Weekly Kickoff: First Half Woes Continue for Boston College Football, But a Win is a Win

Boston College football has been outscored 101-55 in the first half of their first 5 football games in 2023. For a 2-3 team that got blown out badly by Louisville, that seems pretty on par with expectations, right? Well what may surprise you is that BC has actually won or tied almost every second half scoring total. Their only “loss” came against Holy Cross, when they were outscored 14-7 in the second half, but they have outscored their opponents in the second half overall 81-59. BC came back against NIU to tie the game and send it into OT. They came back against Florida State to bring the game within 2 points. And now this past weekend, the Eagles overcame a 21-7 halftime deficit to defeat Virginia in regulation, 27-24.

This team has shown that they can make adjustments in the middle of games and figure out what’s working on both sides of the ball. Castellanos and the offense have struggled to get things going early, but they can usually find the holes in the opposing defense and make them pay with breakout rushes and timely deep passes. The BC defense took the great FSU offense and stopped them dead in their tracks in the second half, containing Jordan Travis and allowing the BC offense to get back on the field multiple times to stage a comeback. And UVA had no answer for the Eagles defense in the second half on Saturday.

But in order to start winning football games against most competition, they need to figure things out earlier. If these players still have bowl game aspirations, they cannot rely on second half heroics to dig them out of holes every game. It didn’t work against FSU or NIU, and the hole against Louisville was one of the biggest we’ve ever seen. It’s great to see it worked out for them against Virginia, but the Cavaliers are possibly the worst team in the conference and BC still had to come back to win by only 3. The players and coaches need to have a working gameplan ready to go in the 1st quarter, not develop one by the 3rd. If they can do that, this team is actually talented enough to win some football games!

So priority #1 heading into Army this week has got to be getting off to a good start. If they keep coming out flat like this against every opponent, it seems unlikely that they will win more than another game or two by the end of the season.