Yikes.
On a beautiful fall Saturday afternoon, the Boston College Eagles football team hosted the Virginia Tech Hokies for a late-season ACC contest between two of the league’s middling teams. With a longshot chance at the ACC Title Game in BC’s vision, and a good chance at bowl eligibility for Virginia Tech, both teams had a lot to play for as the season is nearing a close. Virginia Tech had Boston College’s number from the start, though, jumping out to a 38-7 lead by the third quarter and eventually taking home the 48-22 win.
The first drive of the game ended as quickly as it began, with BC QB Thomas Castellanos throwing an INT on the first play from scrimmage. That allowed VT to drive into BC territory immediately and take a 3-0 lead just a few minutes into the game. But the Eagles were able to respond quickly, with BC driving into VT territory to allow Alex Broome to take off for a huge 38-yard run and following punch-in to the endzone. Boston College took the 7-3 lead still with 9 minutes to go in the first quarter. But with another pick thrown by Thomas Castellanos on BC’s next drive, the turnovers once again started to hurt the Eagles. Virginia Tech was once again able to take the INT and turn it into points, this time using former Boston College commit Bhayshul Tuten to punch it into the endzone to take a 10-7 lead as the first quarter started to wind down.
BC very much wanted to get the ball back and put together a drive without turning the ball over, but they didn’t get the chance right away. Virginia Tech surprised the Eagles with an onside kick in the first quarter, recovering and taking over on offense once again. It allowed them to drive into BC territory once again and drive for another touchdown, this time witha pass from 22 yards out with no BC defenders around the VT receiver. The Hokies were able to take a 17-7 lead to start the second quarter.
After BC’s offense wasn’t able to get anything going, Virginia Tech once again took over on offense and ran all over the Eagles. VT QB Kyron Drones took it himself way down the field for a 59 yard run that set up the Hokies for yet another short touchdown pass. The Eagles weren’t able to contain anything on defense as VT took a big 24-7 lead just midway through the second quarter. With the Eagles offense once again struggling to find its footing, they had to punt back to VT shortly thereafter for another big Hokie drive. After a long pass to Felton, VT was able to set up Tuten for his second TD run of the day to make it 31-7, an ugly game for BC heading into the half.
The second half didn’t start much better for the Eagles. Virginia Tech bruised their way all the down the field immediately in the third quarter, capping it off with Bhayshal Tuten’s third TD of the game to make it a 38-7 lead. BC did end up finding a way to score on the next drive with Jaedn Skeete on 4th down for a TD and Lewis Bond converting the 2-point try, but the game was already too out of hand as the 4th quarter approached. With Virginia Tech’s Malachi Thomas running for a wide open TD to start the 4th quarter to make it 45-15, the game was basically over. The two teams eventually finished the game out with Virginia Tech winning by a final score of 48-22.
Takeaways
- This is still a mediocre team. BC played really hard during that win streak and they were able to use their physicality to bully their way into wins against weak teams. But the defense continues to be inconsistent and the offense continues to be mistake-prone. There is a long way to go with this roster and coaching staff before they are ready to reach new heights and defeat good teams. Virginia Tech isn’t even very good and they got blown out.
- Can Castellanos be trusted in the passing game? He has looked pretty good for most of the season with some aggressiveness on deep passes, but the mistakes really came back to bite him today. Those missed throws will hurt them badly against good competition, even if he’s able to torch bad secondaries like UConn and Syracuse.
- What happened to this defensive line? Donovan Ezeiruaku and company have largely been absent this season despite the preseason hype. VT ran all over the Eagles and the Hokies’ Bhayshal Tuten racked up a hat trick on the ground. I have large doubts that this defense will be in any position to defend good teams anytime soon.
- The BC OL didn’t have their best showing. It’s still a good unit and clearly improved over the disaster of 2022, but they weren’t able to get much of a push today. Without being able to punch in Castellanos or their running backs consistently, BC had to find other ways to move the ball. They were successful at times, but clearly not enough to stay competitive, especially after going down by multiple scores.