Thomas Castellanos hasn't played a snap since Florida State's 2025 season ended, but he's staying plenty busy in court. The former Boston College and UCF quarterback is suing the NCAA for an injunction that would let him into the transfer portal outside its normal window, and the filing just landed in a place almost nobody had circled.
Former Florida State QB Thomas Castellanos has filed his lawsuit in South Carolina, attorneys Ryan Downton and Darren Heitner tell @On3. The previous expectation was that the suit would be filed in Texas. https://t.co/kT3gY8XQu8
Per Pete Nakos, attorneys Ryan Downton and Darren Heitner filed the suit in South Carolina, a reversal from the earlier expectation that Texas would be the venue. Venue matters here because these NCAA eligibility cases have turned into forum shopping by necessity — different federal circuits have handed down wildly different rulings on the same question, and where you file can shape whether a judge is inclined to side with you.
The underlying case traces back to a Colorado ruling this summer. U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney granted a blanket eligibility waiver to athletes from the 2022 recruiting class who still have eligibility left, after the NCAA's five-year eligibility model had left that class out in the cold. Castellanos fits the profile: he played just 5 games at UCF in 2022 before later landing at Boston College and then Florida State, which under a strict reading of the old rules should have used up a season he barely touched the field for.
That ruling created eligibility on paper, but it didn't force the NCAA to reopen the transfer portal for guys who'd already exhausted their window under the old rules. That's the gap Castellanos is trying to close with this suit — he needs the injunction just to go find a new team, since the portal itself is shut for him otherwise.
Castellanos went undrafted in the 2026 NFL Draft after a rocky final year in Tallahassee, but did pick up a training camp invite. If this injunction lands, he'd have a shot at a 3rd different college home. His attorneys have framed the NCAA's resistance as the organization fighting the fallout of its own settlement structure while simultaneously lobbying Congress for a legislative fix — a two-front strategy that's put a lot of these eligibility fights in front of federal judges this offseason.
For now, the South Carolina filing is the latest data point in a much bigger legal mess playing out across college football, where the 2022 class has become the NCAA's biggest eligibility headache. Where a judge rules next could decide whether Castellanos suits up anywhere in 2026 at all.