Tallahassee, FL – The BC Eagles jumped out to a 14-0 lead over No. 15 Florida State (0-2) in the second period. Had not Treshaun Ward dropped a pass when wide open for a first down on a third on BC’s first series, the lead could have been, 21-0. Didn’t matter! However, what did matter occurred when FSU went three-and-out in its first three possessions. The Boston College defense held the Florida State offense to 21 yards on the ground on 16 carries. In the end, the BC dominated the game clock, aka “time of possession.” They held the football for 39:01 compared to the Seminoles’ 20:59. That’s big!
The game ended more one-sided than the final score indicates. The BC Eagles refrained from another score at the end by holding back from scoring easily on its final drive. Once they took a knee and, on several occasions, fell to the ground just to keep the clock running. By the way, we hate the two-minute warnings. All these do are add six more minutes for advertisements. Enough! This isn’t the pro game, yet.
Read all about the BC Eagles!
As stated in preseason reports regarding this game, we envisioned new BC Eagle HC Bill O’Brien and QB Thomas Castellanos as reasons the Eagles could challenge this highly-rated Florida State team. Also noted was a comment by a friend close to the program saying O’Brien’s camp methodologies had the Boston College players mentally prepped for their opener.
Despite Ward’s early drop, he, who played for the Seminoles from 2019-2022, rushed for 77 yards, caught passes for 101, and crossed the goal line once. The BC Eagles also feature a very strong offensive line. As reported in Phil Steele’s College ’24 Football Preview, they have three potential pro draft picks up front – C Dave Kendall, LG Logan Taylor and RT Ozzy Trapilo. There may be some more potential Sunday prospects among other current BC Eagle linemen.
And more…
Our further preseason analysis of Florida State also rang true. We mentioned that their QB DJ Uiagalelei did not impress us when we saw him play for Clemson in 2022. This evening’s performance did not impress us once again. He misfired many times, completing 21 of 42 pass attempts. His 272 yards and one TD could have improved had TE Kyle Morlock not have muffed several very catchable passes. Bad night for him.
At 0-2 already in the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Seminoles look done as prospects for the brand new 12-team playoff format. Despite only one game thus far, Boston College could be considered for contention. They’ll face No. 9 Missouri in two weeks. In conference play, Louisville and SMU look like their two most formidable obstacles for a shot at the ACC title game.
Eagles start second quarter scoring
After a scoreless first quarter, two consecutive BC Eagle drives of 71 and 68 yards resulted respectively in a five-yard scoring run by Castellanos and his 18-yard scoring strike to Ward. A shanked BC punt by Sam Candotti granted great field position to FSU at the Eagle 35. From there, they netted only eight yards, however. They settled for Ryan Fitzgerald’s conversion from 31 yards out. He then closed the first half scoring with a 24-yarder with 25 ticks left it the first half to trail, 14-6.
BC Eagles finish third quarter scoring
The second half started with an errant pass by Uiagalelei. Boston College CB Max Tucker picked it off and raced 58 yards to the FSU seven. RB Kyle Robichaux took it over from there. Florida State finally put six points on the board with three consecutive pass completions. The last two went to Kentron Poitier for 29 yards each, the second for the score.
BC came right back. They ran the ball for all 60 yards following a 15-yard unsportsmanlike added to the touchback. Robichaux took it over again from five yards for his second score among 85 rushing yards. The score stood, 28-13, at the end of three. The BC Eagle defense held the FSU Seminoles deep in their territory with a turnover on downs and forcing two punts after being held to short drives. Though considered an upset with FSU as a heavy favorite (-16.5) the BC Eagles demonstrated they were the better team early in 2024. We believe it’s a credit to Bill O’Brien. He’s learned much as an assistant under Nick Saban as his offensive coordinator.
Week Two Action coming up
FSU has a bye next week. They’ll host Mike Norvell’s previous program, Memphis. With QB Seth Henigan returning for his senior year after a 10-3 season in Craig Silverfield’s fifth year there as head coach, they will challenge to be a top program among this year’s Group of Five. Over-rated FSU could be 0-3 after this one. The BC Eagles host FCS Duquesne before their big meeting at SEC contender Missouri.
