Boston College 34, Maine 3: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Yesterday the Eagles played their annual FCS game against the Maine Black Bears. BC did what it needed to do to leave with a 34-3 victory. As Jeff said on Twitter yesterday, the W was arguably "the most disappointing 31 point victory ever." There certainly were a lot of mental mistakes, and room for improvement, but BC did have areas of their game that did improve.

Let's take a look at some of those areas:

The Good

Student Attendance -- Bravo BC students. In one of the games that is annually the lowest attended, you showed up and were loud the entire game. Even when season ticket holders decided to leave early, or not show up at all, you all stayed and cheered the team on.

Spiffy Evans -- I will be the first to admit I have been riding the Spiffster since the beginning of the season, and yesterday's game started out no different. The play that almost made me lose my top was when he waved off a punt at the 15 yard line instead of fair catching it. The Black Bears special teams unit down the ball at the 1 yard line. However, I will take my humble pie and fully admit that Mr. Evans completely turned it around after that. He had a nice touchdown catch in the end zone, and his 75 yard punt return for a touchdown -- an Eagles' first since Rich Gunnell in 2009 -- sealed the game for the Eagles. Spiffy finished the game with 155 yards. Take a bow, Spiffy.

Brian Mihalik -- The big man stepped it up, showing us that indeed we have a play maker on the front line. I can't find the statistics but Mihalik must have had 3-4 swatted balls, a sack, and had solid pressure the entire game.

The Return of Deuce Finch -- Kimble struggled and Andre Williams was pretty middle of the road, but it was refreshing to see Finch play and run effectively in the Doug Martin offense. He clearly appeared to be the most talented running back in the group, and I expect he will continue that success next week against Northwestern.

Honorable Mentions -- Manny Asprilla, Chase Rettig and Alex Amidon

The Bad

Conservative Game Plan -- Look, I get it. Boston College won by 31 points but Spaz and Martin's plan did not seem as "go for the throat" as they were last week. The perfect example of this was when BC had the ball on the Maine 3 on a 4th and 7 and Spaz elected to punt. I'm not saying that BC needs to go against the grain and make stupid play calls, but you want that killer instinct to put away a team. For crying out loud, it's Maine football, a team that was struggling to do anything.

Chase Rettig's Reads -- Chase Rettig had a fine game today. He didn't make the game changing blunder that he did against Miami, but he also seemed to miss some of his reads. There were at least two occasions -- I'd have to re-watch the game to see if there were more -- where Rettig missed receivers that were completely wide open and would have led to huge plays. Rettig locked into his reads too quickly and against better defenses this could become an issue.

Honorable Mentions -- Injury to Jake Sinkovec, the entire Maine Offense

The Ugly

Tahj Kimble's Fumble -- I love Tahj Kimble's abilities and the explosiveness and versatility that he brings to Doug Martin's offense. But that fumble was completely inexcusable. You have to hold on to the ball near the goal line. Mistakes like this against Maine are one thing, but that's two games in a row with a costly Kimble mistake. That has got to stop.

The Unnecessary Quarterback Sacks -- Maine had two sacks that I counted that should have never happened. BC's front line was much bigger than the Black Bears, which may have caused the smaller Bears lineman to get past the BC offensive line. The other reason was that Rettig held the ball too long. He needs to throw it away in those situations. And what happened when Rettig was sacked? He got hurt, had to leave the game, and had an MRI done on his back. Thankfully, the MRI came back negative.

Agree with the selections? Disagree? Leave your thoughts in the comments.