W2WF: Georgia Tech

I smiled the other day when I sat down to write about how Boston College tackled, well, tackling this week. I watched a couple of practice videos on social media, and it intrigued me heading into Jeff Hafley's weekly press conferences. I enjoy talking football with football coaches and players, and I really wanted to learn about what I watched on video.

The conversations revealed BC's commitment this week after the defense struggled to consistently drag down ball carriers against Virginia Tech. The missed tackles clearly hurt the coaching staff, and the players entered this week eager to center their minds and bodies around basic football fundamentals. It was almost refreshing to watch because I anticipated more team-based tackling.

Then I looked at a stat sheet. BC supposedly needed to improve its tackling this week, yet it has the two best tacklers in the nation in linebackers Max Richardson and Isaiah McDuffie. They own the middle of a new-look, nickel-style defense with five defensive backs. They're often the only two linebackers on the field, and both play a hybrid style to either rush the passer or get out into space.

"They have a great relationship because when they move, they have to be in sync," BC head coach Jeff Hafley said. "If they don't, their gaps changed. It's like synchronized swimming with those two because they play off of each other. The more they can do together, the better off they are. They have a good relationship on the field.

The duo rank first and second in the country with Richardson slightly ahead, 53 tackles to 52, but McDuffie owns the No. 1 spot in solo tackles with 30 entering Saturday. They're kind of BC's answer to the Odd Couple because they play the same position, but do different things. Richardson is a fifth-year player and a graduate student who returned to this year's team, and he's a recognized vocal leader, a favorite among media members.

McDuffie is a redshirt junior who missed time last year and only appeared in the last four games. He had 10 tackles in each of his last two appearances, but he was a lost appreciation among the same contingent who entered this season expecting Richardson to command the defense.

"We've lined (McDuffie) in a bunch of different spots," Hafley said, "but his production is two-part. In our scheme, he's going to have to make a lot of tackles or else we won't be very good on defense. He flashes all over the football field, and he's fast.

"He's like the Waterboy out there," Hafley joked, "because he hits everything that moves. He's like the character in that movie, Bobby Boucher. I feel like if I'm standing in the wrong spot, he's going to come over and tackle me. He has the right mentality and makeup, and he loves football so much. His ceiling is so high."

I'm not sure which one of the two is Felix or Oscar, but I know there isn't a single quarterback in the ACC willing to weigh in on the conversation. They'd rather stay silent and maybe avoid getting up close and personal with either one.

Here's what to watch for this week when Boston College hosts Georgia Tech:

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Weekly Storylines (The Departed Edition)

Frank: I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.

Former Georgia Tech head coach Paul Johnson spent a decade building the Yellow Jackets into a triple option powerhouse. Their flexbone offense minimized the passing game and enjoyed success with agile, speedy athletes, but it challenged his successor, Geoff Collins, to entirely reboot the system after Johnson's departure. He would have to implement a completely different offense in his first year with players ill-equipped to play that style, but he would also have to lay a foundation for future success.

It turned Georgia Tech into a weird subset of college football. The Yellow Jackets went 3-9, but recruited a top 30 class of incoming freshmen. More specifically, he found a quarterback who could run a more traditional offense in Jeff Sims and built around him by developing big, speedy wide receivers and powerful complementary running backs.

"They have got two really good, young players at quarterback and running back," BC head coach Jeff Hafley said. "Dynamic athletes. (Jahmyr Gibbs) is really fast and explosive, (and) he catches the ball well out of the back field. Their quarterback can throw it (and) run it, and he's only a freshman. So a credit to Coach Collins for recruiting those guys and playing them early. You can see they're getting better every single week."

Sims is a four-star recruit out of Florida and poses a dual-threat challenge to the BC defense. He rushed for more than 60 yards in three of his first four games and added roughly 250 yards passing each time he ran effectively. He had trouble with interceptions against Florida State, Central Florida and Syracuse, but he rebounded to score three times, including two passing TDs, without a pick against Louisville before the entire offense struggled last week against Clemson.

"Clemson scored a lot of points and had a lot of yards," Hafley said, "so you try not to get caught up in (statistics). You try to watch the film and see what they look like…but right now, I'll glance at (numbers) to see what they say. Then I'll watch the film to see if it ties in together."

Mr. French: I'm the guy who tells you there's guys you can hit and guys you can't. Now, that's not quite a guy you can't hit, but he's almost a guy you can't hit.

