Boston College Athletics
Photo by: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports
October 22, 2023 | Football, #ForBoston Files
The most complete game this season lifted BC past the Ramblin' Wreck.
Amari Jackson never intended to become a bad, bad man.
The Boston College defensive back easily made the best play of a wild Saturday in college football, and his first-quarter interception, pick-six of Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King resembled an Odell Beckham-type catch. Sandwiching the ball against his body in a one-on-one matchup against wide receiver Dominick Blaylock froze everyone on the field who thought he made an incredible pass breakup, and he was the only player who knew the ball didn't hit the turf. Nobody else moved while he sprinted towards the end zone with the play legitimately stopping everyone dead in their tracks, but the aftermath sent him into every sports-watching home and onto every feed of every social media app known to man with the question of how he generated the instant acrobatics.
The truthful answer? He didn't. He never intended to intercept the pass. It was a breakup gone sideways.
"I was going for a PBU," Jackson admitted. "I just saw the ball, and when I knocked it down, it stuck to my hip, so I just took off running. The crowd wasn't loud, and I thought it was going to get called back, but I just kept running. My teammates didn't even know I had the ball, and I was celebrating that I got that pick-six. That was my first one ever."
Jackson's theatrics broke an early stalemate between the Eagles and Yellow Jackets and kick-fired four quarters of BC's most complete performance to date. Georgia Tech mustered one mini-rally in the third quarter, but 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter maintained the Eagles' heading and ushered them through their third straight win in a 38-23 victory at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
"That was a great win," said head coach Jeff Hafley after the game. "I thought we started off fast and went into halftime doing pretty well. Then we came out and drove the football, but we threw a pick [that led to] them scoring. It let them right back in the game, but it once again came to the fight that our guys have. That was a good team. They're well-coached, and their quarterback is a good player…but it's a really good win. Our guys did what we needed to do, and it's a happy group right with their confidence after three wins in a row. It's just building. I love coaching them. They're fun to be around, they never quit, and they just keep fighting."
Both BC and Georgia Tech entered Saturday with a bye week in the previous week's rearview mirror, but both took similar approaches to their respective game plans by continuing to build around their transfer starting quarterbacks. Both King and BC's Thomas Castellanos showed out by producing 350-plus yards, and each utilized specific attributes to punch holes in the opponent's defense.
Neither threw the ball well in the first quarter, but Castellanos produced three points by hitting Taji Johnson and Kye Robichaux for a combined 64 yards on consecutive play calls. King responded by relying more on running backs Trey Cooley and Jamal Haynes, and even Jackson's interception - while a phenomenal highlight - was more about a defender making a play than it was a defense stuffing the quarterback into a phone booth.
That changed, though, in the second quarter when Castellanos completed 7-of-9 passes for 69 yards and began gashing the Georgia Tech defense with intermediate routes formerly destined for his rushing ability. He still flashed his legs by extending a mid-quarter drive with a seven-yard, third down rush for the sticks, but he kept the ball moving by spreading passes to receivers Lewis Bond and Jaden Williams and tight end Jeremiah Franklin, the latter of which caught a 30-yard pass on 2nd-and-22 after offensive lineman Kyle Hergel drew a facemask penalty.
"We [worked] on what I'm comfortable with and what the guys are comfortable with," said Castellanos. "It [starts] with up front and what [the offensive line] can protect, and we executed. Coach Shimko had a good game plan and when he called passing plays for us to execute, they were executed."
Scoring before halftime deflated Georgia Tech, and though BC fell out of sync throughout the early stages of the third quarter, the team simply continued pounding away at the Yellow Jackets with a workmanlike, yeoman's behavior. It wasn't perfect, but the Eagles overcame an interception by Castellanos by rededicating themselves to getting everyone involved. Having been handed an opening by a missed extra point, the quarterback hit tight end George Takacs for a 27-yard gain before Kye Robichaux powered into the end zone, and after forcing Georgia Tech to punt, BC broke the Yellow Jackets with a 43-yard sprint on 4th-and-1 by Castellanos.
"For the most part, he sticks with the calls," Hafley said, "and I thought the offense dialed up a really good one on the short yardage. We'd been run, run, run, but we threw the play action pass and hit George, which I thought was an awesome call and executed really well. As soon as we told the staff on third down that if we got it to one yard, we'd go for it on fourth down, I thought we'd just get the first. Even in a four-minute drive, to finish that game [like that], Georgia Tech was going backwards, and they had those big guys inside. That was a really big, strong, powerful interior line, but our offensive line is playing really well."
