Boston College heads to Atlanta on Saturday with a little more lift after finally breaking through in ACC play, but the Eagles are walking into a Georgia Tech team that is still hunting for a way to steady itself.
The Eagles got that boost last weekend with a 27-21 home win over Pitt, their first conference victory of the season. That pushed Boston College to 1-2 in the ACC and 3-3 overall. Georgia Tech enters at 2-4 overall and 1-2 in league play after dropping two of its last three.
For Bill O’Brien, the trip carries an added layer. He’ll be returning to a place where he once worked, and he made it clear the setting still means something to him.
"Any time you're coming off a win, obviously that's good, but the trick is to keep it going," Boston College coach Bill O'Brien said. "... Got to put another one together, one day at a time."
O’Brien spent 1995-2002 as an offensive assistant at Georgia Tech, and he didn’t downplay what that stretch meant to him.
"(Georgia Tech) meant a lot to my career. I worked with some unbelievable players," he said. "It's going to be a big, big challenge on the road in a very tough place to play."
Boston College will lean on Mason McKenzie again. The quarterback has thrown for 1,262 yards and seven touchdowns, and he also leads the Eagles on the ground with 444 rushing yards.
Georgia Tech, though, is trying to figure out how to stop the slide that has followed its first nine-win season since 2016. Since beating Boston College on Nov. 15 last season, the Yellow Jackets have gone 2-7 over their last nine games and are staring at a difficult path to bowl eligibility.
Brent Key said the answer starts with changing habits that haven’t produced enough.
"To sit there and continue to do things the way you've been doing them and think things are going to change, that's the definition of insanity," he said. "We've made some tweaks and adjustments in practice, different ways of creating situational things, scripting things differently. But at the end of the day, you don't have success because you don't execute."
Georgia Tech showed some fight last week at Virginia Tech, clawing back from a 24-3 halftime hole to get within seven before falling 34-24. The Yellow Jackets are averaging 23.2 points per game against FBS opponents this season.
Alberto Mendoza has been one of the brighter spots. In his first season as the starter, the quarterback ranks fourth in the ACC with a 71.2% completion percentage and threw for a career-high 335 yards against Virginia Tech.
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Boston Colleges 27-21 win over Pittsburgh offered more than just a needed conference victory. It showed a team that could absorb a punch, stay in it after falling behind by nine and still find a way to finish a game against an opponent that made everything feel difficult. Bill OBrien pointed to the Eagles preparation and execution afterward, and the broader takeaway was hard to miss: this was the kind of performance that can shift how a season feels.
Pittsburghs defense created real problems and kept Boston College from settling into a rhythm early, which made the response all the more important. The Eagles eventually found enough answers to turn the game, using key plays to swing the momentum and ride out the final stretch, but the bigger question now is whether this was a one-off gut check or the start of something more meaningful for a team trying to build on it. [Read more 🡒]
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Boston College Is Building Around One Strength Fans Cant Ignore
Boston Colleges football team has given its fan base a clear early-season calling card, and it is hard to miss. Through six games, the Eagles have been getting it done on the defensive side, sitting near the top of the ACC in takeaways and pass defense while giving the rest of the league plenty to think about on every snap.
Offensively, Mason McKenzie has added another layer to the conversation with his legs. The quarterbacks rushing production has climbed to a place few BC signal-callers have reached, giving this team a useful counterpunch as it balances a busy fall around the program. With hockey gearing up for Denver and Quinten Post beginning his third NBA season with the Grizzlies, the Eagles football foundation is shaping up as the piece fans are likely to watch most closely. [Read more 🡒]