After watching Florida State against Alabama on Saturday and hearing new offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn speak on Sunday, it’s hard not to be reminded of another Malzahn-coached offense: the 2010 Auburn Tigers.

Say what you will about Malzahn’s tenure as head coach of the Tigers, but as a coordinator he was the mastermind for one of the most impressive single seasons of offense in modern college football history — a national championship and, in quarterback Cam Newton, a Heisman Trophy winner and No. 1 overall NFL draft pick.

A few hours south and 15 years later, Malzahn may have something similar cooking in Tallahassee. No one is anointing transfer quarterback Tommy Castellanos as the next Newton, who was truly 1 of 1. But Castellanos impressed in his FSU debut last weekend, and a high-level dual-threat quarterback allows Malzahn to be his most creative as a play-caller.

The 31-17 win over the Crimson Tide offered a glimpse of what we can expect from the Seminoles offense. One of the aces that Malzahn is so famous for having up his sleeve is a willingness to call trick plays.

An elite quarterback increases the effectiveness of what announcers call "trickeration" by orders of magnitude. It’s why watching FSU on Saturday evoked memories of the unreal run of 2010 Auburn. This was only one game, but Castellanos looked like a player who can bring the Malzahn magic to life.

The obvious goals of Malzahn's sleight-of-ball tricks are to catch defenses off guard and get big chunks of yardage.

The best example of this from Week 1 was Micahi Danzy’s 32-yard sprint for a touchdown in the second quarter, giving Florida State a lead it would never lose. The end-around to the speedy freshman receiver caught the Bama defense by surprise, with nearly all 11 defenders biting on the fake handoff to the running back, while also accounting for a potential QB keeper by Castellanos.

That touchdown on its own makes trick plays worth the time and effort.

The less obvious goal of these plays is that Malzahn wants the other team to be uncomfortable and worried about the threat of being fooled. 

It’s an old saw of football that you establish the run to open up the pass. In this case, Malzahn is establishing the unusual to open up the mundane. Keeping linebackers on their heels clears the running lanes. Keeping safeties wary of over-committing gives receivers more cushion and prevents surprise blitzes.

The base offense opens up through the fear of the unexpected. And every trick play called is another wrinkle that opposing defensive coordinators have to spend time in their game week preparing for.

The key to it all is that dual-threat quarterback. If you leave receivers open, Castellanos can hit them in stride. If you give him a running lane, he can take off for a first down. Defending the possibility of those two is hard enough. The threat of trick plays compounds the uncertainty.

Against Alabama, FSU used the threat of Castellanos' legs to make it easier for someone else. The trick plays ran through him, not to him.