My main concern with firing Willie when we did was the consequences of trying to make a hire (and the associated hires and organizational changes that would accompany a coaching change) under a lame duck president and an interim not-really-athletic director.
I'd lost confidence in Willie being the guy, but to me, it made sense to give WT one more year, get your new president and AD in place, finish bringing the boosters under the AD, knock another year off the buyout, improve the APR some more, and then you're making a coaching change from a position of strength rather than chaos. I'm old...in the scheme of things a single season doesn't seem like a lot, if it puts you in a better position for the next 5-10 seasons.
So far, with the exception of the additional buyout money it will cost, I'm not really still holding that concern. Despite the chaos, FSU got one of the top 3-4 coaches on the market, they didn't end up with a Eli Drinkwater or Sam Pittman. I had some strong fears that the job would be so toxic, and the budget so thin, that we'd end up with a truly embarrassing search that ended with a hire that was doomed from the start. I had visions of Tennessee hiring Derek Dooley, a hire that was DOA from the start.
So far, Norvell held WT's recruiting class together decently, it isn't great, but it didn't fall into the 50s or anything. The staff seems to be at least as competent, and if anything the off field staff has increased, so there doesn't appear to be obvious signs of the new coach handcuffed by a shoestring budget. Norvell seems custom designed in a lab to reengage the boosters in a way WT just wasn't good at, which should ease the transition a little bit.
My only concern (other than just the buyout cash that could have been reduced) was that maybe another year widens the net of available hires versus this offseason. I'm not really bothered by the fact we got Norvell vs Campbell or Fleck, to me they're all roughly in the same bucket. But it was a weird year of there not being very many "up an comers" in the coaching ranks with southern connections. It's not that I'm disappointed in how we did in this pool, but maybe the pool would have been deeper next off-season, with guys like Satterfield, Geoff Collins, or others in play.
But there also might not have been...no guarantees whatsoever. So, Norvell might work or he might be a failure, but based on so far, I don't really second guess the decision to replace WT or when they did. He will either rise or fall on his own merits, and luck, or whatever, but I don't think FSU made a change that is destined to fail.