A new late-season ranking from ESPN's Bill Connelly says that Florida State's Tommy Castellanos is the 33rd best quarterback among all Power Four teams. On the one hand, that's not bad on a team sitting at 1-5 in ACC play. On the other hand, that seems like a snub for a dual-threat quarterback who leads the entire country in yards per completion.

Connelly is one of my favorite writers covering college football, and his analytics are considered among the best and most accurate anywhere. Typically, when my opinion lines up with his numbers, I feel like I've gotten something right.

In this case, however, I have some disagreement with him. Not that 33rd is bad, per se. It's certainly better than DJ Lagway's 55th-place ranking.

But scanning through the rankings, I'd take Castellanos above close to half of the people slotted ahead of him. FSU has certainly struggled, but Castellanos isn't the reason for that. Even while the Seminoles only scored 10 points against Clemson on Saturday, Castellanos still did his job.

Head coach Mike Norvell and offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn both bemoaned the excessive number of drops by the receivers, as well as the penalties and missed assignments by the offensive line. Castellanos was hitting his guys in the hands, which is really all you can ask of a quarterback. 

Connelly generally does a good job mixing statistics with the eye test, so perhaps we just viewed Saturday night's performance differently.

But even beyond that game, it's hard to find much fault with Castellanos. He's No. 1 in the FBS with 15.8 yards per completion - a first down and change every time he completes a pass. He also leads the ACC with 9.5 yards per attempt.

Castellanos is responsible for a total of 2,556 yards and 17 touchdowns between his passing and rushing, not counting yards lost on sacks. And that's through only nine games. 

I'm not saying Castellanos should be up for the Heisman or anything, but he's statistically been one of the most impactful quarterbacks in the country, with relatively few mistakes. His six interceptions give him an interception percentage of just 2.7%. 

33rd seems low to me, though in the grand scheme of FSU's tough season, it means fairly little. Here's what Connelly had to say:

"Things have gone south after September, just as they did for Castellanos in 2024. But despite the Seminoles losing five of their past six, he did produce brilliance -- 271 passing yards on 12 completions, plus a rushing touchdown -- against an excellent Wake Forest defense just two weeks ago. There's still time to write a rebound story in November."

FSU hosts Virginia Tech this Saturday at 7:30 p.m.