Four Downs: NC State
October 17, 2021 | Football, #ForBoston Files
A teaching tool comes out of Saturday's lopsided loss.
For the past seven years, Boston College heard the very forward statistic facing its football program. The Eagles could win games, but never defeated stronger, ranked opponents with any kind of regularity, a fact that remained the biggest hurdle for them and their national aspirations. They were the team capable of competing with anyone else on the block, but they were always the bridesmaid, never the bride.
Perceptions of BC changed when Jeff Hafley became the head coach, but the looming stat still hung like a fly in a good glass of red wine. For all that occurred over the past two years, the team simply knocked on the door, but damaging the glass ceiling wasn't enough to open the gates to the top tier within an Atlantic Division controlled by Clemson.
The division opened wide this year as the Tigers slid backwards, but the barrier to the top of the ACC remained in place for at least one more week after Saturday night after No. 21 NC State beat Boston College, 33-7.
"We didn't execute," Hafley said. "Even going to the half at 10-7, we dropped some balls. We missed some plays. We missed a field goal. We didn't execute, and that's me being honest. In the second half, we come out, and we drop a punt. We turned the ball over, which those two turnovers lead to points, and we couldn't recover from that. That was a 14-point swing, very quickly."
The missed execution stung particularly hard on a night when BC played an even first half against the visiting Wolfpack. NC State scored on its first drive as Devin Carter unexpectedly 'Moss'd' defensive back Elijah Jones, but the Eagles countered with a drive that ended in Dennis Grosel's touchdown pass to Trae Barry.
It ignited the Alumni Stadium crowd, and it kept BC even with an NC State that found itself in tough sledding against the soggy Massachusetts night. The Eagles, meanwhile, twice drove the field as the first quarter bled into the second, but Connor Lytton's first career missed field goal kept things knotted at 7-7.
That misstep revealed a leak in the Eagles' hull, and the Wolfpack opened it wider with a 16-play, 70-yard drive over the final six minutes. Though it ended in a field goal, it was a six-point swing that gave them a 10-7 lead into the half, and after BC opened the third quarter with both a fumble and an interception, the long-sought battle for supremacy quickly unraveled into a three-score game.
The outcome left BC with a 4-2 record after its perfect start teed up a two-game stretch against both Clemson and NC State and temporarily shelved the dreams of a possible appearance in the ACC Championship Game in December. It was a reality check for an upstart team that many saw as a dark horse candidate in the conference and stung the Eagles and their fans on a night when many expected, to a degree, to celebrate a much-needed breakthrough.
That all happened outside the locker room, away from the Yawkey Center, where the Eagles burned after the game. Recognizing the lost opportunity from Saturday night, they quickly turned the page to analyze what went wrong, how they can correct it, and what they need to add to their checklist as a game at Louisville looms large next weekend.
"We need to get better," Hafley said. "[It] kind of reminds me of the Virginia Tech game a little from last year [that] just got away, really quickly, in the second half. We couldn't recover from that; that's that it reminds me of, and I remember how we bounded back from that, too. And this team will bounce back, and we'll get better. I'm very confident in that."
Here's what else was learned from the loss to the Wolfpack on Saturday night.
*****
First Down: Derailed
The early-season emergence of Boston College's running game made it obvious how the Eagles expected to beat teams by controlling the pace of a football game. They could still go fast, but they wanted to control when and how the speed either accelerated or slowed. It depended on sustaining drives opposite a strong defense while special teams flipped the field, and minimizing miscues opened the gateway to enact a stressful pressure on opponents.
The first half on Saturday emerged directly into that story when BC traded those first quarter touchdowns with NC State, but it fell out of sync when the fumbled snap on a punt and the interception resulted in two quick third quarter scores for the Wolfpack. Losing that synergy forced the Eagles to play like the teams they beat earlier this season, and they sped up the flow because NC State dictated the pace with its 14-point turnaround.
"The 14 points, like that (snapping fingers, we just couldn't recover from," Jeff Hafley said. "We were down, at that point, 24-7, and just felt like a little bit too much at that time."
Forcing BC to play out of its comfort zone didn't totally remove the running game, but a mid-third quarter drive ended with a three-and-out after BC failed to move the sticks on 3rd-and-2 from its own 33. Two plays later, NC State chummed the waters for Devin Leary's 79-yard pass to Thayer Thomas, and the scouting report on the Wolfpack dangerously came true in the worst possible fashion.
