{"id":73172,"date":"2025-12-06T00:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T00:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/73172\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T00:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T00:28:09","slug":"fsu-qb-tommy-castellanos-seeking-fifth-year-of-eligibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/73172\/","title":{"rendered":"FSU QB Tommy Castellanos seeking fifth year of eligibility"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TALLAHASSEE, Fla. &#8212; <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"fa181128-4809-a209-1add-d5a3b0cefd3c\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/team\/_\/id\/52\/florida-state-seminoles\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Florida State<\/a> quarterback <a data-player-guid=\"2b4f9174-f23c-3a55-90c3-6695f4bc791f\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/player\/_\/id\/4773919\/tommy-castellanos\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tommy Castellanos<\/a> is appealing to the NCAA for another year of eligibility.<\/p>\n<p>Attorney Darren Heitner announced Friday that he is representing Castellanos in his legal fight after the NCAA denied the quarterback&#8217;s waiver request for a fifth season.<\/p>\n<p>Castellanos, who transferred to Florida State last December after one year at <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"c9803f48-33e7-2ff2-03ef-ca6c319e1787\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/team\/_\/id\/2116\/ucf-knights\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UCF<\/a> and two at <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"4abb970f-c9e6-7576-3daa-703957b91293\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/team\/_\/id\/103\/boston-college-eagles\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Boston College<\/a>, believes college football&#8217;s sanctioning body should grant him another season because he played in only five games with the Knights in 2022 and one of them was a conference title game.<\/p>\n<p>He played against <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"523d67cf-ee6a-4fb9-8dd4-44fd6a3a1115\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/team\/_\/id\/2655\/tulane-green-wave\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tulane<\/a> in the American Athletic Conference championship game after starter <a data-player-guid=\"fa6ffd9a-381c-6d81-d56c-17edf61701f5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/4426494\/john-rhys-plumlee\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">John Rhys Plumlee<\/a> aggravated a hamstring injury. Backup <a data-player-guid=\"16ff6e44-2116-313b-bdac-e3d64eb3efa5\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/player\/_\/id\/4597499\/mikey-keene\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mikey Keene<\/a> opted out of the game because he wanted to preserve a year of eligibility before entering the transfer portal.<\/p>\n<p>Castellanos played &#8220;only because of circumstances beyond his control,&#8221; Heitner said.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/story\/_\/id\/47073466\/sources-florida-state-retain-coach-mike-norvell-2026-season\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/r1454428_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/story\/_\/id\/47179033\/acc-championship-college-football-winners-records-stats\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/r1583842_810x810_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>1 Related<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Just weeks after Tommy&#8217;s participating, the NCAA issued a blanket waiver allowing future players in his exact situation to maintain their redshirt status,&#8221; Heitner said. &#8220;Players today can participate in four regular-season games plus a conference championship game without losing eligibility.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Heitner added that Castellanos is &#8220;being penalized for the timing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Considering the postseason exemption that now exists, this case demands a fair resolution,&#8221; Heitner said.<\/p>\n<p>Castellanos completed 58.3% of his passes for 2,760 yards this season with 15 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. He also led the Seminoles (5-7) with 557 rushing yards and nine scores.<\/p>\n<p>Florida State coach Mike Norvell is returning for the 2026 season despite his team losing 13 of its past 16 games in ACC play. Norvell pledged to make &#8220;fundamental changes&#8221; to meet the program&#8217;s championship standard. It&#8217;s unclear whether Castellanos potentially playing another year in Tallahassee is part of Norvell&#8217;s plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. &#8212; Florida State quarterback Tommy Castellanos is appealing to the NCAA for another year of eligibility.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-73172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73172","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=73172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}