Boston College Football Loses to Virginia Tech: A Horror Film

I’ve been working my way through a collection of 70’s horror movies this week, and last night’s loss was unequivocally spookier than any of those. For exactly four minutes of game time, I was riding high, perhaps even soaring. BC was marching on their opening drive, the offensive line was creating holes, and David Bailey was slashing through them with a conviction that’s been lacking in recent weeks. Then Pat Garwo III fumbled on his first (and last) carry of the game, and it was a fright-fest from there.

The Good:

Jaelen Gill - The Ohio State transfer notched his first career 100 yard game and his first touchdown at BC. He finished with 6 catches for 104 yards. Gill was a running back coming out of high school, and you can really see those instincts take over after the catch here:

Jehlani Galloway - When Galloway hauled in his first pass of the game, there was a long pause as the announcer searched for his name, and I’ll admit, I was doing the same. Galloway had his first two career catches for a combined 5 yards last week, so his 4 catches for 68 yards at VT were a pleasant surprise. Here’s a nifty bit of improvisation between Galloway & Jurkovec:

That Zay Flowers play - Yeah, yeah, I know they determined he stepped out of bounds, but you try finding joy inspiring moments from this game. Generally a stoic game-watcher, I let out a big ol’ Chris Berman “Whoooop!” when he shook #23 into next week:

Hunter Long - Just pencil him in here every week.

The Frightening:

Virginia Tech’s rushing attack - The Hokies were averaging a shade under 300 rushing yards entering the game, so the 350 yards they piled up, they didn’t pile or amass those yards, it was more of an ever-flowing 350 yards, as though they were just continuously running around, through, and past defenders, running on, and on, just like this sentence...anyway, it wasn’t surprising. Khalil Herbert finished with 143 yards on 18 carries, and Hendon Hooker was even more impressive, accounting for 164 yards and 3 TDs on the ground, while throwing for 111 and 1 TD. They are a duo to be reckoned with. Commit to Herbert and say goodbye to Hooker.

Boston College’s rushing attack - BC was hoping to get their rushing game going against a suspect VT defense, and they did run a bit better early on, but the fumbles were back-breaking. I would have preferred a few more carries for Bailey, who finished with 10 for 41 yards.

The Positively Ghoulish:

Turnovers - How do you lose by 26 points when time of possession, total yards, and penalty yardage are just about equal? By losing the turnover battle 5-0! BC’s running backs lucked out on some fumbles last week at Pitt, not so much this week. Levy, Garwo, and Jurkovec each coughed it up, and if you want to talk horror film:

Jurkovec also tossed two head scratching interceptions. While 28 of 51 for 345 yards and 2 TDs isn’t a bad line, the growing pains were pretty evident last night. Here, I would stress that we need to afford the kid some time to develop. For a bit of perspective: through his first 203 attempts Jurkovec has passed for 1526 yards, 10 TDs and 4 INTs. Compare that to Matt Ryan’s first 203 attempts: 1304 yards, 7 TDs and 6 INTs, and that was over the course of 11.5 games, compared to Jurk’s 5 game crash-course.

Hats off to Virginia Tech for a well executed thumping. Roll the credits, we’re on to Georgia Tech.