Boston College Athletics
Photo by: Eddie Shabomardenly
The Replay: Louisville
October 26, 2024 | Football, #ForBoston Files
Friday night game slips away in the fourth for third consecutive loss.
To quote the late, great Yogi Berra, it felt like "déjà vu all over again".
The problems facing Boston College over the course of the 2024 season had little to do with the team's ability to start a game quickly or finish a second half with a strong effort. Over the first seven games, the Eagles had been one or the other and illustrated their strengths at various intervals within the confines of a 60-minute football game. The issues pointed nowhere towards the ability to produce explosive offensive plays or the creation of pressure on the defensive end.
No, the issues had little to do with BC's ability to play successful football. The problem, it seemed, pointed more towards stringing those performances together and pairing strong first halves with the ability to complete a second half closeout. The problem - or problems - tilted towards the full, 60-minute body of work.
On Friday night, after an electric first half built a 20-0 lead over the visiting Louisville Cardinals, that singular problem summarized the collective woes of another shocking loss, the third in a row of its kind, and a 31-27 final that resonated deeply within a program continuing its search for answers.
"[We] can't play for 60 minutes," lamented head coach Bill O'Brien in his postgame remarks. "I can't coach them well enough to get them to play for 60 minutes. I have to coach a lot better. I have to watch the tape and figure out how to fix it."
Even ahead of Friday's matchup, Louisville appeared ready to present a foil to the tense anxiety gripping the snarling traffic headed for Alumni Stadium. It had lost three of its last four games and dropped each decision by a touchdown, and the magical and intangible "stuff" associated with the BC program punched the Cardinals directly in the nose with the first half's hard-nosed style. In a twist from the Virginia Tech game, the storyboard saw the Eagles open a huge lead by controlling defensive pace against a different style built largely around quarterback Tyler Shough, who levied reasonable expectations against the beleaguered unit's struggles.
He applied electric pressure to various opponents throughout the season, but BC's defense placed him under duress by employing a tough sledding through gaps in his pocket protection. Disguised coverages - a hallmark of Tim Lewis through the first three months of preseason and regular season installation - forced him specifically out of his cocoon, and his open-handed side sliced the field in half by causing more technical issues for an offense built around downfield crossing routes.
Shough found himself caged by being forced into free space, and he ended two first quarter drives with turnovers caused by the defense pushing him where it wanted him to move. A fourth down conversion that fell short of the sticks at the sideline offered a first look at BC's attack, but the next drive resulted in the same move pushing him into a spot where he an ill-advised pass thrown across his body landed short of a receiver and in the hands of defensive lineman Quintayvious Hutchins, who then rumbled down the left sideline with the first big man pick since Shitta Sillah's 2020 pick against - coincidentally - Louisville.
"I think he played really well," said defensive back Cam Martinez. "He was a difference maker for us. He's a really good player, and I was waiting for him to have one of those types of games. I was glad he was able to do that."
Each of those plays enabled BC to open its offense by unbalancing the game pace, and Thomas Castellanos levied the first tariff on Louisville's mistake-addled offense by floating a 54-yard catch-and-run to tight end Kamari Morales. The Cardinals then gift-wrapped the lead by playing sloppy football that included a penalty to call back a 40-yard pass to Kris Hughes and a backfoot pass by Shough that turned one of his receivers into a defender when KP Price made a bid for a straight line interception at the sideline.
Shough finished the first quarter with admirable numbers, but the 6-for-10 passing period for 56 yards left an additional 95 yards on the table due to penalties, missed throws and the interception. That Louisville could have been better ultimately overshadowed and overlapped gaps in BC's performance, but a late second quarter score dinged the Eagles with a callback to the Virginia game that left the Cardinals with a wide open opportunity at the start of the second half.
"What got us open in the first half was a couple of gadget plays," said O'Brien. "We didn't really do anything, and the first half had been pretty even. They turned the ball over and we didn't. So we did some good things in the first half, but we really didn't do much on offense [over the course of the game]."
