INSTANT REACTION: Boston College Wins 76-0 Over Howard

Just seconds into the first quarter, it became clear that this game never should have been played.

Howard's opening drive consisted of two sacks and a punt from inside their own 5 yard line. BC returned the punt right back inside the 5 and scored on one play.

As it turned out, that was about as good as it would get against BC's first team. Howard's second drive resulted in a pick-six. With that, BC was up 14-0, with just 4 seconds of possession and one offensive play in the books.

There isn't much you can say about the rest of game other than the numbers. BC led 41-0 after the first quarter and 62-0 after the first half -- the most points scored in a half by any FBS team in the last 10 years. It was so bad that the two teams agreed to shorten the second half to 10 minutes per quarter.

Howard earned just two first downs the entire game, courtesy of a roughing the passer penalty in the third quarter and a garbage time run in the fourth quarter. They never crossed midfield. And most incredibly, BC almost held the Bison to negative yardage on the day, with Howard getting into the black late in the fourth quarter. The Eagledefense held them to a total of just 11 yards. 2-12 passing for 4 yards. 7 yards rushing on 28 attempts.

These are previously unheard of numbers on the Heights...and yet, there's a lingering feeling that none of it counts. And indeed, none of it really does. Whether BC won or lost, the Eagles still would have needed to win another 5 games to become bowl eligible.

Still, as little as we learned about the Eagles from this game, winning 76-0 and scoring more points in a half of football than anyone else has in over ten years is obviously more than anyone would have hoped to see out of BC. We'll take the win, and the practice, and move on to next week against Florida State.

Quick Hits:

--Shoutout to senior fullback Sean Burke, who scored the first touchdown of his college career. That's one pretty cool thing that often comes out of these types of games.

--What the hell was with the two point conversion attempt?

--Jeff Smith was playing against Howard, but he sure looked electric with his feet. Tyler Murphy who?

--I literally don't even know who else to single out. So many people played. Ten different guys had receptions and ten different guys had rushing attempts.

Everyone gets a gold star. Yay. And frankly, that's about as excited as we should get about this.

We'll continue with our wrap-up coverage over the next few days as we try to forget about this one and move ahead to the Seminoles.