The audacity of Florida State QB Tommy Castellanos — Andscape

On Saturday, Florida State beat down Alabama 31-17 in one of college football’s biggest surprises during its opening-week games.

The Crimson Tide’s loss was shocking in and of itself. They hadn’t lost a season opener since 2001. But it was everything leading up to that matchup that made the result all the more entertaining.

In June, Florida State quarterback Tommy Castellanos told online website On3 that he was confident the Seminoles could hang with the 16-time national champions because, “They don’t have [retired coach] Nick Saban to save them. I just don’t see them stopping me.”

As it turns out, Castellanos doesn’t lie.

The Boston College transfer completed 64% of his passes for 152 yards and rushed for 78 more and a touchdown.

A 40-yard completion in the first quarter was followed by Castellanos outrunning Alabama’s defense for a 9-yard touchdown. The threat of Castellanos taking off — he rushed for 1,113 yards and 13 touchdowns for the Eagles in 2023 — made Alabama’s defense more vulnerable. In the third quarter, he completed a short pass to receiver Jaylin Lucas that turned into a 64-yard play. Castellanos was sacked just once and didn’t commit a turnover.

In a sport that historically discourages personality and prefers military-like deference, Castellanos is a breath of fresh air. Sports need s–t talkers and villains. Entertainment is about evoking emotion — joy, fear, hate, amusement, and love. Say what you will about Colorado head coach Deion Sanders, whether you love him or dislike him, he makes you feel something. Same for his son, Shedeur Sanders. Or Angel Reese. Or Novak Djokovic. Professional wrestling figured out centuries ago that there’s no babyface if not for an equally charismatic heel.

Some people like athletes who are singularly focused on their sport. Others prefer the “aw-shucks” types who would play for free if they could. But not me. Give me the pot stirrer, the loud mouth, the trash talker. Tell your opponent that their geriatric former coach can’t save them. Tell the cornerback you’re about to face that he can’t cover you.

Football, in particular, is part athletics, part entertainment. Watching a quarterback evade a defender to complete a pass — or a receiver jump to the stratosphere to haul in a catch — is great, don’t get me wrong. But it’s the story around the game that really makes sports, sports. Millions of people didn’t tune in solely to watch North Carolina players versus TCU players on Monday night; they wanted to see how UNC head coach Bill Belichick would fare in college.

As for Castellanos, he excels as an entertainer.

Because it wasn’t just that he had the nerve to call out Alabama, it’s because Castellanos also doubled and tripled down on it. Some time after he made the original comments, he told an Alabama receiver to his face, “Y’all boys gonna see.”

At ACC media days in July, Castellanos told reporters: “We stand on what I said. I said what I said, and we stand on that.”

There’s something endearing about calling your shot, standing on business, and then coming out and putting your paws all over your opponent. This is 2025. If Florida State had lost, Castellanos’ face would have been a meme for the rest of the season — for stirring things up with a revered program like Alabama, despite being 5-foot-11, coming from non-powerhouse Boston College, and leading a Florida State team that went 2-10 last season. The internet would have put his face on social media posts with the word “FRAUD” plastered under it.

But Castellanos didn’t cower; he didn’t hide. He treated the Crimson Tide defense as if it were just another team. He played with a calmness and fluidity that exhibited how in control he was the entire time. In his heart of hearts, Castellanos knew Alabama wasn’t the same without Saban, a seven-time national champion.

NIL has brought on more headaches than solutions in its four years of existence, but God bless it in this instance: Castellanos is selling T-shirts and hoodies that read, “NICK CAN’T SAVE THEM” and “STAND ON WHAT I SAID.”

Confidence doesn’t always have to be the quarterback who puts his head down and lets the play speak for itself. Sometimes the quarterback has to do the speaking. In October 2023, after Castellanos and Boston College beat Georgia Tech to bring the Eagles’ record to 4-3, he told reporters: “Boston College football is back. We’re no longer the laughingstock of college football or the ACC. We’re back and we’re rolling.”

From 2019-22, Boston College won just 21 games. But in 2024, Castellanos led the Eagles to a 2-0 start, and they were ranked No. 24 in the country. It was the first time the Eagles had been ranked since 2018.

But players such as Castellanos are discouraged from making grand statements like that. Coaches suffocate personality out of the game, whether from some desire to save the players from themselves or a fear of providing bulletin-board material for opponents.

Or because there can be no total control where outsized personalities reside.

Each year, it seems reporters receive less access to college athletes. A 2020 study in the Nebraska Law Review found that 86% of Division I programs forbid athletes from talking to the media without prior permission. Last month, UCLA football coach Deshaun Foster limited local media’s access to players. He forbade reporters from video recording parts of practice under the guise of protecting the team’s game plans.

The limitations placed on media are bad enough. Still, there’s the added punch of preventing the world from hearing from the players who actually have interesting things to say.

A few years ago, then-Alabama defensive lineman Quinnen Williams was on the cusp of saying something negative about Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray headed into the 2018 College Football Playoff semifinals. But just as that shade was about to come out of his mouth, Williams paused, thought it over, and ended the answer by saying, “Nah, I’m good.”

Williams’ coach was the notoriously media-resistant Nick Saban, who has likely drilled into his players for decades to never say anything newsworthy to the media. It’s a shame, because what would have made me want to watch that semifinal even more would have been Williams saying Murray was trash.

Sports are more enjoyable when there’s actual animosity, when there might be literal skin in the game. We love the Alabama-Auburn and Ohio State-Michigan rivalries because of how much those programs hate each other. The transfer portal has defanged some of these rivalries. How much can a fifth-year Texas transfer realistically hate Oklahoma? So at the very least, we deserve the Tommy Castellanoses of the world.

College football needs more trash talking and doubling down. Because if not for Castellanos, Florida State defeating Alabama would have been just another upset in a long line of them last weekend.

Where’s the entertainment in that?