That ultimately forced BC to abandon ship on its running game, and, like Virginia Tech last year, the passes piled up in a desperate attempt to generate offense. The Wolfpack knew what to expect by then, and with the cart falling off the tracks, the fourth quarter limped to the finish with the teams running five or six drives for minimal progress.
*****
Second Down: Miscues
The first major miscue occurred when punter Grant Carlson mishandled a snap while kicking from his own 42-yard line. Four plays later, the second happened when Dennis Grosel's pass for Jaden Williams was picked off by Isaiah Moore. Both were in the second half after Connor Lytton's missed field goal kept the score tied in the second quarter, a moot point in comparison to the rest of the game.
"They said that (Grant) bobbled the ball," said Jeff Hafley. "They've got the replay. They have great angles. I only saw the one angle, but I trust the officials that were looking at it, and they saw him bobble it and made the call."
Losing those possessions was uncharacteristic of BC's early-season success, and the special teams mistake confused and perplexed anyone who watched Carlson's punting in the first five games. He didn't qualify for the NCAA stat board but entered Saturday with nine kicks that landed inside an opponent's 20. His nine kicks over 50 yards included a 72-yard blast against Clemson, and as one of the most experienced players on the BC roster, he had made that kick from that spot - a coffin corner or downed boot to flip field position - hundreds of times. He just muffed the snap on a play akin to a goalie dropping the puck in his own net.
Grosel's interception was likewise a bang-bang play uncharacteristic of the BC offense. His three-step dropback had plenty of protection, and his quick pass to Williams was up high because the defensive back blanketed the receiver in single coverage. The ball bounced off Williams' hands and into the air for Moore, and it shell-shocked BC into mistackling Zonovan Knight on a short field on the next drive in the red zone.
"It's a great feeling," NC State head coach Dave Doeren said of his team's capitalization. "Complementary football - the offense is doing their part, the defense is doing their part, and special teams is doing their part. We challenged our special teams; they made some comments, not [about] us but about how good they were on special teams last week, and we took that as a challenge. [We] told our players that if we don't outplay their special teams, we won't win, and the guys did. They played well across the board."
*****
HAF-time Hits
-This was a weird weekend in college football. A handful of top-25 teams dropped to unranked opponents with upsets occurring in every conference across the nation. LSU beat No. 20 Florida in the Bayou, and Auburn beat No. 17 Arkansas on the road. Utah and Baylor beat No. 18 Arizona State and No. 19 BYU, and Purdue outright thumped No. 2 Iowa. No. 9 Oregon struggled with a one-win California squad. It's the brand of havoc well-sought in college football, and it'll likely have a major impact come the end of the season after some of these teams rebound or sag.
-The Red Sox, meanwhile, just hit another grand slam while I typed that paragraph.
-Nostra-Dad-Us had NC State winning this one and once again nearly hit on the number of points scored for one of the teams. He predicted a 31-23 victory for the Wolfpack, continuing a trend where my father came within a score of nailing someone's point totals. It's been a freaky year for him doing that, though I still haven't leaned on him for PowerBall numbers.
-If I do, and I win, I made a promise to my bosses and my wife that I would just disappear. No notice, no nothing. Just off to the races forever. Maybe that's a good thing for a lot of people? I don't know. Just thinking out loud.
-October in New England: woke up and enjoyed bright sunshine on a drive down to Rhode Island to the degree that I put the radio up and the windows down. By the time nighttime rolled around, the raindrops started falling, which means those leaves in my driveway are now soaked. Great. Can't wait to try and rake them this week.
*****
Third Down: Silver Linings
Falling so far behind in the third quarter forced BC to completely shift the offensive playbook, and the Eagles all but abandoned the run after NC State took a 31-7 lead. The Eagles pushed the 100-yard mark in the first half against the teeth of the Wolfpack defense, and losing that cost BC in the second half as the offense sought quicker, more inefficient scores.
"They were doing a lot of motioning out of condensed sets," Dave Doeren said. "Bunches-and-snugs, we call them. That wasn't something they had done a lot going into our game. So we just had to clean up where we needed to align after the motions and how we were fitting those runs."
BC gained 51 yards on the ground in the first quarter alone as Patrick Garwo asserted himself with a couple of big runs, and his 21-yard gain amounted for half of BC's 43-yard drive that ended in a punt towards the end of the quarter. In total, the Eagles held the ball for almost nine minutes in that first frame with 113 yards of total offense as they balanced run versus pass.