Collegefootballfan.com finished its fourth game in five days! Next Saturday seems so far away now. We’ll see Tulsa (1-0) of the American Athletic Conference at a much-improved Sun Belt Squad, Arkansas State (1-0). Both defeated FCS schools in their openers, but the ASU Red Wolves only bested Central Arkansas by a score of 31-28. This will be our first game in Jonesboro and only our second witnessing the Red Wolves. Also, it will be our first game in the state of Arkansas. We look forward to the 6PM (CDT) kickoff.
Extra Points
We just attended our first game ever at Doak Campbell Stadium on the FSU campus as well. Once inside the brick façade, the infrastructure underneath and the floor layout look exactly the same as Penn State’s Beaver Stadium.
Comfortable bleacher seats with individual taut, but flexible, netting over aluminum seats was a nice touch for fans. Never experienced these before. Colder climates in the north may not be able to accommodate the same.
Milestone updates
Doak Campbell brings us up to a total of 90 FBS stadiums attended to date. That number is among 182 overall that we’ve attended including D2, DIII, FCS and neutral site venues. With two more schools joining the FBS next season, we have 45 more to visit. One of the two new FBS upstarts will be Delaware. We’ve been at UD Stadium many times, but now we’ll have to see an FBS contest to add it to our “official” count. Will we ever be able to attend every FBS venue? Only the Good Lord knows for sure.
Good questions
Met a few fans at the game sitting who took note of my long-time adventure. One asked if I thought of all the games I attended (685), was this possibly the worst performance I’d seen by a ranked team at home. At first, I said that I couldn’t remember any others similar to this, but it could be in the top five. There might be a Penn State game in there, but there are so many. I may have to give this more thought, but the more I think about it, this was pretty bad. As the home team, Florida State came out playing poorly right from the start for a highly ranked preseason favorite. I still want to review history and see if anything else jumps out. Now, I doubt it.
A woman amongst them, a self-proclaimed great sports fan, asked me who was the greatest play I’d ever seen. Well, there are so many, and one jumped into my head that no one would have recognized. Besides, my mind went blank remembering only the player had a very unique name. And it was about 20 years ago, but the general story was there, but I couldn’t come up with details. Now at home on the computer, I knew right where to look. That stood out. It’s remembered only because it was just the most outstanding performance by an individual that always stuck out. My young son Eric at the time (9 years old) and his cousins and my brothers-in-law joined me for one of my Thanksgiving Saturday games after we enjoyed our Thanksgiving feast in Rhode Island.
Over from the Rough, then Ready
DB Diamond Ferri of Syracuse made tackle after tackle against this same Boston College program in the first period in November 2004. Later in the first half, after two starting RBs sidelined due to injuries, he went out on offense and had a big day replacing them. He ran 28 times for 141 yards and two touchdowns. Ferri also continued to play defense. He intercepted Freshman QB Matt Ryan’s pass in the fourth quarter. He returned it for a 44-yard touchdown. Definitely the best overall performance I’d seen by one player in a game. SU defeated BC, 43-17, in a big upset that Thanksgiving weekend and knocked the BC Eagles out of Fiesta Bowl contention.
Putting that memory in perspective, I gave her a different answer based on a player she would know. Based on his Heisman performance blasting Oklahoma in the CFP Peach Bowl of 2019, 63-28, I told her Joe Burrow. Maybe these two aren’t the GOAT’s (yet in Burrow’s case), but they were both outstanding individual performances I will never forget.
Back to the future
We will see both teams again later this season. As a matter of fact, on two consecutive nights. On Thursday October 17, we head to Blacksburg, Virginia for see the BC Eagles take flight against the Virginia Tech Hokies. The following night, we head back down to Duke University in Durham to see FSU take on Duke. And to keep the Navy-Notre Dame on target the following weekend as Game # 700, we will attend a Division 2 game on the afternoon of October 19 for Game # 699 – Tusculum at Mars Hill in North Carolina. Definitely two first timers on our slate.
Ed. by Steve Koreivo -Member of Football Writers Association of America
Check out my book getting rave reviews, Fifty Years of Tailgate Tales: The Good, the Fun and the Ugly! Please get it for a unique, entertaining experience. And please submit a review for me. Thanks!