Florida State delivered the season’s first top-10 upset, knocking off No. 8 Alabama 31-17 on Saturday in a statement win that kickstarts a Seminoles’ revenge tour and piles early pressure on first-year Crimson Tide coach Kalen DeBoer.<\/p>\n
Alabama entered as a two-touchdown favorite, expected to overwhelm Florida State with size and depth. Instead, the Seminoles played with energy and poise behind new starting quarterback Tommy Castellanos and a retooled defense that came up with stops in key moments.<\/p>\n
Mike Norvell reshaped his staff in the offseason by hiring Gus Malzahn as offensive coordinator and Tony White as defensive coordinator. After one game, both hires look transformative for a program that bottomed out at 2-10 last year.<\/p>\n
Malzahn’s offense kept Alabama off balance all afternoon. Castellanos’ dual-threat ability forced the Tide to chase ball carriers sideline to sideline, often leaving defenders out of position. But the Seminoles also proved physical when it mattered, converting short-yardage situations late to seal the win.<\/p>\n
Alabama, by contrast, stalled after a fast start. The Tide opened with a 16-play, 75-yard touchdown drive that drained nearly nine minutes off the clock, but their next nine possessions produced fewer than 40 yards apiece. Alabama finished just 8-for-22 on third and fourth down and managed 87 rushing yards on 29 carries.<\/p>\n
Quarterback Ty Simpson went 22 of 43 for 254 yards and two touchdowns but never found rhythm as the Seminoles built a 17-7 halftime lead and never let go.<\/p>\n
Quick hitters\u00a0Rare feat:\u00a0Florida State’s win was just its second all-time against Alabama (2-3-1), and first since 2007.Streak snapped: The Crimson Tide lost a season opener for the first time since 2001 against UCLA, halting a 23-game streak that had been the second-longest active in the FBS.Back-to-back losses: Alabama has dropped consecutive games for the first time since the end of the 2013 season. The Tide had won 18 straight games following a loss.DeBoer’s struggle vs unranked foes: Kalen DeBoer fell to 6-4 against unranked opponents as Alabama head coach. From 2008-23, the Tide were 119-1 in such games.Quick turnaround: The Seminoles matched their win total through 10 games last season (1-9 start).Top-10 breakthrough: Florida State earned its first win over a top-10 opponent since beating No. 5 LSU in the 2023 opener, snapping a four-game skid against ranked teams.SEC success: It marked FSU’s 17th win over an SEC team since 2000, the second-most nonconference SEC wins in that span.Offensive lift: Florida State’s 31 points included 21 in the first half, more than it scored in any game against an FBS opponent last season.Historic stumble: Alabama suffered its third-worst loss to an unranked opponent while ranked in the AP top 10.Road streak broken: The Tide’s 10-game win streak in road openers ended; the last such loss came at No. 11 Ole Miss in 2014.Nonconference rarity: It was just Alabama’s second regular-season nonconference loss since 2008 (63-2 in that span).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida State delivered the season’s first top-10 upset, knocking off No. 8 Alabama 31-17 on Saturday in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[930,60450,331,4713,60451,7,4842,7006,47408,20708],"class_list":{"0":"post-330023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-alabama-crimson-tide","9":"tag-alabama-vs-florida-state-score","10":"tag-college-football","11":"tag-florida-state-seminoles","12":"tag-florida-state-vs-alabama-score","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-kalen-deboer","15":"tag-mike-norvell","16":"tag-tommy-castellanos","17":"tag-ty-simpson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115120708318052128","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}