It carried over into the second quarter when the ground attack gained 49 yards on seven plays, but the half ended with the Wolfpack going on a six-minute drive for 70 yards. At that point, BC had outearned the time of possession by about two minutes, but the missed field goal led to a drive that tilted the field away from the Eagles. They never recovered, and after gaining eight yards in the third quarter, they only ran three pass plays in the entire fourth.
"I think both backs [Garwo and Alec Sinkfield] were averaging over six yards per carry in the first half," Jeff Hafley said. "We felt great about running the ball, but then that 14-point swing, all of a sudden you're in a hole and you have to score pretty quick. We'll have to watch the film to see if they did anything different or what happened. Probably a combination of both.
*****
Fourth Down: NC State
NC State has never really received the due respect for how Dave Doeren built its program, but the Wolfpack are now the favorite to win the Atlantic Division after dispatching both Clemson and BC. Wake Forest still sits atop the league, but it's NC State that is garnering the most attention now ahead of the second half of the season.
"I can't control the lack of respect that we seem to get publicly," Doeren said. "We know about it. Our team recognizes that people don't think we're good, and we're just going to take care of what we can. We are going to focus on us. We are going to take the next week and try to get better and keep trying to win games, and we're going to end up where we're supposed to be at the end of the year. People will think what they want to think."
In a league full of fatally flawed teams, it's NC State offering the most complete package. Devin Leary finished 16-of-24 passing for 251 yards and three touchdowns without an interception, and the running game gained 133 yards between Knight, Ricky Person Jr. and Jordan Houston. Thayer Thomas had the 79-yard touchdown and finished with four catches on five targets for 122 yards, and while Devin Carter only caught one ball after his opening drive touchdown, he still climbed the ladder for a 40-yard score. Only one receiver failed to catch more than half or all of his targets.
The defense, meanwhile, smothered BC and limited Grosel to 194 yards on 21-of-39 passing. Garwo finished with 50 yards on 11 carries and dropped his average under five yards per carry by the end of the game, and though Sinkfield finished with an average of 6.6 yards per carry, it wasn't enough to push through the ceiling. There was a safety late in the game when Peter Stehr was tackled in the end zone, but the issue was long out of doubt by then.
*****
Point After: Louisville
Preseason predictions held BC as the third-best team in the ACC Atlantic Division, but many believed the Eagles were the dark horse, sleeper team to watch when the season began. In that respect, Saturday's loss to NC State landed the Eagles right where they need to be, and even though the division championship is temporarily off the table, the season progresses with a new perspective.
The division championship still lives, though the discussion about it likely should be muted for a little while. BC still has games against the four remaining divisional opponents, and Wake Forest, despite its undefeated record, still has to go through both NC State and Clemson in order to clinch the division championship. Florida State and Louisville are both still kicking around as well with two league losses, and Syracuse just rode Clemson to the wire for what feels like the umpteenth time.
BC remains in the thick of that despite its 0-2 conference record. Games against FSU, Louisville and Syracuse are very much on the horizon, as are cross-divisional matchups against Virginia Tech, a team that lost to Pittsburgh, 28-7, and Georgia Tech, an improved but inconsistent Coastal Division team.
Saturday's game against NC State was as must-win in the division race as any game since the Clemson game three years ago, but the loss, while damaging, doesn't necessarily spell the end of those divisional hopes. BC needs help, for sure, but there is still a path to an elite tier bowl game. There's also the matter of calling a game must-win, as if other games are throwaways that don't count. Every game, in general, is a must-win, and the season realistically just reminded the Eagles of how difficult it is to win in this conference.
That leads to Louisville. Next week's opponent lost two weekends ago to Virginia by a single point and lost each of its last two games by a combined four points despite scoring over 30 in each contest before enjoying a bye this past weekend.
The Cardinals' 34-33 loss to Virginia two weeks ago particularly stung after they built a 30-13 lead after the third quarter. Brennan Armstrong then engineered one of the most memorable comebacks of the season by leading by three scoring drives, and he finished 40-for-60 for 487 yards and three touchdowns. Despite two interceptions, it paved a 500-yard performance for the Cavaliers against Malik Cunningham's 308 overall yards, including 270 in the air. It was an all-time classic, but it dropped Louisville to 3-3 overall.
