"Norvell’s deal with the Seminoles has widely been reported as a 6-year deal, and Steve Berkowitz shares that the contract has a “basic value” of $28 million. Salary for the first year of the deal works out to about $4 million (which includes a retention bonus due every December 31st worth $250k).
At Memphis, Norvell was one of the highest paid Group of Five coaches in college football at $2.66 million per year, per the USA Today Coaches Salary database.

If Norvell were to leave for another college or NFL job, he’d be on the hook for $5 million the first year, and that figure drops by $1 million annually over the life of the contract. If fired without cause, Norvell would be owed 85% of the remaining money left on his deal, subject to duty to mitigate.
Also noted, is that Florida State has agreed to pay the buyout Norvell is owed to Memphis, which is relatively slim in coaching buyout standards at just $500,000.


As for the salary staff pool, Berkowitz notes that Norvell will have a salary pool of about $5.25 million to work with for his 10 on-the-field assistants. That is slightly more than what they were set to allocate for Willie Taggart’s staff this next fall, which was $5.1 million."

If Memphis was paying Norvell $2.67 million yearly, I am guessing his assistant pool pay was much larger at Memphis than any MAC school also. Now he moves on to FSU where the assistant pay will be $5.25 million. The Seminoles are far removed from the glory days of Bobby Bowden and are not considered one of the elite teams, but they continue to pay big money for athletics. These power five conference schools have an enormous amount of cash to spend.

It hasn’t been that long since FSU was in the playoff -2014. Don’t have to go back to Bowden. They’ve had some poor choices for coaches, but I wouldn’t say there’s no chance they don’t come back. With all that talent around them and top 20 facilities they should recover.

You’re right on the cash, but FSU is burning through it with the poor coach selections.

UCF is one of the largest schools in America with a private foundation for an athletic department. No secret to their rise and FSU’s decline. By the way, a former Athens Bulldog and Ohio Football player and coaching Alum is on staff at UCF. Go Dogs, Go Cats, and Go Knights. And the AD is a former football GA and Sports Ad graduate.

Yes there is no secret - it’s all about coaching hires, good and bad.

And FSU athletics has annual revenue of about $170,000,000 and UCF about $60,000,000 (2017-2018)