TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Florida State quarterback Thomas Castellanos is appealing to the NCAA for another year of eligibility.<\/p>\n
Attorney Darren Heitner announced Friday he\u2019s representing Castellanos in his legal fight after the NCAA denied the player\u2019s waiver request for a fifth season.<\/p>\n
Castellanos, who transferred to Florida State last December after one year at Central Florida and two at Boston College, believes college football\u2019s sanctioning body should grant him another season because he played in only five games with the Knights in 2022.<\/p>\n
Castellanos played against Tulane in the American Athletic Conference title game after starter John Rhys Plumlee aggravated a hamstring injury. Backup Mikey Keene opted out of the game because he wanted to preserve a year of eligibility before entering the transfer portal.<\/p>\n
Castellanos played \u201conly because of circumstances beyond his control,\u201d Heitner said.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust weeks after Tommy\u2019s participating, the NCAA issued a blanket waiver allowing future players in his exact situation to maintain their redshirt status,\u201d Heitner said. \u201cPlayers today can participate in four regular-season games plus a conference championship game without losing eligibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heitner added that Castellanos is \u201cbeing penalized for the timing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cConsidering the postseason exemption that now exists, this case demands a fair resolution,\u201d Heitner said.<\/p>\n
Castellanos completed 58.3% of his passes for 2,760 yards this season, with 15 touchdowns and nine interceptions. He also led the Seminoles (5-7) with 557 yards rushing and nine scores.<\/p>\n
FSU coach Mike Norvell is returning for the 2026 season despite his team losing 13 of its last 16 games in Atlantic Coast Conference play. Norvell pledged to make \u201cfundamental changes\u201d to meet the program\u2019s championship standard. It\u2019s unclear if Castellanos potentially playing another year in Tallahassee is part of Norvell\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a> and here<\/a> (AP News mobile app). AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Florida State quarterback Thomas Castellanos is appealing to the NCAA for another year of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[6647,111,143,41848,1882,28,3731,7603,57,41847,30587,4976,41849,110,232,234,233,22020],"class_list":["post-73086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-boston","tag-college-sports","tag-college-football","tag-darren-heitner","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-florida-state-seminoles","tag-florida-state-seminoles-football","tag-football","tag-john-rhys-plumlee","tag-local-news-for-apple","tag-mike-norvell","tag-mikey-keene","tag-sports","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news","tag-thomas-castellanos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}