BC and Louisville have fast become one of those Atlantic Division matchups that always produces some form of unexpected drama, and it's the Eagles' first trip to Cardinals Stadium since Dennis Grosel first appeared on the gridiron following Anthony Brown's leg injury two years ago.
Perceptions of BC changed when Jeff Hafley became the head coach, but the looming stat still hung like a fly in a good glass of red wine. For all that occurred over the past two years, the team simply knocked on the door, but damaging the glass ceiling wasn't enough to open the gates to the top tier within an Atlantic Division controlled by Clemson.
The division opened wide this year as the Tigers slid backwards, but the barrier to the top of the ACC remained in place for at least one more week after Saturday night after No. 21 NC State beat Boston College, 33-7.
"We didn't execute," Hafley said. "Even going to the half at 10-7, we dropped some balls. We missed some plays. We missed a field goal. We didn't execute, and that's me being honest. In the second half, we come out, and we drop a punt. We turned the ball over, which those two turnovers lead to points, and we couldn't recover from that. That was a 14-point swing, very quickly."
The missed execution stung particularly hard on a night when BC played an even first half against the visiting Wolfpack. NC State scored on its first drive as Devin Carter unexpectedly 'Moss'd' defensive back Elijah Jones, but the Eagles countered with a drive that ended in Dennis Grosel's touchdown pass to Trae Barry.
It ignited the Alumni Stadium crowd, and it kept BC even with an NC State that found itself in tough sledding against the soggy Massachusetts night. The Eagles, meanwhile, twice drove the field as the first quarter bled into the second, but Connor Lytton's first career missed field goal kept things knotted at 7-7.
That misstep revealed a leak in the Eagles' hull, and the Wolfpack opened it wider with a 16-play, 70-yard drive over the final six minutes. Though it ended in a field goal, it was a six-point swing that gave them a 10-7 lead into the half, and after BC opened the third quarter with both a fumble and an interception, the long-sought battle for supremacy quickly unraveled into a three-score game.
The outcome left BC with a 4-2 record after its perfect start teed up a two-game stretch against both Clemson and NC State and temporarily shelved the dreams of a possible appearance in the ACC Championship Game in December. It was a reality check for an upstart team that many saw as a dark horse candidate in the conference and stung the Eagles and their fans on a night when many expected, to a degree, to celebrate a much-needed breakthrough.
That all happened outside the locker room, away from the Yawkey Center, where the Eagles burned after the game. Recognizing the lost opportunity from Saturday night, they quickly turned the page to analyze what went wrong, how they can correct it, and what they need to add to their checklist as a game at Louisville looms large next weekend.
"We need to get better," Hafley said. "[It] kind of reminds me of the Virginia Tech game a little from last year [that] just got away, really quickly, in the second half. We couldn't recover from that; that's that it reminds me of, and I remember how we bounded back from that, too. And this team will bounce back, and we'll get better. I'm very confident in that."
Here's what else was learned from the loss to the Wolfpack on Saturday night.
*****
First Down: Derailed
The early-season emergence of Boston College's running game made it obvious how the Eagles expected to beat teams by controlling the pace of a football game. They could still go fast, but they wanted to control when and how the speed either accelerated or slowed. It depended on sustaining drives opposite a strong defense while special teams flipped the field, and minimizing miscues opened the gateway to enact a stressful pressure on opponents.
The first half on Saturday emerged directly into that story when BC traded those first quarter touchdowns with NC State, but it fell out of sync when the fumbled snap on a punt and the interception resulted in two quick third quarter scores for the Wolfpack. Losing that synergy forced the Eagles to play like the teams they beat earlier this season, and they sped up the flow because NC State dictated the pace with its 14-point turnaround.
"The 14 points, like that (snapping fingers, we just couldn't recover from," Jeff Hafley said. "We were down, at that point, 24-7, and just felt like a little bit too much at that time."
Forcing BC to play out of its comfort zone didn't totally remove the running game, but a mid-third quarter drive ended with a three-and-out after BC failed to move the sticks on 3rd-and-2 from its own 33. Two plays later, NC State chummed the waters for Devin Leary's 79-yard pass to Thayer Thomas, and the scouting report on the Wolfpack dangerously came true in the worst possible fashion.
That ultimately forced BC to abandon ship on its running game, and, like Virginia Tech last year, the passes piled up in a desperate attempt to generate offense. The Wolfpack knew what to expect by then, and with the cart falling off the tracks, the fourth quarter limped to the finish with the teams running five or six drives for minimal progress.
