A season ago, Boston College football quarterback Thomas Castellanos broke out in front of Eagles fans during its Red Bandanna Game nail-biter loss against then-No.3 Florida State.
On Monday night, Castellanos and BC (1–0, 1–0 Atlantic Coast) broke out in front of the entire nation, finishing the job against No. 10 Florida State (0–2, 0–2) with a 28–13 primetime, nationally televised victory.
“Everything we did this offseason, from winter workouts, summer workouts, spring—it led up to this, and this was what we prepared for,” Castellanos said. “It all panned out, and we came out here, executed, and played together as a team, and got the dub.”
Beyond just the outcomes, the two games couldn’t have been more different.
BC recorded 17 fewer penalties. BC never trailed. But most importantly, BC had a new head coach manning the sidelines: Bill O’Brien.
“I’m very proud of these guys,” O’Brien said. “They were very resilient tonight to come down here against a team that—really in their minds, I’m sure, had to have this win. That’s a heck of a statement for BC.”
O’Brien’s new system rolled out with very few hitches to start the game. The Eagles played fundamentally sound and disciplined, while their signal-caller stayed calm and composed in front of a fired-up Seminoles crowd.
“That’s got to be a big key for us moving forward,” O’Brien said. “We’ve got to be a disciplined football team. We’ve got to be a team that plays with poise—a resilient team.”
Though an untimely third-down drop from Treshaun Ward stymied BC’s opening drive, the Eagles collected a pair of touchdowns on the following two drives by hammering the Seminoles’ defensive line on the ground.
“Our motto here is ‘One play at a time,’” Castellanos said. “That’s the whole thing. I just kept telling the guys, ‘One play at a time, just keep going, we got to finish this drive.’”
Donovan Ezeiruaku and the Eagles’ defensive line dominated the line of scrimmage on the other end, suffocating FSU quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei into three consecutive three-and-outs to begin the game. Ezeiruaku notched two sacks and had his way against FSU’s First-Team All-ACC right tackle Darius Washington all night.
“I thought our front played really well,” O’Brien said.
Midway through the second quarter, BC had seized complete control of time possession. Receiver Reed Harris was even a few feet away from putting the Eagles ahead by three scores after a Castellanos deep shot.
The Seminoles, however, finally began to stitch together some momentum, adding two field goals to head into the locker room down 14–6. Set to receive the ball to start the second half, FSU seemed poised to claim control of the game and reassert its top-10 status.
Instead, it was all BC to open the final 30 minutes. The Eagles forced the Seminoles into a 4th-and-5 when Max Tucker snatched away an errant Uiagalelei pass and took it all the way down to FSU’s seven-yard line. Two plays later, Castellanos connected with Kye Robichaux to establish a 21–6 BC lead.
“Max Tucker comes up with a huge play, and that was one of the biggest plays of the game, because that really got us going in the second half,” O’Brien said.
The Seminoles found the end zone after a series of chunk plays to pull back within a score, down 21–13.
The Eagles’ running back tandem of Robichaux and Ward, though, continued to beat the Seminoles’ defensive line into submission. Robichaux totaled 89 yards, while Ward piled up 138 yards against his former team.
“Ecstatic, ecstatic,” Robichaux said of his teammate Ward’s performance. “Focus on the game, but in the back of our heads, it’s always nice to get one of your teammates that little revenge game.”
With Ward and Robichaux dominating the interior, Castellanos gashed FSU on the outside. As a team, the Eagles recorded 263 yards on the ground to the Seminoles’ 21 in a dominant performance. Robichaux’s second score of the game all but sealed the win for BC.
“That type of drive is big in every close game I’ve ever been associated with—you have to have an answer drive,” O’Brien said. “Our guys did a good job. We ran the ball quite a bit on that drive, and I thought the offensive line really established themselves during that drive.”
The season-opening win is BC’s first road top-10 win since 2002 and its largest of such wins in program history. It’s a stark departure from its previous two season openers, in which the Eagles suffered demoralizing losses to the likes of Rutgers and Northern Illinois.
But for the Eagles’ new leader, the mindset remains one game at a time.
“That’s my biggest concern, to be honest,” O’Brien said. “This is a great win—it’s an awesome win for BC—but we got to turn the page, because we got to keep it going.”
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