Okay, so maybe this isn’t the season that Boston College football finally wins 8 games.
Burn the tapes. The Eagles’ offense may have gotten out to an early lead, but everything afterwards was a straight-up nightmare. Lonergan’s pick-6, Turbo’s goal line fumble, or just the general sputtering of the second half. It was all terrible. With a rookie QB and a non-existent run attack, a game can go up in flames in a matter of seconds.
BC’s defense didn’t play much better either. Their first half was pretty good up until Stanford QB Ben Gulbranson found his tight end for a 69-yard touchdown, thanks to a missed tackle. Stanford gashed BC for another huge play in the second half when Micah Ford sprinted for a 75 yard run to set up a touchdown. And then once Stanford had a solid lead, they mashed BC’s defensive front into a pulp as they drained the the final 7 minutes of clock with their short running game. Another game full of missed tackles that may have cost the Eagles the win.
BC could not generate any pressure on the quarterback whatsoever without sending a full blitz. And then when the ball reached downfield, you can assume that the first two tacklers were going to miss. With additional injuries piling up, including one to Bam Crouch, there is little reason to think that this defense is going to get any better as the season goes on. Their fundamentals are completely shot and they don’t have any game-breaking talent.
This whole game against Stanford was a perfect storm of bad luck, injuries, and a defeated attitude. A long plane ride to play a game on the West Coast will do that to you (at least partially).
Lonergan looked like a first-time starter. Because he is a first-time starter! Growing pains are to be expected. He looked great up until the team lost its mojo in the second quarter. I have to hope that he will learn some lessons from this game and use those learnings to become more resilient in the future. Despite early season optimism, Lonergan is nowhere near a finished product. But he still has the potential to be a great player for Boston College.
Turbo can clean up the fumbles. That is a fixable issue. Fixing the entire BC run game? Eh maybe not.
On defense, BC repeatedly forced 3 & outs in the first half that helped them gain their 17-6 lead. BC’s defense only allowed 10 points after halftime, though most of that was because Stanford was draining the clock. It’s hard to find many bright spots remaining here until they prove they can make a tackle in the open field.
I’ll admit, the case for optimism is not very strong. You have to look pretty hard for reasons to be hopeful and not very hard to find reasons to feel defeated. But that doesn’t mean things can’t change.
The BC offense showed us against Michigan State that when they are firing on all cylinders, they are very hard to stop. The problem is that we might need them to be firing on all cylinders at all times if we want to have any chance at winning games.
Boston College has a BYE week this week. They have flown home, they will rest and regroup. And then they will host Cal at Alumni Stadium for their first home ACC game of the season. How they respond to this loss will tell us a lot about them. Here’s to hoping things get better!
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