"I was really thinking about getting the first down," Castellanos said. "All game and the second half of this season, I'm just working on staying healthy and not taking some of those licks. That one just popped for me, and I took it 43 yards."
BC added a third touchdown following Elijah Jones' interception in the immediate aftermath of Castellanos' touchdown, and another pick with the 15-point lead enabled the Eagles to wipe whatever remained of Georgia Tech's honey with a close-out drive with under six minutes remaining. In total, BC finished the quarter with 153 yards on 17 carries, and holding the ball for just under 10 minutes forced a fourth-quarter shutout in a game where the Yellow Jackets committed a 28-point swing with three interceptions that created 14 points for the Eagles.
"One of the plans this week was that we had to win the turnover battle," Hafley said. "When they beat Miami, they had five takeaways. They had five takeaways when they beat Wake Forest. When they lost to Bowling Green, they didn't have a takeaway. This was a team that was thriving off of takeaways, and they ripped at [the ball]. I told the staff that we had to emphasize that even more because of who we were playing again, and our players just executed. There's no magical drill that leads to those interceptions. It's just constant practice and getting better."
The win improved Boston College to 4-3 on the season and extended the Eagles to their first three-game winning streak since the 2021 season started with a 4-0 overall record. Having achieved the streak in October marked the latest such accomplishment since BC beat Louisville, Miami and Virginia Tech in consecutive games in October 2018, and the wins at Army and Georgia Tech are the first consecutive road wins not involving a Massachusetts team since a 2017 spin through Louisville and Virginia.
Combined with Duke's loss to Florida State and Virginia's upset over North Carolina, the Eagles now find themselves within striking distance of second place in the ACC race. At 2-2, BC's record is tied with Georgia Tech for sixth place while Clemson sits behind the duo with a 2-3 record. Virginia Tech and Duke are both immediately ahead with 2-1 records, while UNC and Louisville own 3-1 records. Florida State is in first place at 5-0, to which the top two teams in this year's standings advance to the conference championship game.
BC returns home next week to play Connecticut at 12 p.m. before heading to Syracuse for a Friday night game on November 3.
The Boston College defensive back easily made the best play of a wild Saturday in college football, and his first-quarter interception, pick-six of Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King resembled an Odell Beckham-type catch. Sandwiching the ball against his body in a one-on-one matchup against wide receiver Dominick Blaylock froze everyone on the field who thought he made an incredible pass breakup, and he was the only player who knew the ball didn't hit the turf. Nobody else moved while he sprinted towards the end zone with the play legitimately stopping everyone dead in their tracks, but the aftermath sent him into every sports-watching home and onto every feed of every social media app known to man with the question of how he generated the instant acrobatics.
The truthful answer? He didn't. He never intended to intercept the pass. It was a breakup gone sideways.
"I was going for a PBU," Jackson admitted. "I just saw the ball, and when I knocked it down, it stuck to my hip, so I just took off running. The crowd wasn't loud, and I thought it was going to get called back, but I just kept running. My teammates didn't even know I had the ball, and I was celebrating that I got that pick-six. That was my first one ever."
Jackson's theatrics broke an early stalemate between the Eagles and Yellow Jackets and kick-fired four quarters of BC's most complete performance to date. Georgia Tech mustered one mini-rally in the third quarter, but 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter maintained the Eagles' heading and ushered them through their third straight win in a 38-23 victory at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
"That was a great win," said head coach Jeff Hafley after the game. "I thought we started off fast and went into halftime doing pretty well. Then we came out and drove the football, but we threw a pick [that led to] them scoring. It let them right back in the game, but it once again came to the fight that our guys have. That was a good team. They're well-coached, and their quarterback is a good player…but it's a really good win. Our guys did what we needed to do, and it's a happy group right with their confidence after three wins in a row. It's just building. I love coaching them. They're fun to be around, they never quit, and they just keep fighting."
Both BC and Georgia Tech entered Saturday with a bye week in the previous week's rearview mirror, but both took similar approaches to their respective game plans by continuing to build around their transfer starting quarterbacks. Both King and BC's Thomas Castellanos showed out by producing 350-plus yards, and each utilized specific attributes to punch holes in the opponent's defense.