BC subsequently failed to course correct, and Louisville dominated the second half by scoring four times over five drives across the third and fourth quarters. Combined with the touchdown before the half, the Cardinals tallied four touchdown drives and a field goal while going three-and-out near the end of the third quarter while the Eagles comparatively posted three consecutive three-and-outs in the fourth quarter after scoring a five-play, 74-yard touchdown drive in the third.
Shough simultaneously found his footing, and going 16-for-22 in the second half allowed his running game to gain 73 yards on 14 carries in the third and fourth quarters. The offense, therefore, posted an average yardage per play that gained roughly two additional yards per snap than its first half performance, after which BC's production dipped behind the Louisville defensive front.
"We were up 20-7," noted O'Brien, "and we felt like we were in a good position. Hindsight being 20-20, maybe you do something different, but it's not like we have a juggernaut passing offense."
Castellanos eventually finished 13-for-28 for 164 yards and three touchdowns while adding 43 additional yards on 15 carries, but he went 7-for-16 in the second half for 86 yards after throwing for two touchdowns in the first two quarters. Both Treshaun Ward and Kye Robichaux added a combined 98 yards on 23 carries and a score, but the 4.9-per-carry average in the first half dipped to 2.6 yards per carry in the second half.
Shough, meanwhile, passed for 333 yards and two touchdowns with an additional interception in the second half, but his 74 percent completion rate anchored eight catches on 11 targets for receiver Ja'Corey Brooks. Running back Isaac Brown gained 85 yards on 18 attempts and scored twice, and receiver Ahmari Huggins-Bruce added five catches for 87 yards. Sophomore tight end Nate Kurisky caught both scores, and Brock Travelstead added a 23-yard field goal after falling short on his 56-yard attempt from the second quarter.
"He's a six-year guy," said Martinez about Shough, "so he's very seasoned. You could tell there were some things that he could just sniff out. I pride myself on bluffing a lot in disguise, but he was able to pick up on a lot of those things. That comes with experience, and he's got a lot of it. He played really well, and he was a difference maker."
The problems facing Boston College over the course of the 2024 season had little to do with the team's ability to start a game quickly or finish a second half with a strong effort. Over the first seven games, the Eagles had been one or the other and illustrated their strengths at various intervals within the confines of a 60-minute football game. The issues pointed nowhere towards the ability to produce explosive offensive plays or the creation of pressure on the defensive end.
No, the issues had little to do with BC's ability to play successful football. The problem, it seemed, pointed more towards stringing those performances together and pairing strong first halves with the ability to complete a second half closeout. The problem - or problems - tilted towards the full, 60-minute body of work.
On Friday night, after an electric first half built a 20-0 lead over the visiting Louisville Cardinals, that singular problem summarized the collective woes of another shocking loss, the third in a row of its kind, and a 31-27 final that resonated deeply within a program continuing its search for answers.
"[We] can't play for 60 minutes," lamented head coach Bill O'Brien in his postgame remarks. "I can't coach them well enough to get them to play for 60 minutes. I have to coach a lot better. I have to watch the tape and figure out how to fix it."
Even ahead of Friday's matchup, Louisville appeared ready to present a foil to the tense anxiety gripping the snarling traffic headed for Alumni Stadium. It had lost three of its last four games and dropped each decision by a touchdown, and the magical and intangible "stuff" associated with the BC program punched the Cardinals directly in the nose with the first half's hard-nosed style. In a twist from the Virginia Tech game, the storyboard saw the Eagles open a huge lead by controlling defensive pace against a different style built largely around quarterback Tyler Shough, who levied reasonable expectations against the beleaguered unit's struggles.
He applied electric pressure to various opponents throughout the season, but BC's defense placed him under duress by employing a tough sledding through gaps in his pocket protection. Disguised coverages - a hallmark of Tim Lewis through the first three months of preseason and regular season installation - forced him specifically out of his cocoon, and his open-handed side sliced the field in half by causing more technical issues for an offense built around downfield crossing routes.