The BC defense struggled against Hendon Hooker last week because it failed to take away the proper lanes at the right time. The defensive line penetrated into the backfield, but Hooker slipped through cracks and generated big gains by getting into open field. Instead of attacking through the containment, the entire defense went after him, and he burst into the second level.

This week against Sims is a chance to correct those mistakes after the Eagles stressed tackling in practice.

"We have to be locked into it whenever there's a running quarterback," defensive lineman Marcus Valdez said. "There's an extra gap to cover, and we have to be tuned into that to get him onto the ground. He's going to be a factor to contain in both the pass and run. We have to take into account that extra gap that he's going to create, and we're going to get him to the ground."

Understanding the cohesion between Sims' arm and legs will help that endeavor. Spread passing forces defensive backs to respect the outside, sideline routes, but it removes box level players from run containment. Those extra spaces enable a quarterback's running ability if the passing threat remains constant. Removing one of those factors, though, will cause more reliance on the other and push the harmony well out of sync.

"At corner and even just in defense, pass responsibility feeds into your run fit," defensive back Brandon Sebastian said. "You focus on pass first, but once the receiver slows up and tries to block you, you try to get outside as the force player. You have t force everything into the linebackers and defensive line because you're flowing from the opposite direction."

Captain Ellerby: Most people wouldn't trust anybody with an immaculate record. I do. I got an immaculate record.

The majority of this week focused on BC's defensive ability and how it intended to stop Jeff Sims, but the Eagles' offense likely will play a big role in getting the Yellow Jackets out of sync. Turnovers aside, it continued to roll last week and added new layers by getting Jaelen Gill involved to the tune of his first 100-yard receiving game.

The offense continues to churn forward, and it can turn any game into a track meet. Gill's emergence added a fourth dependable option to quarterback Phil Jurkovec after he started the year throwing almost exclusively to Zay Flowers and Hunter Long. Gill is now a third receiver and can play both outside and in the slot, a complement to both CJ Lewis and Travis Levy depending on the assignment.

"I wouldn't consider (our offense) vanilla (anymore)," quarterback Phil Jurkovec said. "There's a lot of different things we can do, different formations and different looks to throw against a defense."

BC attempted to go warp speed against Virginia Tech in the second half but failed to score after Jurkovec hit Long in the third quarter. That implied failure, but it simply added another learning experience for an offense that scored seven touchdown drives with 10 or more plays this year and six drives over five minutes.

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Countdown to Kickoff

10…Phil Jurkovec's 10 touchdown passes are a BC record for a QB in his first five starts.
9…Undefeated teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25, including five from Group of Five conferences.
8…Seasons since Luke Kuechly led the nation in tackles in a season. Max Richardson and Isaiah McDuffie currently rank first and second in the country.
7…Grant Carlson needs 43 punts to become the seventh BC punter with 200 career boots.
6…ACC teams with both multiple wins in conference and either one or two losses.
5…Ranked Big Ten teams making their season debut on Saturday.
4…Consecutive weeks ranked either sixth or fifth by Ohio State without a game played.
3…Georgia Tech is the third ranked defense nationally in fumbles recovered with seven.
2...Wins in nine all-time meetings by BC, in 1998 and 2007.
1…Hunter Long leads all tight end receivers with 11 more receptions than his next closest competitor.

*****
BC-Georgia Tech X Factor

Phil Jurkovec

I thought it was crazy to ever think that a quarterback could reach the levels of Matt Ryan or Doug Flutie. Those players were special enough to occupy their own pantheon, and it's unreasonable to ever think an individual player can achieve those heights. It's undue pressure to put on anyone, largely because legendary statuses usually entail some form of hyperbole.

Jurkovec, though, is on pace to shatter records owned by Flutie, Ryan, and Glenn Foley. He is the first player with four 300-yard games in his first five starts and the first to have four 300-yard games in a single season since Ryan in 2007. He already holds the record for most completions and touchdowns over the first five games of anyone's BC career, and he is on pace to rocket past Foley's 21 touchdowns and Flutie's 2,749 yards as sophomores.

I won't soon forget the look on Jurkovec's face after last Saturday's loss. He took it exceptionally hard and blamed himself for turnovers, and he specifically said he would have a lot to work on this week. I almost felt bad for Georgia Tech because I understood he would come out firing this week.

That's going to pressure and strain an effort-based defense for Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets don't publish an official two-deep chart and instead eschew individual positions in favor of a 4-2-5 formational alignment. Geoff Collins opts for something called "Above The Line," which is defined as Georgia Tech's readiness sheet of players who established themselves in practice.

