Just over a year after it was on the losing end of a stunning upset to begin the season, Florida State shocked No. 8 Alabama 31-17 in Tallahassee to open the 2025 season.
The remade Seminoles put Alabama away with less than eight minutes to go as Gavin Sawchuk powered into the end zone on a 14-yard TD run to put FSU up 14 points.
Florida State was a 14-point underdog ahead of the game after a disastrous 2024 season. After losing on a last-second field goal to Georgia Tech in Week Zero, the Seminoles went 2-9 the rest of the way and beat just one FBS-level opponent.
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On Saturday, Florida State was better than Alabama. By a long shot.
The Crimson Tide’s offensive line struggled against Florida State’s defensive front and the defense gave up numerous big plays. It had to be a fun experience for new Florida State offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn. The former Auburn coach beat Alabama and Nick Saban three times when he was with the Tigers.
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Florida State’s offense was peak Malzahn too. The Seminoles found space horizontally and with motion and misdirection. QB Tommy Castellanos threw just 14 passes with nine completions. One of those completions went 64 yards to Jaylin Lucas. Another went 40 yards to Squirrel White.
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Castellanos was a very confident man over the summer. The former Boston College QB said the Crimson Tide didn’t have former coach Nick Saban to save them and that he didn’t see Alabama stopping him.
It was easy to see how Alabama would get the last laugh after Castellanos didn’t back down from his comments. Instead, Castellanos was onto something. This Alabama team didn’t look like one that was coached by Saban.
The Tide were out of sorts for much of the game. The team had to use multiple timeouts because of disorganization and penalties were again a problem. Alabama was penalized eight times. Florida State was flagged four times.
Perhaps more alarmingly was the lack of a run game. QB Ty Simpson was making the first start of his career on Saturday but didn’t get much support. Simpson found himself escaping the pocket on a regular basis and was sacked three times.
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Fittingly, Florida State’s hopes of a comeback ended on a Simpson scramble. Simpson got stopped a foot short of a first down on fourth-and-10 near midfield with 5:39 to go after he had to get out of the pocket and try to barrel through multiple FSU defenders.
Is this the start of a Florida State resurgence?
The Seminoles made wholesale changes after one of the biggest single-season drop-offs in college football history. Two seasons ago, FSU went 13-0 and missed the College Football Playoff because QB Jordan Travis suffered a season-ending injury late in the season. In 2024, the Seminoles were one of the worst teams in the country.
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Malzahn left his job as UCF’s head coach to be the offensive coordinator and Castellanos came via the transfer portal to stabilize a QB position that was downright dreadful in 2024. Other transfers like Sawchuk and White arrived too, as Florida State added over 20 transfers.
On Saturday, Florida State looked a lot more like that 2023 team than it did the 2024 edition. And that’s intriguing news in an ACC that already features three other playoff hopefuls in Clemson, Miami and SMU. If Florida State is truly a contender again, the ACC is suddenly a fascinating conference that could get more than two teams in the College Football Playoff.
The pressure ratchets up on Kalen DeBoer
Alabama went 9-4 in 2024 as the Crimson Tide won fewer than 10 games for the first time since Saban’s first season in 2007. Following a legend is always difficult; it was impossible to immediately hold DeBoer to the standard that Saban set in Tuscaloosa.
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But what happened on Saturday was nothing less than an abject failure for Alabama as it lost a Week 1 game for the first time since 2001.
The Tide looked like the sloppy team they were multiple times over the course of the 2024 season and further from the fringe playoff team they were at the end of the season. The SEC made a lot of noise after Alabama was left out of the playoff, but the Tide’s late-season loss to Oklahoma and subsequent ReliaQuest Bowl showing proved why Alabama was not worthy of a spot in the playoff.
Saturday’s result also shows that the Tide still aren’t national title contenders. That could change over the course of the season. But with a late-September trip to Georgia looming, there’s a real chance that Alabama will lose twice in the first month of the season. And if that happens, Alabama’s playoff margin of error will be basically zero.