*****
Second Down: Miscues
The first major miscue occurred when punter Grant Carlson mishandled a snap while kicking from his own 42-yard line. Four plays later, the second happened when Dennis Grosel's pass for Jaden Williams was picked off by Isaiah Moore. Both were in the second half after Connor Lytton's missed field goal kept the score tied in the second quarter, a moot point in comparison to the rest of the game.
"They said that (Grant) bobbled the ball," said Jeff Hafley. "They've got the replay. They have great angles. I only saw the one angle, but I trust the officials that were looking at it, and they saw him bobble it and made the call."
Losing those possessions was uncharacteristic of BC's early-season success, and the special teams mistake confused and perplexed anyone who watched Carlson's punting in the first five games. He didn't qualify for the NCAA stat board but entered Saturday with nine kicks that landed inside an opponent's 20. His nine kicks over 50 yards included a 72-yard blast against Clemson, and as one of the most experienced players on the BC roster, he had made that kick from that spot - a coffin corner or downed boot to flip field position - hundreds of times. He just muffed the snap on a play akin to a goalie dropping the puck in his own net.
Grosel's interception was likewise a bang-bang play uncharacteristic of the BC offense. His three-step dropback had plenty of protection, and his quick pass to Williams was up high because the defensive back blanketed the receiver in single coverage. The ball bounced off Williams' hands and into the air for Moore, and it shell-shocked BC into mistackling Zonovan Knight on a short field on the next drive in the red zone.
"It's a great feeling," NC State head coach Dave Doeren said of his team's capitalization. "Complementary football - the offense is doing their part, the defense is doing their part, and special teams is doing their part. We challenged our special teams; they made some comments, not [about] us but about how good they were on special teams last week, and we took that as a challenge. [We] told our players that if we don't outplay their special teams, we won't win, and the guys did. They played well across the board."
*****
HAF-time Hits
-This was a weird weekend in college football. A handful of top-25 teams dropped to unranked opponents with upsets occurring in every conference across the nation. LSU beat No. 20 Florida in the Bayou, and Auburn beat No. 17 Arkansas on the road. Utah and Baylor beat No. 18 Arizona State and No. 19 BYU, and Purdue outright thumped No. 2 Iowa. No. 9 Oregon struggled with a one-win California squad. It's the brand of havoc well-sought in college football, and it'll likely have a major impact come the end of the season after some of these teams rebound or sag.
-The Red Sox, meanwhile, just hit another grand slam while I typed that paragraph.
-Nostra-Dad-Us had NC State winning this one and once again nearly hit on the number of points scored for one of the teams. He predicted a 31-23 victory for the Wolfpack, continuing a trend where my father came within a score of nailing someone's point totals. It's been a freaky year for him doing that, though I still haven't leaned on him for PowerBall numbers.
-If I do, and I win, I made a promise to my bosses and my wife that I would just disappear. No notice, no nothing. Just off to the races forever. Maybe that's a good thing for a lot of people? I don't know. Just thinking out loud.
-October in New England: woke up and enjoyed bright sunshine on a drive down to Rhode Island to the degree that I put the radio up and the windows down. By the time nighttime rolled around, the raindrops started falling, which means those leaves in my driveway are now soaked. Great. Can't wait to try and rake them this week.
*****
Third Down: Silver Linings
Falling so far behind in the third quarter forced BC to completely shift the offensive playbook, and the Eagles all but abandoned the run after NC State took a 31-7 lead. The Eagles pushed the 100-yard mark in the first half against the teeth of the Wolfpack defense, and losing that cost BC in the second half as the offense sought quicker, more inefficient scores.
"They were doing a lot of motioning out of condensed sets," Dave Doeren said. "Bunches-and-snugs, we call them. That wasn't something they had done a lot going into our game. So we just had to clean up where we needed to align after the motions and how we were fitting those runs."
BC gained 51 yards on the ground in the first quarter alone as Patrick Garwo asserted himself with a couple of big runs, and his 21-yard gain amounted for half of BC's 43-yard drive that ended in a punt towards the end of the quarter. In total, the Eagles held the ball for almost nine minutes in that first frame with 113 yards of total offense as they balanced run versus pass.
