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.