Extra Point: Unpacking The Thomas Castellanos Beef

Yesterday, news broke that former Boston College quarterback Thomas Castellanos sounded off on his former head coach Bill O'Brien and the Boston College football program as a whole in an interview with On3 Sports.

The comments about Castellanos' new home, Florida State, being better than his old one can be expected from just about every transfer portal player. After all, who wants to run down the place they're vying for playing time at? But Castellanos cut a bit deeper in his interview.

“I really wish I would have left when Hafley left, but I tried to give it another take,” said Castellanos to On3. “BC wasn’t the school for me. I wasn’t able to be myself, and I had to try to make myself be something I wasn’t. I just didn’t like it. Bill O’Brien and I butted heads early in the season. I got banged up a few games. We had a meeting, and it kind of blew up in my face. I did so much for that program, and I did everything that I could, and I just wasn’t repaid the right way.”

Those are heavy words for a coach that gave him every chance to succeed in a new offensive system.

This entire conversation had me thinking - what in the world is Castellanos so mad about? He had a longer leash than he probably should have in O'Brien's first term at the helm, and anybody with eyes could tell he was by no means a great fit for the offense, but O'Brien and his staff stuck with their signal caller until they couldn't anymore.

In truth, O'Brien gave Castellanos every chance to succeed in this new system, and they even won some games because of him. However, the team also lost its fair share of games as a direct result of his turnover problems and inconsistency in the passing game.

Unless Florida State has one of the most impressive turnarounds in all of college football, the Seminoles will be vying for the same amount of wins as Boston College this year, and maybe even less. Castellanos will have to figure out another new system in a few short years, while Boston College is putting together one of the university's more impressive recruiting classes of recent memory.

When it's all said and done, the reality might be that Castellanos' legacy at Boston College won't be that he beat Florida State, or that he was an exciting player to watch on Saturdays. It will instead be the legacy of a quarterback who simply couldn't hack it in a pro-style offense, and blamed his head coach as a result.

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