After the 4th worst season in program history last year, FSU's football team is looking to improve its 2-win campaign.
The team takes on the 8th ranked Alabama Crimson Tide Saturday in a new-look stadium with a new-look quarterback. Coach Mike Norvell has high hopes about the upcoming season.
"I've been really pleased with the competitiveness of this team in all situations that we've tried to throw at them," Norvell said during Monday's media conference. "I do think this is a team that has a lot of versatile playmakers. When you look on both sides of the ball, guys that can align in different places with what they're being asked to do. I'm excited to see all of it come together with the different combinations but also the 11 guys that take the field to go get the job done."
FSU has a confident new quarterback
This offseason the Seminoles brought in quarterback Thomas Castellanos, a transfer from Boston College.
Castellanos' career at Boston College ended prior to the end of last football season when he announced his intention to enter the transfer portal after being benched with 2 games left in the season. But, while the QB transfer came to FSU with some question marks about his abilities, his confidence remained high during the offseason. In June, Castellanos seemingly provided his opening day opponents with some locker room bulletin board material when he commented, "They don't have Nick Saban to save them. I just don't see them stopping me." And then in July he doubled down on his comments. "We stand on what I said," Castellanos said. "I said what I said, and we stand on that. I don't mean no disrespect to none of those guys at Alabama or anything like that. I have confidence in my guys and the work we've been putting in and preparing and the preparation we've been putting together. That's all that was. No disrespect to those guys but we stand on what I said."
As confident as the coach and quarterback are for the team, the pre-season predictions for the Seminoles tell a different story.
The ACC media members have picked the Noles to finish 7th in the conference and the ESPN Power Rankings show FSU ending in 9th place in the ACC.
With this year's renovations, the new seating capacity at Doak Campbell Stadium is 67,277 which is down from the previous capacity of 79,560. The possibility of rain is predicted for Saturday's 3:30pm game which is officially sold out.
