Henshaw’s House: On Florida State’s winning formula under Mike Norvell

George Henshaw, who coached for two decades in the NFL as an offensive coordinator and position coach and also worked for many years at the college level — including seven seasons under Bobby Bowden at Florida State — offers insights into Florida State football each week for Warchant.com subscribers.

In this week’s conversation with Warchant managing editor Ira Schoffel, Henshaw points to some of the key reasons why Florida State is 8-0 and in the thick of the hunt for the College Football Playoff. Among the topics discussed are the Seminoles’ improvement on defense and special teams, excellence in the red zone, the team-first approach from coaches and players, and much more.

Warchant: A lot of the things you said Florida State needed to do last week at Wake Forest played out just like you wanted to see. How impressed were you with that performance?

Henshaw: I was very impressed with the way we played against Wake. Our stars played like stars. And it’s hard to play like a star away from home, but our best players did that. We also didn’t do anything that would get the momentum going for Wake Forest. So it was a total domination in the first half, and that’s what you want to see in a game like that.

We also were able to play a lot of people in the game, which is great. Because I would bet that in the Miami game and in the Florida game, there will be guys that will be called on to make plays in those games that are not the stars. They are guys that some of our fans may not even have heard of, but they will go in there and put themselves in position to make plays because they’ve trained themselves to do that. And the more they get on the field in a game, the more likely they will be able to handle that moment.

Warchant: There was some concern going into that game about the offense not having Johnny Wilson and a couple of other important wide receivers. But the next thing you know, they have 500 yards of offense and 41 points.

Henshaw: The thing that Mike [Norvell] has done a great job of is staying disciplined within the system. He’s got an offensive system, and he does not go outside of that, which can be hard to do for a lot of coaches. He knows what Jordan [Travis] can do and what he can’t do, and he is disciplined to stay within that. Because there are a lot of plays that would work against a team like Wake Forest, but Mike stays within the system. And Jordan is also disciplined enough to stay within the system. That’s one of the reasons why we have almost no turnovers.

And if you’re as good as we are — AND you don’t turn the ball over and give the other team extra chances — then you’re usually going to end up winning the game. Because the other team can’t beat you if you don’t help them. So I believe we should appreciate how these players and coaches have remained so disciplined, even when having success. Because being more talented than the other team doesn’t always mean that you’re going to win. If you don’t believe me, look at Clemson. They have piles of talent, but they can’t win because they can make too many mistakes.

Warchant: I think Kirk Herbstreit and maybe a couple other college football analysts thought Wake might be a trap game for Florida State, coming off all the hype surrounding the Duke game. And of course that didn’t happen — the ‘Noles won by 25 points. But this week really could be a challenge in that area, right? With Miami looming next week?

Henshaw: Yeah, I think this will be one of the toughest weeks for our coaches. Because here’s the thing: You can’t fool those players. You can say all you want that Pitt’s a great team and all kinds of stuff, but if they look at the film and see that Pitt is struggling — big-time struggling — it’s a normal reaction for some guys to not take things as seriously this week. Because they won’t feel threatened.

Now, our guys have done a great job so far of not letting things like that affect them. And with the help of the coaches, they’ll have to make sure they keep that up — because Pitt can still beat you if you let them. Just look at what happened when they played Louisville. That Louisville team is 7-1, but they lost to Pitt. And the reason they lost to Pitt is because they turned the ball over. They gave them a short field.

And if you watched that game, you could see that Louisville didn’t play like it normally plays. They weren’t as physical as they normally are. They had untimely penalties — those things can cost you a game. So we have got to prepare just like we did for Wake Forest, even though Pitt isn’t as good as Wake Forest, and I believe we will.

One of the things that I’ve been very impressed with lately is how much our defense has improved. Because defense travels, now. And toughness — physical and mental toughness — that travels too. And that’s what our team is. And I think that carries over to special teams as well. More often than not, the better your defense is, the better your special teams are going to be. Because most of the core players on your special teams are defensive players. So that’s another area where I believe we have improved dramatically throughout the year.

Warchant: I think all of us expected this to be a very good Florida State team, mostly because of the offense. But if they’re going to have a really special season, it’s going to be because of how the defense performs, right?

