BC’s Win Over Mizzou Was The Offensive Blueprint For A Big Season

Saturday’s exciting win over Missouri was quite a rollercoaster of emotions. Forget the end of the game with the Tigers’ Harrison Mevis kicking an NFL-qualify 56 yard field goal to tie the contest at the end of regulation — it went all the way back to BC’s first offensive touch of the game.

After Missouri dink’d and dunk’d its way down the field for a touchdown to open the scoring (helped, of course, by a BC running into the kicker penalty), Dennis Grosel lined up for the first snap and chucked a bomb 40 yards downfield.

It was picked off. It wasn’t the worst throw of Grosel’s career, but it certainly wasn’t his best. Even though he was hit while he was throwing it, it was also into triple coverage and Jaden Williams never really had a chance to haul it in.

Doe Phil Jurkovec complete that pass? Maybe, maybe not, but that sort of deep ball is a weapon in Phil’s arsenal that BC has been able to game plan around through the entire offseason. It’s not really what Dennis Grosel brings to the table — but that’s not meant to be a slight on him because as we just saw this weekend, he brings plenty to the table. BC just needs to game plan around his skillset and have Dennis Grosel play Dennis Grosel football, not Phil Jurkovec football.

From that pick forward, save for one or two deep balls, the Eagles for the most part played more to a game plan that worked. Running the football against a terrible run defense was obvious, but Grosel was kept to the more short- and medium- touch passes that he’s actually quite good at. I mean, this is just a thing of beauty:

You don’t have to look all that far back to BC turning its offensive game plan on a dime to great success. With Phil Jurkovec under center, most of the comparisons to this year’s potential were with 2007’s magical season and all-galaxy Matt Ryan playing quarterback. The calculus has changed now, obviously, but you only need to step forward to the following year to see how it can work.

The change in style from Matt Ryan to Chris Crane in 2008 was far greater than the difference between Phil Jurkovek and Dennis Grosel, but it certainly worked. Chris Crane was the master of the run-pass option (I have yet to see a quarterback fake a handoff as well as he did), and the Eagles made it all the way to the ACC Championship game.

It doesn’t take much of a stretch to think that a highly-experienced college quarterback with strong running ability and a great touch on his short throws can have real success, especially with the ACC having its worst season in ages. A big season could still be in the cards for BC Football playing with this game plan. Grosel isn’t here just to be a game-manager quarterback. He can pull out big wins for the Eagles — we already know this, because in fact, he just did.