It was a game of near misses and very little luck for the upset minded Eagles as they were blanked 14-0 by ninth ranked Florida State in last Friday nights ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference) matchup at Alumni Stadium.
Boston College fell behind 7-0 on Florida State’s opening drive. The early deficit was unfamiliar for the Eagles who were coming off a 76-0 drubbing of Howard University, however versus FSU, there offense showed little of that same form from the previous week. Much of the credit deservedly belongs to the Seminole defense who snuffed out each and every Eagles drive, but some of the blame for the loss belongs to the offense which suddenly morphed into their previous weeks competition and bit more blame falls on the utter lack of luck for the home squad.
A football off the facemask in what would have been an easy first down; a downed punt at the one-yard line ruled a touchback; an FSU muffed punt which found its way back into Seminole possession; and the most inglorious moment came just as the Eagle defense, which was stellar all evening, had FSU quarterback Everett Golson in its grasp for a safety, only to see him miraculously escape and pick up a first down. I’m not here to make excuses, as the better team came away with the victory, but BC looked snake bitten under the night-lights.
While only collecting 2 sacks, the Eagle defense applied continuous pressure on Golson who completed 15 passes for 119-yards, limiting him to only 5-yards per pass attempt. FSU sophomore phenom running back Dalvin Cook was kept in check, rushing 15 times for 54-yards.
Unfortunately, Eagle passers and backs were in for a much worse day. Starting quarterback Darius Wade finished 4 of 12 for 47-yards, and was lost for the season with a broken left ankle. “It didn’t look good,” said head coach Steve Addazio, who perhaps didn’t fully realize the seriousness of the injury in the post-game press conference. “We’ll have to go back to work and assess our injuries, and we’ll assess where we are at that point. We’ll make a determination of what we feel we need to do to be able to have success.”
Tyler Rouse, who had looked incredible the first two weeks, couldn’t find any holes in the Seminole defense picking up only two total yards while Jonathan Hilliman fumbled away any chance of a BC comeback with 12:20 to play in the game. Defensive back Jalen Ramsey returned the ball 36 yards to double the FSU lead to 14.
Dwelling on Friday night is not something Addazio or the Eagle will do. Their focus is now geared to this Saturday and Northern Illinois. “Our football team played really hard and we can grow off that. We’ll take that and move on and grow.”
Christian A. Guarino, a Boston North End resident, writes about football and soccer for the Boston Post Gazette.
