Quarterback Thomas Castellanos is tackled by Louisville.

By the middle of the second quarter in last night’s game against Louisville, Boston College had scored three touchdowns and led the Cardinals, 20-0 (missed PAT after third touchdown). The Eagles were then outscored 31-7 and lost their third straight game, 31-27.

Louisville scored its first touchdown of the game just before halftime. On their next five possessions, from receiving the second half kickoff until the middle of the final quarter, the Cardinals kicked a field goal and scored three touchdowns.

After scoring a touchdown on their first possession of the second half, the Eagles gained one first down on their next four possessions, going three-and-out on three successive possessions. Their final two possessions of the game were turned over on downs.

In their last three games, all losses, BC’s opponents have outscored the Eagles, 46-0, in the fourth quarter.

“Can’t do it. Can’t play for 60 minutes,” said coach Bill O’Brien. “Can’t coach well enough to get them to play for 60 minutes. Got to coach a lot better. Got to watch the tape and figure out how to fix it. Terrible.”

BC punted the ball seven times and several poor punts gave Louisville relatively short fields. The Cardinals punted only three times.

Louisville gained 461 yards total offense in the game, including 332 through the air. BC had 318 yards total, 164 passing and 154 rushing. The Eagles had no turnovers, and intercepted Louisville twice and recovered a Cardinal fumble, but to no avail.

BC quarterback Thomas Castellanos was 13 of 28 passing for three touchdowns.

Highlights (8:36)

The Eagles fall to 4-4, 1-3 in the ACC. They have a bye week and next play Syracuse in Alumni Stadium on Saturday, November 9, time to be announced.

Former BC commit Bhayshul Tuten set a VaTech rushing record in the Hokies’ 42-21 win yesterday over BC.

Oh, the third quarter last night was fun!

It had been quite some time since Eagles fans had seen their team play exciting, proficient football. After forcing Virginia Tech to punt on their opening possession of the third quarter (something that had been unusual of late for BC), the Eagles got the ball with 11:59 remaining in the quarter. Then, in nine minutes, four seconds, BC scored touchdowns on their next three possessions.

Indeed, that those 21 points only reduced the Virginia Tech lead to 28-21 took a little off the level of satisfaction. Yet the notion of a revitalized BC squad playing for a potential comeback also added to the level of excitement. (Spoiler: VaTech won, 42-21.)

The Eagles even started a drive at the beginning of the final quarter, reaching midfield. On fourth down and less than a yard, BC lined up in the shotgun formation to keep the drive and the comeback alive.

In a lot of similar situations, college and pro teams will line up under center, sometimes even switching the often smaller quarterback for a bigger running back, with perhaps a couple of other backs in the backfield to push that ball carrier those several inches across the line to gain.  Not BC. And no first down. Turnover on downs at midfield. Three runs later, the Hokies pushed the margin to 35-21.

The Eagles still kept trying. Seven plays took them to the Hokies 18, but a high snap on a field goal attempt (field goal?) eluded the holder and it was recovered by VaTech. On the next play, freshman running back Bhayshul Tuten, who decommitted from BC to join the Hokies, ran 61 yards to make the final score 42-21.

“We definitely fought back to get ourselves back in the game,” said BC coach Bill O’Brien, “but we dug ourselves such a deep hole. It’s very difficult to come back from a four-score deficit.”

The less said about the first half of the game, the better. Stats tell the story. BC actually had the ball longer and ran more plays, 36 to 30 for VaTech, but the Hokies made bigger plays. They gained 332 yards, averaging just over 11yards per play, and most of them (188) on the ground. BC gained 134 yards total offense.

“I thought I had the team ready to go tonight, but I obviously didn’t,” O’Brien said. “I’ve got to figure out how to get the team ready to go. We’re better than that.”

For the game, the Eagles gained 372 yards and allowed 532 yards to the Hokies.

Perhaps a weird statistic, but in no quarter of the game did both teams score. It was sadly symmetrical that VaTech scored 14 points in the first, second, and fourth quarters, and BC scored 21 points in the third quarter.

BC quarterback Thomas Castellanos was 17 of 26 passing for 205 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions, but had two fumbles. He also ran for 58 yards net, second on the team to Turbo Richards’ 64 yards on nine carries.

VaTech’s Tuten set a new Hokies record, rushing for 266 yards on 18 carries.

Highlights (7:01)

The Eagles fell to 4-3, 1-2 in the ACC. Next is Louisville in Chestnut Hill, Friday, 4:30 pm PT.

Coming into yesterday’s game at Virginia, the concern of many was that the Eagles had started their two previous games slowly and had to come from behind to get close wins. That didn’t happen yesterday. BC turned it upside down.

Instead of a slow start, the Eagles jumped out to a 14-0 lead, scoring touchdowns on their first possessions of the first and second quarter. Then they didn’t score again. But Virginia did.

Allowing two UVa field goals in the second quarter, BC went into halftime ahead 14-6. In the final quarter, the Eagles, using the term in the Boston Globe, “unraveled.” Following another Cavalier field goal, two turnovers by BC quarterback Thomas Castellanos in a five-minute period led to two Virginia touchdowns and a 24-14 win for the Cavaliers.

The loss was the third in BC program history when they had led by 14 or more points and the first since Miami came back from 0-28 in 1999 to beat the Eagles 31-28.

“It was terrible,” said coach Bill O’Brien. “Put it on me. Blame it all on me. We’ve got to do a better job. We’ve got to coach better. We’ve got to play better. We’ve got a long way to go.”

In the first quarter, BC ran 17 plays for 122 yards and a touchdown. Castellanos was nine-for-nine for 105 yards. Virginia ran 10 plays for 16 yards, 10 of them coming on the single pass completion by the Virginia quarterback in four attempts.

In the fourth quarter, which started with the Eagles up 14-6, Virginia scored 18 unanswered points. A field goal early in the quarter brought them to within five points. With 11:11 remaining, Virginia intercepted Castellanos at midfield. Consecutive pass completions of 20 and 30 yards put Virginia in the endzone for their first lead. A two-point conversion made it 17-14.

On BC’s next possession, a fumble by Castellanos was scooped up by Virginia at the BC 40 yard line and brought into the endzone. With 6:02 left, UVa was up 24-14.

The Eagles had two more possessions, but turned the first over on downs and had another Castellanos pass intercepted to end the second.

Game stats were relatively close. UVa gained 339 yards total offense, BC 319. UVa ran 65 plays, BC 59. The difference was turnovers. Virginia scored 15 points off two fourth quarter BC turnovers. All their other points were field goals. 

It is only the second BC loss in its nine-game history with Virginia.

Highights (15:43)

BC fell to 4-2, 1-1 in the ACC. No game next Saturday. Next is a Thursday, October 17, matchup with Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. Game time is 4:30 pm PT.