Boston College’s defense came out of its season opener with one clear issue staring it in the face: tackling.
Ted Roof didn’t dance around it after the Eagles gave up 34 points to Cincinnati on Saturday. The BC defensive coordinator said the biggest problem wasn’t just one missed assignment or one bad series. It was the inability to finish plays once contact was made, and the Bearcats made the Eagles pay for it again and again.
The numbers tell the story. Boston College held Cincinnati quarterback JC French IV to 85 yards and a touchdown on 11-of-15 passing, but the ground game kept slipping away from the Eagles.
Gi’bran Payne ran for 108 yards on 14 carries, French added 52 yards on 10 attempts, and Cole Tabb and Zion Johnson chipped in another 68 yards combined on 12 carries. Roof pointed to 126 yards after missed tackles as the kind of damage BC has to erase quickly.
“I got to do a better job of coaching [tackling], to run through contact and rap and squeeze and all the fundamental parts of it,” said Roof. “We got to fix that Friday night before anything else.
But part of that is getting more guys to disengage their blocks, part of it is tackling technique. So there's a lot of things that go into it, because we're playing a great back this week.”
That next test comes fast. On Friday, the Eagles face Rutgers running back Antwan Raymond, who led the Big 10 in rushing yards with 1,241 and touchdowns with 13 last season. Roof made it plain that BC’s defensive priority is not complicated.
“That’s number one, the number one skill of a defensive football player at the top of the list,” Roof said. “Because formationally, they can make anybody or everybody tackle, so that’s the first thing you’ve got to be able to do as a defensive football player, is tackle. … And there’s a lot of things that go into tackling, so we’ve tried to improve, and we’ll see where we’re at.”
Roof also suggested that some of the problem against Cincinnati may have been tied to inexperience, though he was careful not to use it as a shield. He described a staff meeting where he asked which players had started over six games in an FBS program, and only four stood up.
“In one defensive staff meeting, I said, ‘Okay, if you started over six games in an FBS program, stand up,’” Roof said. “And four guys stood up, so that meant there were about 40 guys still sitting down.
… There’s a lot that goes with it when you’re not used to being a guy that has to carry the load, the responsibility that comes with it, the accountability that comes with it, but also the privilege that comes with it. And so there’s something that some guys do better in their first [games] than other guys.”
Middle linebacker Anthony Palano led BC with 13 tackles, including six solo stops and one tackle for loss. Safety KP Price was next with 10 total tackles, six of them solo. Those two were also among the four players on the roster who entered the season with more than six FBS starts, which gives Roof’s inexperience point some real weight.
For BC, the challenge is now about how fast that group can clean it up. Roof said he expects the biggest improvement to come between Week 1 and Week 2, and he sees Friday’s Red Bandanna game as the right stage for that kind of response.
“This is the second week, and it’s been my experience over my career that usually teams make the biggest jump between week one and week two,” Roof said. “So it’s a great test for us, and a home game, the Red Bandanna game, and it’s a privilege for all of us to be able to play in this game.”
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