It carried over into the second quarter when the ground attack gained 49 yards on seven plays, but the half ended with the Wolfpack going on a six-minute drive for 70 yards. At that point, BC had outearned the time of possession by about two minutes, but the missed field goal led to a drive that tilted the field away from the Eagles. They never recovered, and after gaining eight yards in the third quarter, they only ran three pass plays in the entire fourth.
"I think both backs [Garwo and Alec Sinkfield] were averaging over six yards per carry in the first half," Jeff Hafley said. "We felt great about running the ball, but then that 14-point swing, all of a sudden you're in a hole and you have to score pretty quick. We'll have to watch the film to see if they did anything different or what happened. Probably a combination of both.
*****
Fourth Down: NC State
NC State has never really received the due respect for how Dave Doeren built its program, but the Wolfpack are now the favorite to win the Atlantic Division after dispatching both Clemson and BC. Wake Forest still sits atop the league, but it's NC State that is garnering the most attention now ahead of the second half of the season.
"I can't control the lack of respect that we seem to get publicly," Doeren said. "We know about it. Our team recognizes that people don't think we're good, and we're just going to take care of what we can. We are going to focus on us. We are going to take the next week and try to get better and keep trying to win games, and we're going to end up where we're supposed to be at the end of the year. People will think what they want to think."
In a league full of fatally flawed teams, it's NC State offering the most complete package. Devin Leary finished 16-of-24 passing for 251 yards and three touchdowns without an interception, and the running game gained 133 yards between Knight, Ricky Person Jr. and Jordan Houston. Thayer Thomas had the 79-yard touchdown and finished with four catches on five targets for 122 yards, and while Devin Carter only caught one ball after his opening drive touchdown, he still climbed the ladder for a 40-yard score. Only one receiver failed to catch more than half or all of his targets.
The defense, meanwhile, smothered BC and limited Grosel to 194 yards on 21-of-39 passing. Garwo finished with 50 yards on 11 carries and dropped his average under five yards per carry by the end of the game, and though Sinkfield finished with an average of 6.6 yards per carry, it wasn't enough to push through the ceiling. There was a safety late in the game when Peter Stehr was tackled in the end zone, but the issue was long out of doubt by then.
*****
Point After: Louisville
Preseason predictions held BC as the third-best team in the ACC Atlantic Division, but many believed the Eagles were the dark horse, sleeper team to watch when the season began. In that respect, Saturday's loss to NC State landed the Eagles right where they need to be, and even though the division championship is temporarily off the table, the season progresses with a new perspective.
The division championship still lives, though the discussion about it likely should be muted for a little while. BC still has games against the four remaining divisional opponents, and Wake Forest, despite its undefeated record, still has to go through both NC State and Clemson in order to clinch the division championship. Florida State and Louisville are both still kicking around as well with two league losses, and Syracuse just rode Clemson to the wire for what feels like the umpteenth time.
BC remains in the thick of that despite its 0-2 conference record. Games against FSU, Louisville and Syracuse are very much on the horizon, as are cross-divisional matchups against Virginia Tech, a team that lost to Pittsburgh, 28-7, and Georgia Tech, an improved but inconsistent Coastal Division team.
Saturday's game against NC State was as must-win in the division race as any game since the Clemson game three years ago, but the loss, while damaging, doesn't necessarily spell the end of those divisional hopes. BC needs help, for sure, but there is still a path to an elite tier bowl game. There's also the matter of calling a game must-win, as if other games are throwaways that don't count. Every game, in general, is a must-win, and the season realistically just reminded the Eagles of how difficult it is to win in this conference.
That leads to Louisville. Next week's opponent lost two weekends ago to Virginia by a single point and lost each of its last two games by a combined four points despite scoring over 30 in each contest before enjoying a bye this past weekend.
The Cardinals' 34-33 loss to Virginia two weeks ago particularly stung after they built a 30-13 lead after the third quarter. Brennan Armstrong then engineered one of the most memorable comebacks of the season by leading by three scoring drives, and he finished 40-for-60 for 487 yards and three touchdowns. Despite two interceptions, it paved a 500-yard performance for the Cavaliers against Malik Cunningham's 308 overall yards, including 270 in the air. It was an all-time classic, but it dropped Louisville to 3-3 overall.
BC and Louisville have fast become one of those Atlantic Division matchups that always produces some form of unexpected drama, and it's the Eagles' first trip to Cardinals Stadium since Dennis Grosel first appeared on the gridiron following Anthony Brown's leg injury two years ago.
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