Henshaw: You can’t hardly ever win a championship without defense. And I’m one that probably over-exaggerates sometimes the importance of the quarterback. Because I know how important it is to have a great quarterback. But having a great quarterback is useless if you don’t have a defense.

If you don’t believe that, go watch Southern Cal. They have got a great quarterback and no defense, and they struggle to win almost every week. Then look at North Carolina. They’ve got a great quarterback, but they struggle to win because they have no defense. So just having a great quarterback is not going to be enough if you can’t play defense. Fortunately, our defense is much improved. And if you have a very good quarterback and a very good defense and special teams, you’re going to win a lot more games.

Warchant: This team also seems to play smart situationally, which is something I know we’ve talked about in the past.

Henshaw: We have done a great job in the red zone for sure. I don’t know if anybody in the country is as good as we are on offense and defense in the red zone. We talk a lot about turnovers, but how you perform in the red zone also makes a very big difference in the game. There are some statistics that people talk about that really don’t have a correlation to winning. Things like time of possession and even total yardage. Those can be misleading if you can’t play well in the red zone. I mean, Clemson had 150 yards more than N.C. State the other day, and they got beat.

How about that Clemson team, now? They have overtaken Miami when it comes to figuring out ways to lose games.

Warchant: Yeah, Florida State fans have a lot of reasons to be happy right now. Miami almost had another debacle last week. Clemson seems to be in disarray. Florida got blown out by Georgia.

Henshaw: Well hey, thank goodness that Florida coach is into analytics. Here it is in the first half of that game against Georgia, and they go for it on fourth down on their own 34-yard line. That beats us going for it on the 36! But they go for it on their own 34, don’t get it, and the game blows open after that. So thank goodness they believe in analytics.

Warchant: One of the things a lot of us like about this Florida State team is that it seems to be pretty selfless. You can see that the players all play for each other and celebrate when each other has successes. I imagine that says a lot about the example they’re seeing for the coaches.

Henshaw: There’s no question. I can’t tell you how many teams I watch every week that don’t play nearly as good as their talent says they should. In most of those cases, I bet if you checked with their staff, you would find people that are not totally on board. So what happens is they don’t set a good example for the players.

Well this staff, under Coach Norvell, is united and they set a great example for the young athletes. The players see that the coaches don’t care one bit who gets the credit. So then they say, “It doesn’t matter to me who gets all the credit. We want to win as a team.” And if you have that mindset, suddenly it doesn’t matter how things get done or who has to do them. All that matters is we get it done. And that’s the sign of a good team.

Warchant: What’s interesting about that is we all tend to focus on rosters when thinking about the future — worrying about which players are returning or going pro, etc. But that continuity on the coaching staff is huge, too, because changes on the coaching staff can affect that chemistry.

Henshaw: Well, as long as we keep winning, I think it will be a challenge to keep those guys on the staff together. But I think one of the greatest qualities that Coach Norvell has is his selection of staff. And when I say staff, I’m talking about coaches and the so-called support staff — because it’s much more complicated now than it was when I was coaching here before. You need many, many more people to be successful, and he has got guys that have bought into Florida State, and they set a great example for the players of how to work together and not be selfish. That it’s more important to play for the team and coach for the team than it is to worry about the individual things that may come their way. And I can’t tell you how important that is.

I was lucky enough to come here with Coach [Bobby] Bowden when he put together his first staff. And I would argue that during the first 25 years of Coach Bowden’s career here at Florida State, he had some fantastic assistant coaches. But what happened was he lost some of those very good assistants, and the guys that he replaced them with were not as productive as the ones that left. And as a result, it looks bad for Coach Bowden, because of the people he had surrounding him.

Well, Coach Bowden didn’t forget how to coach in those last five or six years of his career. He just didn’t have the same level of staff around him. And I think Coach Norvell has done a great job of bringing in good people who work well together and set a great example for the players. That’s one of his best qualities, I think.

And I know people on Warchant are mostly focused on Florida State, but I did want to mention how fortunate we are in Tallahassee to have great coaches at both Florida State and Florida A&M right now. I think we have two of the best coaches in the country. I wouldn’t trade Coach Norvell or Willie Simmons for anybody in this country, and both teams are doing very well (FSU is 8-0 and FAMU is 7-1). They’re both very well-coached. They’re both disciplined. And they both are teams that play together. It’s not just the end result either — the way they do things is absolutely gratifying.

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