Drew Kendall snapped the ball too early. He doesn’t make the mistake often.
When Kendall released the ball, Thomas Castellanos was still looking at the sideline, figuring out the play call and checking Missouri’s defensive alignment. The ball trickled behind Castellanos, who turned back to save it from dribbling away. Backed up to his own 20-yard line, Castellanos picked up the ball, rotated to a back-shoulder, one-legged stance, and heaved it into the abyss. Miraculously, he revitalized the broken play.
Nobody except for Jeremiah Franklin accompanied redshirt freshman Reed Harris on the Tigers’ side of the field. The only thing Harris needed to worry about was stepping out of bounds on his 67-yard sprint to the endzone, which put Boston College football up 14–3 with 9:44 left in the second quarter.
“[I] just didn’t panic,” said Castellanos. “I didn’t even snap the ball. Up front, I guess they may have heard something from the other side of the ball. Miscommunication. But I didn’t panic, just picked up the ball, and made a play.”
The home crowd at Faurot Field looked shocked. The visiting No. 24 Eagles were up by a pair of scores against the No. 6 team in the country, and half time loomed. In front of a sold-out stadium donning bright-yellow apparel, the Tigers needed a response.
Highlighted by a 55-yard Craig Blake field goal to give the Tigers their first lead of the game at 17–14, and a pair of Brady Cook touchdowns, one through the air and one on the ground, Missouri (3–0) scored 24 unanswered points to nullify BC’s early lead. Interceptions, along with mediocre tackling on pass plays and surrendering 4.1 yards per rush, plagued BC (2–1, 1–0 ACC) in its 27–21 road loss—the Eagles’ first of the season and the Bill O’Brien era.
“It’s not a moral victory,” O’Brien said. “That’s not what I’m saying. I want to be real clear about that. But even with the adversity that we dealt with, we turned the ball over, we had trouble stopping the run, in the end, we were in the game.”
O’Brien’s sentiment certainly rang true, as BC had a chance to halt Missouri’s final drive, down by six points, with 3:45 left to play. On the Eagles’ previous offensive drive, Castellanos unleashed a 38-yard dart to tight end Kamari Morales for a touchdown, rekindling some fire on the BC sideline. All it needed was another stop.
The Tigers, however, faced two third-down situations in the waning minutes and converted both, one on an 11-yard pass to top-NFL prospect Luther Burden III, and the other on a six-yard scramble by Cook, to shut the door.
“If we stop them on that second-to-last third down, we’ve got a shot to get the ball back, and you never know what’s gonna happen,” O’Brien said. “Shoulda, coulda, woulda, no doubt about it, but I think we have a lot to build on here.”
Castellanos came into the matchup with six touchdown passes on only 26 attempts in his first two outings—one of just seven FBS quarterbacks with those marks and no interceptions. It didn’t take him long to deliver the first score of the game.
After a personal foul on Missouri’s Toriano Pride Jr. gave the Eagles a first down on the Tigers’ 35-yard line, BC capitalized on the mistake.
Castellanos looked like an escape artist on 3rd-and-10 from Missouri’s 18-yard line, dodging a pair of pass rushers to gain six yards through the air. With three yards to go on fourth down, Will Lawling chose to keep the offense on the field.
BC’s signal caller took his time in the pocket and located Jerand Bradley cutting to the right on a deep out route. Bradley made the contested catch for his first touchdown reception as an Eagle, and Luca Lombardo drilled the extra point, hushing the Missouri faithful at Faurot Field. The drive lasted over seven minutes.
Despite surrendering a 38-yard field goal to the Tigers, the first quarter ended in favor of the Eagles, 7–3, with BC leading in total yards 83–60 and time of possession 10:18–4:42.
The 67-yard touchdown throw appeared to put the Eagles in the driver’s seat, but costly interceptions on long balls made the difference. When assessing his performance, Castellanos was displeased.
“Terrible,” Castellanos said. “Really terrible. If I would’ve played better, we would’ve won.”
Cook, meanwhile, orchestrated Missouri’s offense like a veteran would, doing just enough to put his exceptional wideout corps in a position to make plays, notably Burden. Burden made several short catches resulting in gains of 30-plus yards in the second half. He tallied 117 receiving yards and a touchdown on six catches, and eight Tigers registered at least one catch.
Cook’s six-yard rushing touchdown with 10:31 left in the third quarter, and Blake Craig’s 31-yard field goal with 5:58 left in the fourth—his third of the game—put the matchup just out of reach.
“Obviously, we’re never going to be okay with losing,” Donovan Ezeiruaku, who notched a sack and six tackles, said.
The Eagles were still relatively undeterred by the loss. They still have strong belief in the program’s aspirations this year.
“We know that we can play with the best of them in the country,” Ezeiruaku said. “We are one of the best in the country.”
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