Florida State went 2-10 in 2024, as you know.
The 2025 Seminoles will be different. It will be hard for this outfit to be worse than the last one, but how much better is a giant question mark. Head coach Mike Norvell brought in two new coordinators (his former boss Gus Malzahn is running the offense, Tony White the defense) and, after the portal-heavy model boomed in 2023 and busted in 2024, Norvell has brought in a lot of different transfers. FSU lost 33 transfers per 247Sports and brought in 23 new ones. How much will the 2024 Seminoles and 2025 Seminoles have in common? They'll wear the same uniforms, play their home games in the same stadium, and play under the same head coach. Outside of that, milage may vary.
One thing that's certain: 2025 FSU won't carry over the same attitude as 2024 FSU.
That's certain after reading new starting quarterback Thomas Castellanos's interview with On3, who had this to say about the 'Noles' opening game with Alabama:
“I’m excited, man,” he said. “People, I don’t know if they know, but you go back and watch every first game that I played in, we always start fast. I dreamed of moments like this. I dreamed of playing against Alabama. They don’t have Nick Saban to save them. I just don’t see them stopping me."
Castellanos was last seen in November, when he left the team at Boston College the day before his Eagles were set to play SMU, with two regular-season games still to follow. Castellanos started BC's first seven games in which he was healthy, but was replaced during the Eagles' Nov. 7 game with Syracuse and never took the field again. Looking back on it, Castellanos says he regretted not leaving Boston College following Jeff Hafley's 2024 departure and butted heads with new head coach Bill O'Brien during their nine months together.
“BC wasn’t the school for me. I wasn’t able to be myself, and I had to try to make myself be something I wasn’t. I just didn’t like it. Bill O’Brien and I butted heads early in the season. I got banged up a few games. We had a meeting, and it kind of blew up in my face. I did so much for that program, and I did everything that I could, and I just wasn’t repaid the right way," he said.
A native of Waycross, Ga., Castellanos signed with UCF out of high school but left after a season (Ole Miss transfer John Rhys Plumlee was entrenched as the Knights' starter), and his 2023 season for the Eagles was largely a successful one: he threw for 2,248 yards and 15 touchdown (with 14 interceptions) while finishing third in the entire ACC with 1,113 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns, two off the conference lead. But he blamed his poor 2024 on a lack of cohesion with O'Brien and a lack of talent around him.
“I didn’t have nearly as much talent as I do here,” Castellanos said. “I didn’t have the guys. But over here, I have some of the best athletic guys. I’m not the fastest one on the team over here. I’m not the most athletic guy on the team. So just being around these guys and just instilling in their heads the winning mentality, and what we can do. They got the team, they got the guys. All they needed was a leader in place to lead them.
“We need to get back to that mentality of ACC championship, to a good playoff run, to a national championship. But for me, I know I have the skill set to be a Heisman contender. To be up in New York.”
How much will Castellanos's confidence in himself and his teammates benefit a Florida State program clearly in need of an attitude adjustment? How much will his clear lack of ability to accept accountability for his choices hurt the Seminoles when adversity inevitably strikes?
We'll begin to find out when these new-and-improved(?) Seminoles take the field opposite the Nick Saban-less Crimson Tide at 3:30 p.m. ET on Aug. 30.