As we get closer to the start of preseason camp and the return of football, I am just going to sit down and write about each position as we arrive at the run-up to the 2025 season. I will start by looking at the quarterback position.
A year after FSU fielded one of the worst offenses in college football, they will be a new-look group with new guidance in 2025. The look begins with a 5-foot-11, 201-pound senior guard from Waycross, Ga. guiding the Seminoles – Tommy Castellanos.
The Ware County product, who arrives at FSU after two recent seasons at Boston College and a freshman season at UCF, joined the program in January and quickly immersed himself into team activities by being ever-present.
He was hand-picked by new offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn, who recruited him and coached him at UCF, to lead the offensive attack that Malzahn will be implementing in Tallahassee as the new offensive coordinator of the Seminoles.
Castellanos didn’t do a ton for Malzahn at UCF. He appeared in five games in 2022 while with the Knights. He was 9-of-16 (56.3%) for 75 passing yards. He added 14 rushes for 120 yards (8.6 yards per rush) and a rushing touchdown.
His breakout came at BC. Over two seasons with the Eagles, produced 4,921 yards of total offense and 48 touchdowns in 21 games played during the 2023 and 2024 seasons. He made 20 consecutive starts with the Eagles spanning from early in 2023 until the conclusion of his time with the program in 2024.
The best version of Castellanos came in 2023 when he became the first player in BC history with 2,000 passing yards and 1,000 rushing yards in a season. He capped that year off with the Fenway Bowl MVP. He started 12 games that season for the Eagles. He seized control of the position early in the year and played like someone who had ascended into the role. Some of that seemed to go away in 2024, due in part to a coaching change and offensive philosophy change for the Eagles under new head coach Bill O’Brien.
Obviously FSU’s rushing attack in 2024 was pathetic. We’ve seen much better days when the signal-caller can also be the one to take off with the ball. Castellanos provides that ripple. For his career, he has four games where he has rushed for 100 or more yards, led by his 156-yard rushing performance against SMU in the Fenway Bowl in 2023.
It is worth noting, 78% of his rushing yards came during the 2023 campaign when he posted 1,113 yards and 13 rushing touchdowns, while averaging 85.6 rushing yards per game, for the Eagles. Comparatively, in 2024, those figures dropped to 194 rushing yards, one touchdown, and just 24.3 rushing yards per game. FSU needs the 2023 version, without question. I also think it is essential that there is no hesitation from Castellanos to act as a rusher in their offensive attack.
Can he be the passer FSU wants and needs? That is probably the bigger question mark.
He has shown himself capable of airing it out, with four games over his career of 250 or more passing yards. His best through-the-air performance came against FSU in 2023, when he put up 305 yards passing. It is the lone 300-yard passing game of his collegiate career.
For his career, he has a 1.74-to-1 touchdown to interception ratio through the air. That figure was strengthed by a 2024 season that saw him become a more efficient passer – his completion percentage rose 4.2%, his yards per completion rose nearly two yards, and he had a 3.6-to-1 touchdown to interception ration (18:5). The 2023 season saw a near 1-to-1 ratio (15:14) with regards to passing touchdowns to interceptions.
Behind Castellanos is third-year signal-caller Brock Glenn, who has seemingly always been thrown into the fire so far in his FSU career, and true freshman Kevin Sperry, who generated plenty of positive buzz for a new arrival this spring.
Glenn is one of the few returning starters for the Seminoles on offense from a season ago. He has 12 total games of experience on the field with the Seminoles. While I’m appreciative of him sticking around after FSU went and got Castellanos, nothing he has done to this point in his career inspires confidence that he can be the guy. If forced into duty again, it will be interesting to see the progression he has made due to the experiences that have shaped him to this point.
All three mentioned quarterback options do provide a good mix of athleticism and arm talent.
I expect FSU to latch their wagon to Castellanos, at least at the start of the season, and I am intrigued to see what it looks like in this version of a Malzahn offense. For FSU to be successful, I’m of the belief he is going to have to be an effective runner (much closer to 2023 than 2024 version) who is safe with the ball through the air (closer to 2024 version in that regards).
