There was no doubt. Khari Johnson was going to make it to the endzone.
In man coverage, Johnson’s eyes never left Joey Isabella until the ball came flying at his hip. In a split second, his head turned, and the ball nosedived toward his left hand, which he trapped against the white No. 3 sprawled across his maroon jersey.
The horns blew and the horse race to the pylons began, a heap of interior linemen the only remaining roadblocks. Darius Perrantes, Duquesne’s signal caller, chased down the nickel back as hard as any quarterback would after throwing an interception that was about to become a pick six.
Johnson barely needed to shove Perrantes out of the way, merely escorting him over the sideline. He had just come away with his first interception as an Eagle and brought it to the house on a 45-yard return. The floodgates were already open, but then a tsunami swept through Chestnut Hill, Mass. Boston College football washed away the Dukes like an empty glass bottle in open waters.
“Coach [Ray] Brown and Coach [Tim] Lewis have been telling us that play was gonna show up,” Johnson said. “I saw the slot was coming back into the formation, I knew the alignment, I knew the down and distance, so all that was left was to make the play. It was a dream come true.”
After taking a 21–0 lead on Johnson’s interception return with 13:28 left in the second quarter, the Eagles poured on another 21 points to finish the first half up 42–0. Quarterback Thomas Castellanos lit up Duquesne through the air, going 9-of-10 for 234 yards and four touchdowns in the first two quarters alone.
Under dark and cloudy skies, the Eagles (2–0, 1–0 Atlantic Coast) rode a stellar passing performance by Castellanos and unrelenting defensive pressure on the Dukes (0–2) to their second victory of the season, 56–0.
“Boston is the city of champions,” BC head coach Bill O’Brien said. “Boston loves a winner. I think we have to continue being a team that people want to come to, and a team that can do things to get fans to watch. We have to try to understand that.”
There were a handful of additional firsts for BC’s roster, which features a slate of new skill players who had yet to play at Alumni Stadium.
On the Eagles’ third offensive drive of the game—already up 7–0, thanks to a three-yard touchdown carry for Treshaun Ward—redshirt freshman Reed Harris turned on the jets for a 72-yard touchdown reception. The 6-foot-5, 229-pound wideout out of Great Falls, Mont., made an in-cut before accelerating through Duquesne’s Ethon Cole.
Castellanos let it fly to Harris in wide-open space, and he fled into the endzone to put BC ahead by two scores at the end of the first quarter.
North Carolina transfer tight end Kamari Morales, who holds the Tar Heels’ receiving touchdowns record for tight ends (10), was next on the list.
His four-yard touchdown reception, and first as an Eagle, capped off a seven-play, 62-yard scoring drive during which Castellanos’ arm and vision looked unpreventable.
“I was telling the guys, it’s been a long time since BC football has had a win like this—that huge,” Castellanos said. “That was just on my list.”
Ward collected a pair of touchdowns in the first half as well, consisting of his three-yard run early in the first quarter and a 30-yard touchdown reception at the end of the second that increased BC’s lead to 42–0.
Lewis Bond finally got the flowers he deserved as the Eagles’ priority wideout heading into the season, turning back to haul in a 49-yard Castellanos dot before Ward’s second touchdown of the game. Bond finished with 98 receiving yards on five receptions and a touchdown.
At the end of the first half, the Eagles boasted a 90 percent catch rate, 350 total yards, 33 total tackles, one sack, three tackles for loss, and one interception returned for a touchdown. Just two plays into the second half, Jalen Cheek picked off Perrantes for his second interception.
Redshirt freshman Datrell Jones gave the backup unit a touchdown to celebrate with a 47-yard scamper with 4:29 left in the third quarter, and the matchup stayed out of the Dukes’ reach with backup quarterback Jacobe Robinson adding a nine-yard rushing touchdown in the fourth.
The Eagles’ dominance complemented the contagious student energy and resurrection of the SuperFan shirt as 38,441 fans packed Alumni. A wall of yellow-adorned students filled the southwest corner of the stadium in full SuperFan attire, which had been a staple of the BC fan section since 1997 and made a comeback this year.
“Blake James told me 6,000 students at the game—that’s unbelievable,” O’Brien said. “I think if we get students to turn out like that, that’s a huge thing for this program. I think [Alumni Stadium] fits 55,000. Can we get whatever it holds for Michigan State?”
Castellanos wants to fill up Alumni like BC men’s hockey fills up Conte Forum.
“When I first got here, me just going into Conte and seeing the hockey team play, my goal is to pack Alumni like the hockey guys pack out Conte,” Castellanos said. “And that’s been a goal of mine.”
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