Army 34, Boston College 31: Eagles Stunned As Black Knights Win First Game Of Season

It was not an easy day to be an Eagles fan.

In weeks past it has been an easy excuse to point to BC's schedule as the reason they had three losses in the young season. But today, the BC Eagles lost to Army, a team that hadn't won this season and lost to Stony Brook. Frank Spaziani and his crew looked completely unprepared as they allowed 516 yards on the ground against a putrid defense that couldn't tackle or diagnose plays against the triple option.

Boston College started the game off on offense and went a quick three and out. Army quickly responded with a nine play 72 yard drive that ended with a 34 yard scamper from Larry Dixon and pushed the Black Knights to a 7-0 lead. BC however responded back with some nice swing passes from Chase Rettig to Dave Dudeck, and was capped by a pounding run by Andre Williams and tied the score 7-7.

But the theme of the the day started up the next drive, and that theme was that Army responded whenever they wanted. BC stripped QB Trent Steelman but failed to cover up the ball, and paid for when Steelman ran it in from 27 yards out to give Army a touchdown lead. Both teams traded punts, but the play of the game for the Eagles was on the ensuing drive when Andre Williams took the ball and ran it 99 yards from his own end zone. Army gave the ball right back on a fumble from Steelman, but BC could only get three on a 25 yard field goal from Nate Freese.

BC looked to be in control when Rettig connected with Alex Amidon from 20 yards out to give the Eagles a 24-14 lead. Army punted the ball right back to BC, but in a moment of complete Frank Spaziani-esque ball control BC went a quick three and out and punted the ball back to Army at the 38. Gerald Levano again struggling to move the ball. Of course Army moved the ball effectively and pushed in a field goal from Dan Grochowski to make it a 24-17 game at half.

To open the second half, Army marched down the field. The Eagles had a chance to stop them on 4th and 1, but Trent Steelman trucked Kasim Edebali and moved the chains. Army obviously didn't respect the BC defense, nor should they have. After being set up with a 1st and goal after a 27 yard Steelman run, Larry Dixon ran it in, and the game was tied. BC went three and out on the ensuing drive, and on the following punt, Levano had the ball placed at the 1 but Manny Asprilla lost track of his footing and instead it was a touchback.

To start the fourth quarter, Army weaved and slashed their way down to the goaline, but this time was stopped by the Eagles, and was held to a 20 yard field goal by Grochowski. BC responded quickly, after a nice pass from Rettig to Johnathan Coleman, BC scored from 24 yards out on an end around to Alex Amidon his second touchdown of the game.

The game looked to come down to Army's next drive. They moved the ball with ease down the field, and looked to be ready to score, when they were miraculously stuffed on 4th and 1 by a great gang tackle by Sean Sylvia and Mehdi Abdesmad. All BC had to do was get one first down on the next drive. However, BC's offense on the next drive, moved the ball 3 yards in 7 seconds, and immediately punted the ball back to Army who looked to finish off the Eagles. After a 34 yard punt by Gerald Levano, Trent Steelman ran the ball in from 30 yards out and the Eagles were finished. The Black Knights won 34-31.

Today's game was one of the weakest showings by a BC team in recent memory. The run defense was absolutely atrocious, and as I mentioned repeatedly on twitter, Spaz refused to cheat up the safeties to help support the run defense. Offensively, BC was okay, but Spaz was schizophrenic in his gameplan. They ran the ball effectively the first half, but completely abandoned the run in the second. In the end, BC's poor tackling was the reason they lost. The Eagles are now 1-4, and looking down the barrel of Florida State next week at Doak. God speed Boston College.