BC Football: To the Bye Week With a Two-Game Winning Streak

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Don’t look now but the Boston College Eagles (3-3, 1-2) may have figured out the best way to move the football and score on offense. Over the last six quarters, the Eagles have found a running game that ran for over 200 yards in their league win over Virginia. BC backed that up with 321 yards rushing in their road win over Army. This newfound rushing attack led to controlling the ball for over 33 minutes, converting 8-of-17 on third down, and 3-of-4 fourth down tries, and for the season the Eagles are 14-for-20 on fourth down attempts (70%). Once again, the running game was led by QB Thomas Castellanos who ran for 142 yards on 31 rushes. He also ran for four scores, including the game-winning score, a 1-yard plunge to give the Eagles a 27-24 win.

BC’s offense also received 111 yards on 14 carries from RB Pat Garwo as the offensive line took advantage of a size difference that helped them put up big numbers on the ground. The 321 net yards are a season-high. Castellanos and Garwo are the first pair to run for over a hundred yards in the same game since 2019 at Syracuse. For Castellanos, both the attempts and yards are season highs as well. Because the Eagles were so good on the ground, the passing game took a bit of the day off. Castellanos only threw the ball nine times, completing four of them for 73 yards. He did throw a pick. Last Saturday was about the ability to run the ball, which Boston College did with terrific results.

The defense had its moments too. None bigger than a fumble recovery by John Pupei with seven seconds left to seal the win. Overall, the unit allowed 266 yards of total offense from the Black Knights (161 on the ground, 105 in the air). Army was just 3-of-10 on third down. However, they did have the lead with 5:24 left in the game. That’s when the BC offensive line put together maybe their best stretch of football. A 12-play 68-yard drive that covered 4:59 on the clock. All twelve plays were on the ground with Castellanos coming up with two big runs of 18 and 17 yards before he finally finished off the drive with his TD run of one yard. The game-winning drive left Army with only 25 seconds left to try to at least get into field goal range to try and tie the game. But they would fumble the ball away with seven seconds left and BC left with an important road win.

Graduate senior linebacker Vinny DePalma led the defense with nine tackles, of which six were solo. Besides his fumble recovery to end the game, Pupei also had six tackles, five of them solo. Now it’s on to Georgia Tech who is also on a bye week after last Saturday’s crazy win at Miami. This will be the 12th time these two teams have met with the Yellow Jackets holding a 7-4 advantage. This will be the seventh time they have met as conference foes. Georgia Tech is 3-3, 2-1 in the league. This is a big game for both teams with six weeks left in the regular season. A bowl game is still in the offering for both programs.