Shough found himself caged by being forced into free space, and he ended two first quarter drives with turnovers caused by the defense pushing him where it wanted him to move. A fourth down conversion that fell short of the sticks at the sideline offered a first look at BC's attack, but the next drive resulted in the same move pushing him into a spot where he an ill-advised pass thrown across his body landed short of a receiver and in the hands of defensive lineman Quintayvious Hutchins, who then rumbled down the left sideline with the first big man pick since Shitta Sillah's 2020 pick against - coincidentally - Louisville.
"I think he played really well," said defensive back Cam Martinez. "He was a difference maker for us. He's a really good player, and I was waiting for him to have one of those types of games. I was glad he was able to do that."
Each of those plays enabled BC to open its offense by unbalancing the game pace, and Thomas Castellanos levied the first tariff on Louisville's mistake-addled offense by floating a 54-yard catch-and-run to tight end Kamari Morales. The Cardinals then gift-wrapped the lead by playing sloppy football that included a penalty to call back a 40-yard pass to Kris Hughes and a backfoot pass by Shough that turned one of his receivers into a defender when KP Price made a bid for a straight line interception at the sideline.
Shough finished the first quarter with admirable numbers, but the 6-for-10 passing period for 56 yards left an additional 95 yards on the table due to penalties, missed throws and the interception. That Louisville could have been better ultimately overshadowed and overlapped gaps in BC's performance, but a late second quarter score dinged the Eagles with a callback to the Virginia game that left the Cardinals with a wide open opportunity at the start of the second half.
"What got us open in the first half was a couple of gadget plays," said O'Brien. "We didn't really do anything, and the first half had been pretty even. They turned the ball over and we didn't. So we did some good things in the first half, but we really didn't do much on offense [over the course of the game]."
BC subsequently failed to course correct, and Louisville dominated the second half by scoring four times over five drives across the third and fourth quarters. Combined with the touchdown before the half, the Cardinals tallied four touchdown drives and a field goal while going three-and-out near the end of the third quarter while the Eagles comparatively posted three consecutive three-and-outs in the fourth quarter after scoring a five-play, 74-yard touchdown drive in the third.
Shough simultaneously found his footing, and going 16-for-22 in the second half allowed his running game to gain 73 yards on 14 carries in the third and fourth quarters. The offense, therefore, posted an average yardage per play that gained roughly two additional yards per snap than its first half performance, after which BC's production dipped behind the Louisville defensive front.
"We were up 20-7," noted O'Brien, "and we felt like we were in a good position. Hindsight being 20-20, maybe you do something different, but it's not like we have a juggernaut passing offense."
Castellanos eventually finished 13-for-28 for 164 yards and three touchdowns while adding 43 additional yards on 15 carries, but he went 7-for-16 in the second half for 86 yards after throwing for two touchdowns in the first two quarters. Both Treshaun Ward and Kye Robichaux added a combined 98 yards on 23 carries and a score, but the 4.9-per-carry average in the first half dipped to 2.6 yards per carry in the second half.
Shough, meanwhile, passed for 333 yards and two touchdowns with an additional interception in the second half, but his 74 percent completion rate anchored eight catches on 11 targets for receiver Ja'Corey Brooks. Running back Isaac Brown gained 85 yards on 18 attempts and scored twice, and receiver Ahmari Huggins-Bruce added five catches for 87 yards. Sophomore tight end Nate Kurisky caught both scores, and Brock Travelstead added a 23-yard field goal after falling short on his 56-yard attempt from the second quarter.
"He's a six-year guy," said Martinez about Shough, "so he's very seasoned. You could tell there were some things that he could just sniff out. I pride myself on bluffing a lot in disguise, but he was able to pick up on a lot of those things. That comes with experience, and he's got a lot of it. He played really well, and he was a difference maker."
Players Mentioned
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