Florida State Hires Alum Jeff Purinton as Athletic Director, With a Football Coaching Search First on His List

Florida State has hired alumnus Jeff Purinton as its athletic director, handing a former Bobby Bowden-era staffer who once answered phones in the department for free the job of leading the Seminoles through a football coaching search and a push for more revenue. The school announced the hire Monday, Nov. 9, and introduced Purinton in Tallahassee this week.

Purinton, most recently an executive vice president at the college sports marketing company Learfield, replaces Michael Alford, whom Florida State fired without cause in September. His first priority, he said, is finding a replacement for football coach Mike Norvell, who was fired Nov. 1 with the Seminoles at 3-5.

Who Jeff Purinton is

Purinton is a Florida State graduate who started in the athletic department in 1994 as a student assistant, answering phones without pay just to be around Bowden's program, according to WTXL ABC 27 in Tallahassee. He spent more than a decade working at the school during the Bowden years, according to ESPN, and was part of the program's 1999 national championship era, WTXL reported.

He then spent about 15 years at Alabama under Nick Saban, rising to executive deputy director of athletics, before becoming athletic director at Arkansas State in 2022. He left Arkansas State in 2025 to join Learfield as an executive vice president working in revenue development, according to ESPN and WTXL. The school has not released the terms of his contract, and no salary or length had been reported as of Thursday.

"Florida State is home to me in so many ways," Purinton said in a statement released by the university, according to ESPN. "It's where I went to school, where I got my start in this profession and where I learned from people who helped shape the way I've approached my career."

At his introduction, Purinton told WTXL that becoming athletic director had been his dream, a chance "to give back to a place that has meant so much to me."

Why Florida State made the change

Florida State fired Alford, who had led the department since 2021, on Monday, Sept. 14, just before the Seminoles' trip to Alabama. Senior associate athletic director Bruce Warwick has served as interim athletic director since then.

President Richard McCullough framed that decision around the business of college sports rather than any single result. "These are big businesses now," McCullough said at the time, according to WEAR-TV. He said the university was investing tens of millions of dollars a year and needed to "move a little bit faster than we have." ESPN reported that McCullough wanted an athletic director who could modernize the department with an eye toward increasing revenue.

Purinton's Learfield background speaks directly to that goal. McCullough told WTXL the university was thrilled Purinton was bringing his expertise on the revenue side. Board of Trustees chair Peter Collins said in a statement that Purinton "knows this university, he knows the culture of Seminole Athletics," according to ESPN.

The football search comes first

The bigger job is on the field. Florida State fired Norvell after a 36-24 home loss to Clemson on Oct. 31, ending a seven-season tenure in which he went 41-39. The Seminoles won the ACC with a 13-0 regular season in 2023 but were left out of the four-team College Football Playoff, and they had gone 10-23 since, according to ESPN. Norvell's buyout was reported at $50.3 million.

McCullough said in early November that the university had hired a search firm and that the athletic director and football searches would run at the same time, with "time is of the essence" because of next month's signing period. With Purinton in place, McCullough told WTXL the school moved quickly so it could focus on the coach. "We've got to go out and hire a football coach now, and we're already on the case," he said.

Purinton said the search will be conducted largely behind the scenes and that the next coach does not have to come from the Florida State family. "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," he told WTXL. Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said earlier this month that he is not a candidate.

Stockstill steadies the season

Rick Stockstill, the program's director of scouting and a former Middle Tennessee head coach for 18 seasons, is the interim coach. Stockstill, another Bowden-era alum, won his debut on Nov. 7 as Florida State beat Boston College 31-24 in Chestnut Hill, Mass. It was the Seminoles' first road win since a victory at Florida on Nov. 25, 2023, according to ESPN, and it lifted the team to 4-5.

The season so far, from ESPN's schedule:

What it means for Tallahassee

For a department that has watched its flagship program slide, the hire puts a familiar face in charge at a moment when fan frustration has spilled into public view; a plane banner over Doak Campbell Stadium before the Clemson game urged the school to fire Norvell and Collins, ESPN reported. Purinton said he plans to spend his first 30 days meeting with coaches and administrators across the department, and he named maximizing revenue through sponsorships and other opportunities as a key to the program's future, according to WTXL.

"It's a new era of college athletics and certainly now a new era for Florida State University," Jeff Culhane, the voice of the Seminoles, told WTXL.

What's next

Florida State plays at Pittsburgh on Friday night, Nov. 13, at 7 p.m. at Acrisure Stadium, then closes the regular season at home against NC State on Nov. 21 and Florida on Nov. 27. The Seminoles need two wins in those three games to reach bowl eligibility. Stockstill will coach those games while Purinton and McCullough run the search for the permanent coach.