It makes it more difficult to predict coverages, but it further emphasizes teams' abilities to play their own way. If Jurkovec can enforce his offensive style against Georgia Tech, it won't matter which players are on which assignment. It will turn the game into a track meet, which is something Georgia Tech struggled with last week against Clemson.

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Dan's Homegrown Tailgate Tip of the Week

Nobody is capable of convincing me that autumn in New England isn't the best time of year. Our days still reach the high 60s and low 70s, but the cold overnight lows dip in the 30s and 40s. That 30-degree swing gives us short bursts of warmth, but it stays crisp enough to wear jeans all day. I call it "hoodie weather" because I'm always in a hooded sweatshirt even if I'm wearing shorts in the midday.

Hoodie weather is the harbinger of everything great about fall. Foliage is peaking, and apple picking season floods kitchens with every possible type of fruit. Pumpkins pop up on stoops and in houses, and we march towards Thanksgiving with a unique burst of perfection. It's a constant, despite traditions looking decidedly different this year. Even my golf game feels better when I lose balls in foliage and award myself free drops… at least until someone catches me (this happened a couple of years ago, but I promise I stopped).

(Quick tangent, I love fall golf, but I really need to do a better job of picking golf balls for a round into the leaves. Hitting a neon orange or yellow ball into a tree is a guaranteed lost ball. I could always NOT hit it into the trees, but that's asking for too much. Golf is a great sport, and I'm so happy I picked it up as a hobby).

House games are fantastic, and I learned to appreciate them through the good-natured trash talk and overly-competitive games with my friends. I've been smoked by almost everyone at ping pong, foosball and cornhole, and it's best if we never discuss the disaster of our chipping game. I even lost the one thing I'm good at when I finished fourth at Moo Moo Farm in MarioKart64.

I won't have those large scale weekends again until after COVID-19, but my wife and I are continuing them at home. She's actually much better than I am, so I love creating head-to-head competitions with her around the house. It's a great way to stay active and have some fun in the process.

Cold weather delivers an ironic warmth for me, and it sends me outside at every opportunity. This summer, I bought some yard games with my wife, but we underutilized the homemade cornhole boards through June and July. This week, I'm challenging her to an epic seven-game series before the BC game, and I'm wagering both our hammock and dinner from one of our favorite restaurants. The winner gets to watch the game in that hammock and bask in the glory of victory while eating around the fire pit.

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Scoreboard Watching

College football endured a couple of rocky patches when COVID-19 exposed the fault lines in its occasionally-fractured landscape. The Football Championship Subdivision postponed its national championship tournament as leagues dropped out of the fall season, and the Bowl Subdivision fractured the Group of Five leagues from Power Five conferences.

The Mid-American Conference dropped first and touched off emergency meetings within other leagues. Two days later, the Mountain West Conference suspended its season, save for Air Force's Commander-In-Chief's Trophy games against Army and Navy.

The biggest shoes dropped the day after that when the Big Ten became the first Power Five league to postpone its fall sports. The Pac-12 joined it, and the season itself came into question as the ACC, Big 12 and SEC considered postponements before reaffirming commitment to protocol-based play. The start of the season in September absorbed its COVID cases, but the schedule stabilized by October...just in time for the Big Ten to return to play.

The complete chaos was felt through the national polls after voters moved on from the Big Ten's postponement. A lower number of teams opened doors for mid-major teams to enter the rankings once the Big Ten fell out of consideration, but the majority eventually filtered out of the polls when the conference announced its return. The volatility sent teams flying both up and down dozens of spots around the idle teams awaiting their schedule.

The calmness of those teams that weren't playing is going to be disrupted this week when the Big Ten kicks off its schedule. Voters stabilized the rankings by consistently agreeing that teams like Ohio State and Penn State were top-ranked, and Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota slotted into middle-tier rankings. Those teams are now playing an eight-game schedule, and any loss is going to deeply damage perceptions around winning percentage.

All of that is part of a greater argument that, at its surface, recognizes the return to play. I have long held that I'm not the proper authority to discuss whether playing football is appropriate, but I trust the university administration and medical personnel outlining protocols. I fully support return to play if those protocols are followed as law, and I think the willing sacrifices by players, coaches, and staff - and their families - is worth celebrating.

"I'm excited for the Big Ten to play," Jeff Hafley said. "I have a lot of friends coaching on that staff. I'm just happy for those players, more important, who've been sitting, waiting and watching, and guys that I coached last year on that defense. I know that offense, I'm excited for them to play, and they deserve to play. I'm glad it worked out for them. I'm fired up to cheer them on."

