Boston College Plagued by Line Play, Run Battle, Tackling in Stanford Loss

Limiting explosive chunk plays, tackling pursuit, and running the football are all things Boston College football head coach Bill O’Brien has said the Eagles need work on after their first two games of the season, a blowout win over Fordham at Alumni Stadium on Aug. 30, and a double-overtime loss at Michigan State on Sept. 6.

But O’Brien was first to admit that he did not see those changes to the degree that he would have liked in BC’s 30-20 loss at Stanford on Saturday night, which lasted well into the early-morning hours of Sunday back on the East Coast.

That starts with coaching, according to O’Brien.

“The coaches, we were terrible,” O’Brien said. “We got to coach better. Starts with us. Starts with me. … We got to figure a lot of things out. We got to figure out how to stop the run. We got to figure out how to run the ball. … There was a bad snap, then we throw an interception, just a lot of tips, some false starts, batted balls, can’t stop the run, don’t fit the gaps correctly. Just some really bad football.”

BC entered the contest without its two starting cornerbacks, Amari Jackson and Syair Torrence, along with starting defensive tackle Owen Stoudmire—who were all ruled out for Saturday’s matchup earlier in the week—but suffered more injuries throughout the game.

Starting left tackle Jude Bowry limped off the field midway through the third quarter and did not return, and starting linebacker Daveon “Bam” Crouch exited the game in the early stages of the fourth quarter and was also not able to return.

Additionally, starting center Dwayne Allick Jr. was substituted for Michael Crounse after half time, likely due to a couple of bad snaps, one of which caused BC quarterback Dylan Lonergan to fumble with two minutes remaining in the first half which resulted in a lightning-quick scoring drive for the Cardinal.

All of this combined, including a truly miserable stretch at the end of the second quarter in which the Eagles surrendered a 69-yard touchdown through the air before Lonergan threw a 19-yard pick six only minutes after holding a 17-6 lead to go into halftime tied up 20-20, led to a quick downward spiral until the final whistle.

Turbo Richard’s fumble right in front of the goal line on 4th-and-1 with 2:35 left in the third quarter, and the game still tied at 20 apiece, proved to be the final piece of the puzzle to BC’s ultimate demise.

“There’s a lot of season left,” O’Brien said. “I told the team. I’ll tell you exactly what I told the team. Everybody’s got a choice. You want to be here, [or] you don’t want to be here. Make your choice. We’re only in the third game of the second year of our program.”

The downward spiral toward the end of the game escalated to a point where BC’s body language on the sideline started to become messier as well.

“Yeah, it starts with the leadership,” linebacker Owen McGowan said of BC’s poor body language. “It starts with the captains. They need to make sure, no matter what the score of the game is, no matter what point of the game it is, if it’s a bad play, good play, [that] we need to stay [even-keeled].”

Once again, BC’s passing offense usurped its running offense in usage by a great offer—21 plays to be exact—after O’Brien said during practice this past week that he is ideally aiming to run the offense with a fifty-fifty split of runs and passes.

Only this time, Lonergan was pressured at a higher rate due to the loss of Bowry and changes up front—Stanford racked up two sacks and five quarterback hurries in the game—which stymied the Eagles’ offense completely in the second half. BC did not score in the first, third, or fourth quarter at all.

When asked about how the offense can find consistency after the game, O’Brien said he was unsure.

“I have no idea,” O’Brien said. “I have no clue. We’ll try hard to figure it out.”

On a positive note, redshirt-sophomore wide receiver Reed Harris totaled 141 receiving yards on seven catches, averaging 20.1 yards per reception.

“It was obviously a great night on my behalf. There were plays I still left out there on the field, but at the end of the day, the loss is a loss, and we have to build off of the bad things that we put on tape, and we’re going to learn from that in this coming week.”

Once again, Lonergan excelled at finding targets all over the field, completing at least one pass to eight players in the loss—Harris, Lewis Bond (7 catches, 47 yards), Jeremiah Franklin (6 catches, 41 yards), Richard (5 catches, 83 yards, TD), Jordan McDonald (2 catches, 12 yards), Kaelan Chudzinski (1 catch, 11 yards), Zeke Moore (1 catch, 4 yards), and VJ Wilkins (1 catch, -6 yards).