts him firmly in the discussion.

Glenn Schumann, Georgia Defensive Coordinator

Glenn Schumann represents the defensive counterpart to Dawson: an elite coordinator from a national championship program who appears increasingly likely to receive a head-coaching opportunity somewhere.

Schumann has been with Kirby Smart at Georgia since Smart took over the program in 2016. He became co-defensive coordinator in 2019 and was promoted to defensive coordinator in 2022.

Georgia’s defensive success during that span speaks for itself. Schumann has helped coach national championship defenses and developed a long list of NFL players, including linebackers Roquan Smith, Nakobe Dean, Quay Walker, and Channing Tindall.

His recruiting background is another major part of the appeal. Schumann spent eight years at Alabama before following Smart to Georgia and has spent essentially his entire career inside two of the most talented programs in college football.

There is also a Florida State connection in his family. Schumann’s grandfather, Jack Haskin, coached for the Seminoles and is a member of the Florida State Athletics Hall of Fame.

Infante believes that connection adds another layer to a candidacy that already makes sense based on football alone.

Like Dawson, Schumann would be a first-time head coach. That makes him a projection in a way Lashlee, Huff, Diaz, and Dickert are not. Florida State would have to decide whether elite coordinator experience at Georgia and Alabama adequately prepares him to oversee a full program.

The upside is clear. Dan Lanning left Georgia’s defensive staff for Oregon and quickly built one of the country’s top programs. Schumann is his own candidate with his own strengths, but the success of coaches coming out of Smart’s operation gives programs another reason to investigate whether the next one is ready.

For a Florida State program looking to restore both its recruiting base and championship expectations, Schumann’s experience around elite roster construction could be especially attractive.