Neither threw the ball well in the first quarter, but Castellanos produced three points by hitting Taji Johnson and Kye Robichaux for a combined 64 yards on consecutive play calls. King responded by relying more on running backs Trey Cooley and Jamal Haynes, and even Jackson's interception - while a phenomenal highlight - was more about a defender making a play than it was a defense stuffing the quarterback into a phone booth.
That changed, though, in the second quarter when Castellanos completed 7-of-9 passes for 69 yards and began gashing the Georgia Tech defense with intermediate routes formerly destined for his rushing ability. He still flashed his legs by extending a mid-quarter drive with a seven-yard, third down rush for the sticks, but he kept the ball moving by spreading passes to receivers Lewis Bond and Jaden Williams and tight end Jeremiah Franklin, the latter of which caught a 30-yard pass on 2nd-and-22 after offensive lineman Kyle Hergel drew a facemask penalty.
"We [worked] on what I'm comfortable with and what the guys are comfortable with," said Castellanos. "It [starts] with up front and what [the offensive line] can protect, and we executed. Coach Shimko had a good game plan and when he called passing plays for us to execute, they were executed."
Scoring before halftime deflated Georgia Tech, and though BC fell out of sync throughout the early stages of the third quarter, the team simply continued pounding away at the Yellow Jackets with a workmanlike, yeoman's behavior. It wasn't perfect, but the Eagles overcame an interception by Castellanos by rededicating themselves to getting everyone involved. Having been handed an opening by a missed extra point, the quarterback hit tight end George Takacs for a 27-yard gain before Kye Robichaux powered into the end zone, and after forcing Georgia Tech to punt, BC broke the Yellow Jackets with a 43-yard sprint on 4th-and-1 by Castellanos.
"For the most part, he sticks with the calls," Hafley said, "and I thought the offense dialed up a really good one on the short yardage. We'd been run, run, run, but we threw the play action pass and hit George, which I thought was an awesome call and executed really well. As soon as we told the staff on third down that if we got it to one yard, we'd go for it on fourth down, I thought we'd just get the first. Even in a four-minute drive, to finish that game [like that], Georgia Tech was going backwards, and they had those big guys inside. That was a really big, strong, powerful interior line, but our offensive line is playing really well."
"I was really thinking about getting the first down," Castellanos said. "All game and the second half of this season, I'm just working on staying healthy and not taking some of those licks. That one just popped for me, and I took it 43 yards."
BC added a third touchdown following Elijah Jones' interception in the immediate aftermath of Castellanos' touchdown, and another pick with the 15-point lead enabled the Eagles to wipe whatever remained of Georgia Tech's honey with a close-out drive with under six minutes remaining. In total, BC finished the quarter with 153 yards on 17 carries, and holding the ball for just under 10 minutes forced a fourth-quarter shutout in a game where the Yellow Jackets committed a 28-point swing with three interceptions that created 14 points for the Eagles.
"One of the plans this week was that we had to win the turnover battle," Hafley said. "When they beat Miami, they had five takeaways. They had five takeaways when they beat Wake Forest. When they lost to Bowling Green, they didn't have a takeaway. This was a team that was thriving off of takeaways, and they ripped at [the ball]. I told the staff that we had to emphasize that even more because of who we were playing again, and our players just executed. There's no magical drill that leads to those interceptions. It's just constant practice and getting better."
The win improved Boston College to 4-3 on the season and extended the Eagles to their first three-game winning streak since the 2021 season started with a 4-0 overall record. Having achieved the streak in October marked the latest such accomplishment since BC beat Louisville, Miami and Virginia Tech in consecutive games in October 2018, and the wins at Army and Georgia Tech are the first consecutive road wins not involving a Massachusetts team since a 2017 spin through Louisville and Virginia.
Combined with Duke's loss to Florida State and Virginia's upset over North Carolina, the Eagles now find themselves within striking distance of second place in the ACC race. At 2-2, BC's record is tied with Georgia Tech for sixth place while Clemson sits behind the duo with a 2-3 record. Virginia Tech and Duke are both immediately ahead with 2-1 records, while UNC and Louisville own 3-1 records. Florida State is in first place at 5-0, to which the top two teams in this year's standings advance to the conference championship game.
BC returns home next week to play Connecticut at 12 p.m. before heading to Syracuse for a Friday night game on November 3.
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