Boston College had a chance to make Saturday’s game in Chestnut Hill, Mass., a statement win. Instead, the Eagles watched Florida State leave with a 31-24 victory, and the loss dropped BC to 2-4 in ACC play.
The opening stretch suggested a different script might be coming. Boston College came out sharper than it had a week earlier in the 47-2 loss at Duke, and for a while the Eagles looked like the more prepared team.
But the game turned on a series of mistakes that BC never recovered from, including a fake field goal touchdown late in the second quarter and a final quarter in which the offense never put together a drive longer than six plays. On the other side, the defense gave up 13 straight points beginning with 1:28 left in the third.
The red zone continues to be a problem that keeps costing BC. For the second week in a row, the Eagles failed to keep their opponent from scoring on every trip inside the 20.
Florida State either reached the end zone or settled for a field goal on all five of its red-zone possessions. Last week, Duke did the same thing seven times.
That kind of breakdown is hard to survive in college football, and Boston College has now let it happen repeatedly. The issue hasn’t been pass coverage so much as it has been the kind of rushing touchdowns that usually point to missed tackles or poor pursuit.
Nine games into the season, that’s the sort of thing defensive coordinator Ted Roof should have cleaned up by now.
“Just relying on, trusting our training,” safety KP Price said of where consistency in the red zone must come from. “It’s literally been in our minds every single play.
It has to be reinforced every single play. It’s a game of football, so that’s what it comes down to, you know, trusting the technique, reinforcing that will to win to win every single play.”
The most damaging moment of the afternoon came right before halftime. With 51 seconds left in the second quarter, Florida State lined up for what looked like a routine field goal, then turned it into a touchdown when kicker Gabe Panikowski took a backwards lateral from the holder and walked in untouched from two yards out.
BC had all 11 defenders at the line of scrimmage, and the Eagles never seemed to have any idea it was coming.
“Obviously, we should have been [expecting that],” O’Brien said. “But they did a great job executing it.
That was brutal by us. Terrible.”
Boston College still had a path back after Florida State’s last touchdown drive. The Eagles got the ball with 2:24 left and enough time to tie the game or win it if they could finish a drive.
The possession started well enough. Bo MacCormack III picked up nine yards on the first snap, then Mason McKenzie added 16 more on a scramble before the clock stopped at the two-minute warning.
After that, though, the series unraveled. A pass interference call on FSU’s Ja’Bril Rawls moved BC to the Seminoles’ 35-yard line, but the Eagles answered with back-to-back deep throws that fell incomplete.
Then came a false start on Kaelan Chudzinski that pushed the offense back five yards. On 3rd and 15, McKenzie’s pass was broken up.
BC still had a chance on the next snap. McKenzie found a receiver open, but Dawson Pough couldn’t hold on to the throw over the middle, and that was the end of the drive.
It was a frustrating finish to a game that could have gone another way if Boston College had stayed with its usual mix of run and pass instead of forcing the issue. Instead, the Eagles chased the big play, and the gamble cost them.
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