The Replay: Western Kentucky

To many of the 41,403 fans who stayed until the end of Boston College's 21-20 win over Western Kentucky, Saturday afternoon was a growth exercise against an upset-minded opponent. Backup quarterback Grayson James was an understudy who transferred from Florida International, and his last start against the Hilltoppers ended in supreme defeat in a Conference USA matchup.

To the players on the sideline, the final throw illustrated the dedication of a quarterback room teeming with talent. To the wide receivers, James' final pass to Jerand Bradley showed the skill level and dedication of a team that came together after a slow start. To head coach Bill O'Brien, BC earned a hard-fought win over a good opponent.

To James and Bradley, the connection on their final score with 3:33 on the clock flashed back to John Paul II High School in Plano, Texas and days spent leading the Cardinals to the TAPPS State Semifinal win over Antonian Prep.

"That was amazing," Bradley laughed after BC's come-from-behind victory. "We already had the connection from high school, and it was just like having a flashback to doing what we used to do. When we stepped up, I knew what we had to do, and it was nice to have him throw me a game-winner. It was dope… it was super dope."

The hours ahead of Saturday afternoon landed a proverbial lead balloon on the Alumni Stadium faithful when an injury sustained against Michigan State sidelined Thomas Castellanos for the duration of the game against the Hilltoppers. The confusion associated with the preliminary report quickly transitioned to shock as people feared a different outcome from last week's Red Bandanna Game, and the early hours after Friday night's breaking cycle bred a nervous energy associated with the unknown commodity within James.

Nobody outside the program felt keen on dipping into the depth chart, and moving to a second quarterback admittedly evoked painful memories from the last six seasons. A change at quarterback due to injury separately occurred during the past six years without Castellanos missing a start after he supplanted Emmett Morehead for the second game of the season, but flip-flopping the QB1 position produced images affiliated with separate disappointments within the 2015, 2019, 2021 and 2022 seasons.

For his part, James started at Florida International, but nobody really knew much about the All-Conference USA Honorable Mention honors awarded for his performance during the 2022 season. He threw for just under 2,000 yards and won consecutive games with wins over Charlotte and Louisiana Tech, but a poor performance against, of all teams, Western Kentucky illustrated the growth associated with a young starter who played little real-time football beyond last year's 200-yard game against Jacksonville State.

"Not having played a whole lot this year and just being able to [come in] after being injured a few weeks ago is a lot of credit to him," said coach O'Brien. "It's not a big, dramatic thing when it comes to the team. I don't stand up and give speeches about who's playing and who's not playing. I just show film and teach football, and that's what we try to do to get better every day."

Confidence reigned within the BC locker room, but the spotlight associated with the quarterback change quickly found itself relegated to second status after the defense and fundamentals struggled against the well-oiled Hilltoppers in the first half. A two-score lead, the kind that put teams into an early and panicked or desperate hole, opened because quarterback Caden Veltkamp, himself a second string quarterback to start the season, went 17-for-21 for 165 yards and two touchdowns in the first half. Using an intermediate passing game that negated BC's downfield coverage significantly altered the way the Eagles had to play against him, and his early 9-for-9 completion rate on short-yardage passing smacked a separate 9-for-9 start to the game.

"We started off very slow," said defensive end Donovan Ezeiruaku. "I kind of took it personally because I started off slow. I needed to be a leader for thai team, and I needed to do it not so much through words but through action. I'll give credit to [WKU's offensive line] because they were prepared. They obviously did their film study and were on some of my favorite moves early on, but that's the name of the game."

Veltkamp perfectly augmented his passing game with a running game built around 100-plus team yards on the ground, but BC's switch within an offense adjusted around James while balancing a defense that started gaining penetration against the Hilltopper offensive line. A fourth quarter breakthrough that included a third down conversion on a 25-yard pass to Treshaun Ward continued through a 15-yard pass over the middle to Jaedn Skeete and ended with a one-yard read option run by James around the full, 11-man front, but the true definition of BC's comeback wasn't felt until Ezeiruaku strip-sacked Veltkamp with a six-point deficit hanging over the last six minutes of the fourth quarter.

"I didn't know until I got back into the locker room that it was a little ghost move," admitted Ezeiruaku. "It bent the edge, so it was very exciting to see that we closed [the game] on defense."

Granted new life, James used a supercharged offense to set up the eight-yard pass to Bradley through pass interference and in the process won BC its first lead of the game with 3:33 remaining. A fourth down conversion later, Veltkamp through an incomplete pass towards KP Price with 100 seconds on the clock that afforded James a kneel-down as the BC crowd showered the offense in cheers.

"We didn't change much," said O'Brien. "[James] ran the same plays for the most part, and I'd give credit to Western Kentucky for their pressure. They pressured 65 percent of the time coming into the game, and I would give them credit for how they kept us off-balance. It took us a while to get adjusted. We turned the ball over. We were moving the ball and turned it over, and those are things we can't do.

"Our guys hung in there," he continued. "They're resilient. They're a tough group of guys. They practice hard. They work very hard. When they came [into the locker room at halftime], they looked in the mirror and self-assessed, and they went out there and played better in the second half. I'm very proud of that."

Winning the game handed BC its second consecutive fourth quarter comeback in the last five minutes, but this game broke a four-time record set most recently by Matt Ryan's infamous 10-point comeback at Virginia Tech for the largest three-quarter deficit in a win. It separately broke the two-time, 12-point fourth quarter deficit that BC overcame in its 1980 win over Holy Cross and 1988 win over Pittsburgh, and it moved the Eagles to 4-1 for the first time since the 2021 team started 4-0.

"All of our guys are playmakers," said James. "I know I can trust them wholeheartedly to go and make some plays. We definitely have some things that we want to be better at, and that goes for all of us, myself included, but I know these guys will make plays. I trust them, and they balled out when we needed it in clutchtime. Coach O'Brien preaches that in the crunch time, the best players have to be able to make plays. That's what happened today."

Players Mentioned

Jerand Bradley

Donovan Ezeiruaku

Grayson James

Emmett Morehead

KP Price

Jaedn Skeete

Treshaun Ward

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