Self-imposed social bubbles eradicated whatever semblance of normal college exists in 2020, and that's a necessary step. The athletes, for what it's worth, have to do even more to prove they're willing to play, and they walk a tightrope in order to keep each other - and other teams - safe. They're doing it so I can stay safe at home, and that's still important in these times. Boston College, to this point, is a prime example of what to do in those situations, and this team is a beacon of what happens when everyone works together. In a time as serious as the one we're living in, those little celebrations are worth noting.

*****
Around the Sports World

At first glance, the World Series matchup didn't quite deliver what everyone wanted. The Los Angeles Dodgers won their third National League pennant in four years, but Tampa Bay spoiled any hope of a dramatic matchup against the Houston Astros when it won its second-ever American League crown. I know, deep down, I was a little disappointed when that happened because I really wanted the Dodgers to stare down the Astros as the last bit of fallout from the 2017 World Series scandal.

The baseball matchup, though, is probably better with the Rays because the two teams are constructed completely differently. The Dodgers are high-priced, elite All Stars with multiple trips to the World Series and arguably the best manager in baseball in Dave Roberts (cue the 2004 stolen base highlight, please). They added Mookie Betts (a part of me just died typing that up) and David Price (strangely okay with that part) in the offseason, though Price opted out of 2020, and they have some of the best big game players in the big leagues.

The Rays are the complete opposite of that. They built a roster from a spreadsheet and rotated statistics around an unconventional new way of playing the game. They introduced new concepts like Openers and fielded a lineup exclusively with left-handed hitters for a September game against the Red Sox. Manager Kevin Cash never used the same lineup twice against an opponent (I think it might've happened once), the second year in a row that happened (152 different lineups over 162 games in 2019).

They use tons of relievers in high leverage positions and don't have any superstars. The team's entire payroll isn't much more than one year of Betts, Price, or Clayton Kershaw, and the posting fee on Yoshi Tsutsugo was probably one of the highest-paid players on the Rays this year.

We're told about all of the annual issues with baseball's payroll and how certain teams are spending through the luxury tax roof without any regard. Those teams wind up giving money to poorer teams who can't outspend on free agents, and it's supposed to create this massive competitive chasm. It's a common argument as to why baseball needs a hard salary floor as much as it needs a hard salary cap. The Rays, though, are proof that a team without the same resources or funding as the mighty Dodgers can compete.

I'm a notorious baseball dinosaur, and I believe in old sport fundamentals like bunting and extending runners to third. I don't believe in four outfielders and wouldn't shift every play. I hope the designated hitter doesn't stay in the National League (it probably will), and I pray that extra innings don't start with runners on second after this year (I'm begging you, baseball).

Even I have to admit the Rays have been really fun to watch, though. They could revolutionize the game by winning the World Series over the Dodgers. I don't know if other teams would be able to pull off what they are doing, but it would invite strangers and weirder baseball theories to the table. Moneyball, Astroball, whatever Tampa is doing, whatever the Red Sox are doing by purging payroll - all of it would work for me. It would compete in styles and blend artforms. I'm ready for it.

Go Rays.

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Pregame Quote and Prediction

How you played in yesterday's games is all that counts. -Jackie Robinson

Boston College opened the season with optimism and confidence, and the first four games yielded immediate returns. Dreams ran wild, and people dared to believe the Eagles were ready for that next jump to the ACC's upper tier. Nothing seemed impossible.

Last week's loss rattled that mentality to its core because it's the current, lasting image. The turnovers and missed tackles, especially in the second half, derailed BC's win, and the scoreboard implied the game was this great, big disaster. Winning on Saturday will go miles to prove the Eagles aren't that team that gave up 40 points to Virginia Tech. Beating Georgia Tech, another upstart, resurgent program, is a long step in that right direction.

A team is only as good as its last performance. Put together a good performance, and all of a sudden, those voices that were quick to point out that the carriage turned into a pumpkin will quiet down and instantaneously vanish.

Boston College and Georgia Tech will kick off at 4 p.m. on Saturday from Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. The game can be seen on ACC Network and online at WatchESPN.com for cable subscribers with access to the channel. Radio broadcast is available via the BC Learfield IMG Sports Network, locally in Boston on WEEI 93.7 FM, with satellite radio broadcast via Sirius channel 111, XM channel 207, and Online channel 967.

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Players Mentioned

Grant Carlson

Zay Flowers

Jaelen Gill

Phil Jurkovec

Travis Levy

CJ Lewis

Hunter Long

Isaiah McDuffie

Max Richardson

Brandon Sebastian

Marcus Valdez