Primetime, nationally televised, standalone games are a rarity in college football, especially for programs like Boston College football.
In Week 1, the Eagles made the most of that opportunity, dominating then-No. 10 Florida State 28–13. That was the largest top-10 road win in program history and enough to vault BC into the Top 25 a week later.
Given the same opportunity six weeks later against Virginia Tech, the Eagles came crashing right back down to Earth. The Hokies caught BC sleeping from their very first drive and raced out to a 28–0 halftime lead.
Even a 21-point BC surge that reset the game at 28–21 couldn’t change its humbling reality. Virginia Tech responded with back-to-back touchdowns to secure a 42–21 victory, dropping the Eagles to 4–3 and leaving them in desperate need of some soul-searching.
Here are three observations from BC’s loss.
Halloween Comes Early
Bhayshul Tuten announced his intent to transfer from North Carolina A&T to BC on Dec. 24, 2022. Twenty-one days later, Tuten flipped his commitment to Virginia Tech.
Since then, he’s done nothing but haunt the Eagles.
In the two team’s last meeting, Tuten recorded 78 yards and three touchdowns. Unfortunately for BC, he was only getting started.
On Thursday night, Tuten relentlessly slashed through the Eagles’ front, ultimately piling up 266 of the 368 rushing yards BC allowed. Tuten added another 20 yards through the air, en route to a four-touchdown performance.
And just as the Eagles had captured a sliver of momentum entering the fourth quarter, their Boogeyman reemerged to close the deal for the Hokies. Tuten pushed Virginia Tech ahead 35–21 with a six-yard touchdown and delivered a dagger 61-yard score to sink BC for good less than three minutes later. Even with the Eagles’ fate sealed, Tuten kept rolling and eventually broke Virginia Tech’s single-game rushing-yard record in the team’s last drive.
Mountain of Missed Opportunities
For much of its season thus far, BC quarterback Thomas Castellanos largely kept his record clean, turning the ball over only twice through the first five weeks. That all changed with a disastrous fourth-quarter sequence of events in the Eagles’ Week 6 loss at Virginia.
In the final 15 minutes of play, Castellanos committed three turnovers, all but giving the game away to the Cavaliers. That erratic play bled right into BC’s first half against Virginia Tech, where Castellanos fumbled twice. Both miscues led to Hokies’ touchdowns and played a key role in the Eagles’ 28–0 halftime deficit.
“We’ve done that in all our losses,” BC head coach Bill O’Brien said of his team’s turnovers. “We have to figure out how to correct it. We can’t turn the ball over and win. There’s no correlation between winning and turnovers.”
The missed opportunities only mounted from there.
BC kicked off a critical early fourth-quarter drive in desperate need of a score. On the first play of the drive, the Eagles picked up a false start penalty. Castellanos managed to offset it with a 46-yard toss to Reed Harris, but another illegal formation penalty hindered the Eagles. The Eagles drove to the Hokies’ 19-yard line, but they found new ways to squander chances.
Castellanos missed a wide-open Jaedn Skeete in the end zone, and Lewis Bond couldn’t come up with another potential touchdown ball on the following play. The drive ultimately fizzled out after a high snap on a field-goal attempt, closing the door on the Eagles’ comeback attempt.
Death by 4th-and-Short
Four weeks ago, in BC’s Red Bandanna Game matchup against Michigan State, the Eagles faced a crucial 4th-and-goal at the Spartans 1-yard line. Castellanos, however, was stuffed on a designed quarterback run, and BC turned the ball over on downs.
Although the Eagles eventually overcame that setback, their inability to convert in such a short-yardage situation raised a major red flag—one that again reared its head for BC against the Hokies, this time in the game’s pivotal moment.
After having just forced a Virginia Tech three-and-out, BC somehow appeared poised to tie the game up at 28 points apiece. The Eagles advanced all the way to midfield, needing just one more yard to keep their drive and comeback hopes alive on 4th-and-1.
That proved too much to ask for.
Lined up in the shotgun, Castellanos took the snap and handed the ball off to the Eagles’ bruiser Kye Robichaux, who the Hokies immediately walled off to force a turnover on downs. From there, Virginia Tech took over and restored a two-score lead in three plays, derailing BC’s miracle comeback bid for good.
The Eagles have fared well enough on 4th down this season, converting 50 percent of the time. That being said, BC’s 4th-and-short woes have grown into more of a concerning trend than a random outlier. Through seven games, a number of areas for improvement have emerged for the Eagles, with 4th-and-short play calling being as glaring as any.
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