Boston College Athletics
Texas-Sized Storm Visits Boston On Saturday
September 24, 2020 | Football, #ForBoston Files
The Bobcats' high-octane offense is a unique challenge for the Eagles.
The Sun Belt Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference never really have good reasons to cross paths on a football gridiron. The Sun Belt's footprint is distributed evenly across the southern United States and stretches East-West from the Carolinas to Texas and the Louisiana-Arkansas boot, and the ACC is a national league that goes North-South along the Atlantic seaboard.
It's not a power conference like the ACC, but the Sun Belt boasts its own tradition. It's a home for teams willing to fight for respectability in the Football Bowl Subdivision, and its membership, completely reconfigured after realignment sent five teams into Conference USA, brags about its own brand of success.
This week, Boston College will play its first game ever against the Sun Belt Conference in college football's modern era when it hosts Texas State.
"They have an explosive group," head coach Jeff Hafley said of this weekend's opponent. "They can score fast, and they're going to try to score fast. They're going to take shots downfield. If you really watch closely, they could have won their first game (against SMU). They lost in overtime (to UTSA), and then they won (over Louisiana-Monroe). Their staff does a nice job. Their head coach was at West Virginia and scored a lot of points there, and he's calling the shots on that offense."
When the ACC announced its revised 2020 football schedule in early August, it included room for one non-conference game for each individual program. It scheduled 10 conference games for each team, but it stipulated that the non-league opponent would either have to travel to the team's home state or host the team within state borders. That allowed the teams to maintain previous opponents if possible, which for Boston College meant a game against Ohio University would be played on September 12.
That game never happened. On August 8, the Mid-American Conference postponed all fall competition with a tentative move to the spring. It canceled Ohio's trip to Boston, and the Eagles began looking for a new non-conference team. In late August, two weeks before the season was set to kick off, Texas State filled that opening.
The matchup is now one of the more intriguing games of the early college football season because it's the rare cross-section between a power conference team and a Group of Five opponent. It's the longest road trip for any team to play at an ACC team this year, and it's the first time a team from Texas will visit the Heights since 1999.Â
The Bobcats also aren't a token opponent despite entering the game as a significant underdog. Their near-upset against Southern Methodist shocked much of the college football universe, and their follow up loss to Texas-San Antonio included 34 second half points to force overtime after the Roadrunners scored 24 unanswered points before halftime. A week later, quarterback Tyler Vitt threw seven incompletions as part of a two-touchdown game against UL-Monroe in the team's first win.
"They have guys who can go up for the deep ball," Hafley said, "and they take their shots. They have two quarterbacks. One is more elusive and can make plays with his feet. The other is a good enough runner, and both of them can throw downfield. They have solid running backs who can hit it."
Those quarterbacks especially have Texas State's offense humming. In the SMU game, Brady McBride threw for 227 yards and two touchdowns, and he took only one sack while spreading the ball around the offense. He completed at least three passes to five different receivers and averaged more than 10 yards per pass to three of them, and while his interception led to a touchdown, it also happened in the second quarter.
It showed how dangerous a team could play during the COVID era because Texas State didn't have any tight ends available for the game. The next week, Tyler Vitt, the winner of the preseason quarterback competition over McBride, a transfer from Memphis, returned, as did the tight ends, and the offense exploded again for 346 yards passing and four scores.Â
Vitt continued that string last week with 256 yards and his first game without an interception while running for an additional 82 yards and a touchdown in the win over the Warhawks.
"We look at the quarterback, if he tries to run the ball or if he's a pocket passer," defensive lineman Marcus Valdez said. "We have a whole bunch of tendencies to help us play faster and things like that. Last week, the ball was out quick so we had to get our hands up to bat it down. That wasn't a sack game. This week is more of a sack game because (Vitt) might hold the ball longer. So we're going to be expected to get after him and get him down."
It makes Vitt the perfect quarterback for head coach Jake Spavital, the offensive coordinator under head coach Dana Holgorsen at West Virginia for both 2017 and 2018. Over those two years, the Mountaineers became known as a fast-paced, hard-hitting offense behind quarterback Will Grier, whose 7,300 yards and 71 touchdowns were enough for the country roads to take anyone home.
"Coach Spavital calls (the plays)," Hafley said. "He does it all. There are explosives on catch-and-run (plays). They'll try to take you over the top and screen you. There is a quarterback run game. There's a mix of everything, truthfully. I think there's a lot of balls thrown down the field, but the RPO game has very fast players. They make you pay if you're not on top of it."
It's going to tax the Boston College defense because of the ongoing storyline surrounding the shortened spring and lack of a full training period for the Eagles. More than a dozen players saw snaps last week outside of the 11 starters, and while some went overlooked during the victory celebration, those plays arguably produced critical game knowledge before a fast-paced, high-octane offense visits Massachusetts.
"We played a lot of players," Hafley said. "Speaking more defensively, we rolled a lot of guys into the game. I joked about the depth chart with the amount of 'ors,' but except for the quarterback, everyone played. I want to give those guys roles if they deserve to play, and I think it builds a lot of chemistry to develop players."
