Boston College Florida State Recap

On Friday night, Boston College lost by 38 to Florida State to drop their record to 4-5.  Against the top four teams on the schedule, the Eagles have lost by a combined 202-24.  The Eagles offense struggled mightily and has no first downs in both the second and third quarters.  One play, a 38 yard run by Miles Willis, accounted for almost half the yards gained by BC in the first half.

When BC had the Ball:  The Eagles could get nothing going on offense.  They started decently strong, gaining 25 yards and 39 yards on this first two drives.  However, for the rest of the game, until a garage time touchdown drive late in the fourth quarter, the Eagles had negative yards and no first downs.  That spans over 2 quarters.  The Eagles struggled both rushing the ball and through the air.  Outside of a long run by Willis, which was a broken play, the Eagles averaged 1.7 yards per carry.  They fared no better through the air, as Patrick Towles had only 29 yards passing. Darius Wade fared slightly better in garage time, as he led BC to their only touchdown of the game.  It remains a question on why Addazio left Towles in for so long when he was ineffective. 

When FSU had the ball:  The Eagles defense had a decent game on Friday Night.  They played much better than the other games against ranked teams.  However, they were doomed to fail by the lack of offense BC had.  The defensive line had a very good game, as Harold Landry was in the backfield the whole game and ended with 2 sacks, and 4 tackles for loss.  Dalvin Cook, one of the best runningbacks in the country, was held mostly in check.  He ended up with 108 yards, but most of those were off of 3 big runs.  The one area where the front seven struggled was on designed quarterback runs.  Deondre Francois used these, especially in the first half, to get a running game going when Cook was mostly ineffective.  The Seminoles, however, found a weakness in BC’s defense through the air.  Francois only finished with 183 yards passing, as most of his throws were forced underneath, but he was effective.  They targeted Lukas Dennis’ side of the field play after play in the second quarter, and BC couldn’t stop it.  The defense forced FSU to punt 4 times in the first half, but a roughing the punter penalty, and BC giving FSU great field position, but this defense in a spot where they couldn’t succeed. 

Overall: In back to back weeks, BC has been blown out and embarrassed.  The offense has no identity, and has yet to figure out something that works.  The defense played well enough, but was not put into a position to succeed.  The Eagles still have a chance to make it to a bowl game, but this is not a team that gives fans much hope for the future.