Florida State’s slide from unbeaten, top-10 team to likely unranked team continued on Saturday afternoon with a stunning 34-31 home loss to Pittsburgh.
The setback left the Seminoles at the bottom of the ACC at 0-3 and searching for answers. Florida State fell to 3-3 overall, making that thrilling Week 1 upset of Alabama seem very far away. Since getting off to a 3-0 start and being ranked 8th in the country, FSU lost at Virginia in double overtime to start this slide and followed with losses to Miami last week before Saturday’s shocker at Doak Campbell Stadium.
Everything looked like it was going to be fine on Saturday at halftime, when Florida State led 21-14. Tommy Castellanos had just thrown a magical touchdown pass in the final seconds of the first half to give the Noles that lead, but then things started going downhill in the final 30 minutes.
Pittsburgh, which improved to 4-2 overall and 2-1 in the ACC, just wouldn’t go away. The Panthers tied it at 21-21 early in the third quarter on Desmond Reid’s 16-yard touchdown catch from Mason Heintschel before Florida State once again took the lead on a 34-yard field goal by Jake Weinberg with 5:41 left in the third.
But the fourth quarter was dominated by Pittsburgh before a stunned crowd in Tallahassee, as the Panthers ripped off 13 straight points before Castellanos tried to work a miracle. He fired a 58-yard touchdown pass to Micahi Danzy with 1:45 left to pull Florida State within 34-31, but there was no miracle for the Noles on this day.
There was only more heartache and frustration to pile on from the previous 2 losses. On a 3rd-and-3 play, when it possibly could’ve gotten its hands on the ball again, Florida State’s defense jumped offside. That effectively ended the game, and what felt like a comeback season in 2025 after last year’s 2-10 debacle was quickly turning into another nightmare.
Castellanos threw for 245 yards and 3 touchdowns on the day, and Danzy added 133 yards receiving and 2 TDs, but it wasn’t enough. The Seminoles defense was shredded for 476 total yards by Pittsburgh, and now the Noles face a ton of questions going into next Saturday’s game at Stanford.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