Boston College and Texas State will play on Saturday at 6 p.m. from Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill. The game can be seen via the ACC's Regional Sports Network, locally in Boston on NESN+. The game can also be heard via the BC Learfield IMG Sports Network, locally in Boston on WEEI 850 AM.
It's not a power conference like the ACC, but the Sun Belt boasts its own tradition. It's a home for teams willing to fight for respectability in the Football Bowl Subdivision, and its membership, completely reconfigured after realignment sent five teams into Conference USA, brags about its own brand of success.
This week, Boston College will play its first game ever against the Sun Belt Conference in college football's modern era when it hosts Texas State.
"They have an explosive group," head coach Jeff Hafley said of this weekend's opponent. "They can score fast, and they're going to try to score fast. They're going to take shots downfield. If you really watch closely, they could have won their first game (against SMU). They lost in overtime (to UTSA), and then they won (over Louisiana-Monroe). Their staff does a nice job. Their head coach was at West Virginia and scored a lot of points there, and he's calling the shots on that offense."
When the ACC announced its revised 2020 football schedule in early August, it included room for one non-conference game for each individual program. It scheduled 10 conference games for each team, but it stipulated that the non-league opponent would either have to travel to the team's home state or host the team within state borders. That allowed the teams to maintain previous opponents if possible, which for Boston College meant a game against Ohio University would be played on September 12.
That game never happened. On August 8, the Mid-American Conference postponed all fall competition with a tentative move to the spring. It canceled Ohio's trip to Boston, and the Eagles began looking for a new non-conference team. In late August, two weeks before the season was set to kick off, Texas State filled that opening.
The matchup is now one of the more intriguing games of the early college football season because it's the rare cross-section between a power conference team and a Group of Five opponent. It's the longest road trip for any team to play at an ACC team this year, and it's the first time a team from Texas will visit the Heights since 1999.Â
The Bobcats also aren't a token opponent despite entering the game as a significant underdog. Their near-upset against Southern Methodist shocked much of the college football universe, and their follow up loss to Texas-San Antonio included 34 second half points to force overtime after the Roadrunners scored 24 unanswered points before halftime. A week later, quarterback Tyler Vitt threw seven incompletions as part of a two-touchdown game against UL-Monroe in the team's first win.
"They have guys who can go up for the deep ball," Hafley said, "and they take their shots. They have two quarterbacks. One is more elusive and can make plays with his feet. The other is a good enough runner, and both of them can throw downfield. They have solid running backs who can hit it."
Those quarterbacks especially have Texas State's offense humming. In the SMU game, Brady McBride threw for 227 yards and two touchdowns, and he took only one sack while spreading the ball around the offense. He completed at least three passes to five different receivers and averaged more than 10 yards per pass to three of them, and while his interception led to a touchdown, it also happened in the second quarter.
It showed how dangerous a team could play during the COVID era because Texas State didn't have any tight ends available for the game. The next week, Tyler Vitt, the winner of the preseason quarterback competition over McBride, a transfer from Memphis, returned, as did the tight ends, and the offense exploded again for 346 yards passing and four scores.Â
Vitt continued that string last week with 256 yards and his first game without an interception while running for an additional 82 yards and a touchdown in the win over the Warhawks.
"We look at the quarterback, if he tries to run the ball or if he's a pocket passer," defensive lineman Marcus Valdez said. "We have a whole bunch of tendencies to help us play faster and things like that. Last week, the ball was out quick so we had to get our hands up to bat it down. That wasn't a sack game. This week is more of a sack game because (Vitt) might hold the ball longer. So we're going to be expected to get after him and get him down."
It makes Vitt the perfect quarterback for head coach Jake Spavital, the offensive coordinator under head coach Dana Holgorsen at West Virginia for both 2017 and 2018. Over those two years, the Mountaineers became known as a fast-paced, hard-hitting offense behind quarterback Will Grier, whose 7,300 yards and 71 touchdowns were enough for the country roads to take anyone home.
"Coach Spavital calls (the plays)," Hafley said. "He does it all. There are explosives on catch-and-run (plays). They'll try to take you over the top and screen you. There is a quarterback run game. There's a mix of everything, truthfully. I think there's a lot of balls thrown down the field, but the RPO game has very fast players. They make you pay if you're not on top of it."
It's going to tax the Boston College defense because of the ongoing storyline surrounding the shortened spring and lack of a full training period for the Eagles. More than a dozen players saw snaps last week outside of the 11 starters, and while some went overlooked during the victory celebration, those plays arguably produced critical game knowledge before a fast-paced, high-octane offense visits Massachusetts.
"We played a lot of players," Hafley said. "Speaking more defensively, we rolled a lot of guys into the game. I joked about the depth chart with the amount of 'ors,' but except for the quarterback, everyone played. I want to give those guys roles if they deserve to play, and I think it builds a lot of chemistry to develop players."
Boston College and Texas State will play on Saturday at 6 p.m. from Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill. The game can be seen via the ACC's Regional Sports Network, locally in Boston on NESN+. The game can also be heard via the BC Learfield IMG Sports Network, locally in Boston on WEEI 850 AM.
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