The honeymoon period for Bill O’Brien at Boston College (1-2, 0-2) is officially over.
Saturday night’s ACC game between his Eagles and the Stanford Cardinal (1-2, 1-0) showed a BC that, for the second week in a row, lacked the ability to put their foot on the throat of their opponent, routinely committing costly turnovers and bad penalties that allowed their new conference “rivals” to completely grab the momentum and ultimately the W.
The final score was 30-20, and it somehow felt worse than that.
For a team that was favored by 14 points at most sportsbooks heading into Saturday night, blowing a 17-6 lead with 8:04 remaining in the second quarter makes this whole thing sting even worse.
Here were the key moments that led to last night’s disastrous collapse in Palo Alto:
- With 2:41 to go in the second quarter, BC had brought the ball all the way to the Stanford 17 yard line, looking poised to take a three-score lead on the Cardinal. That all flipped when sophomore quarterback Dylan Lonergan took a bad 7-yard sack, fumbling in the process with Stanford falling on the football. Three plays later, Cardinal QB Ben Gulbranson found tight end Sam Roush for a 69-yard touchdown pass on 3rd and 3 to make it a 17-13 ballgame.
- Two plays into the next offensive possession for BC, Lonergan threw his first pick-six of his young FBS career, with NFL draft prospect Collin Wright reading the Alabama transfer’s eyes the whole way for the 17-yard touchdown return. Just like that, it was 20-17 Stanford with 1:29 remaining in the first half. Shout out to our own Scott Mutryn on the sidelines for pointing out Lonergan’s issue with telegraphing his targets with his eyes. This wasn’t the only instance in this ballgame where the 21-year-old had issues with this, it’s just the only time he had to pay for it.
- Fast forward to 2:32 remaining in the third quarter, with BC in the midst of a 10-play, 65-yard drive which lasted almost five and a half minutes. It looked like the Eagles had grabbed the momentum back, and were about to make it a 26-20 game from the Stanford 1 yard line. But just like he did one week prior, running back Turbo Richard fumbled the ball into the end zone, Stanford recovered for a touchback, and all the wind in their sails was gone. On the next play, running back Micah Ford broke one for 75 yards, taking it from the Stanford 20 all the way down to the BC 5. One play after that, Ford was punching it in from 5 yards out. Add the extra point, and Stanford was now on top 27-20. A truly soul-sucking sequence.
- BC went for -9 yards on a three-and-out on their next possession, punting to Stanford to give them the first chance at points to open the fourth quarter. Ford opened the quarter with a 31-yard run from the Stanford 44, giving the Cardinal a 1st and 10 from the BC 25. Seven plays later, a 26-yard field goal for Emmet Kenney was good, and Stanford led Boston College 30-20.
- On the next BC possession, the Eagles were faced with a 4th and 6 from their own 40 yard line with 7:36 to go in the ballgame. Down 10 and with a run defense that looked more-than-spent, you had to imagine going for it on 4th down would be on the table for O’Brien. He opted to punt, and Stanford never gave the ball back. 12 straight runs for the Cardinal ate up the remaining clock, and BC was handed their first conference loss of the season.
With how BC’s schedule shakes out the remainder of 2025, the Eagles had to have this one to have any real shot at qualifying for a third consecutive bowl game.
With a slate that includes Week 5 vs. Cal (3-0), Week 7 vs. No. 12 Clemson (1-2, 0-1), Week 8 vs. UConn (1-2), Week 9 at Louisville (2-0), Week 10 vs. No. 8 Notre Dame (0-2) and Week 11 vs. SMU (2-1), it could be a house of horrors for O’Brien in year two.
Some of those records you see above might not be that impressive, but all of those teams are talented top-to-bottom.
Outside of some veteran leadership on offense, BC is a football team in transition, graduating a fair amount of talent to the NFL after last season. Add in key injuries on the defensive side of the football to starters Amari Jackson and Owen Stoudmire, and a year that was already going to be a challenge has become even more challenging.
During the postgame press conference via Zoom, it was clear that O’Brien understands the gravity of the situation. For a head coach who isn’t afraid to fly off the handle at a question he doesn’t like from the media, the mood from O’Brien felt more chagrined than anything else.
His words for his football team were pointed, to say the least. And when it came to answering for in-game decisions, he didn’t have much for us.
Here were O’Brien’s full comments from early Sunday morning after the loss:
Question: “Up 17-6 at the end of the half, chance to make it 20 or 24, what did you see in the last few minutes?”
Bill O’Brien: “Yeah, 17-6 - I don't know, Kevin. Yeah, we just - I have to go watch the film. There's a lot to watch. You know, we had the ball. We had our chances. Came away with field goals instead of touchdowns, or turned the ball over on a 1 yard line. So we have to go back. We have to figure it out. We're not a very good football team right now. So hopefully we can get better and we can work hard to improve during the bye week. I'm not going to go through, like - I don't even know, like, exactly what you're talking about.”
Q: “Any thought to going for it on 4th down there late instead of the punt?”
BO: “I did - we went for it on 4th and goal from the 1, that was the one time we went for it. Think on that 4th down, I think there were seven minutes to go in the game. Is that right? I mean, it wasn't a distance that I think was conducive to going for it at that point in time, felt like we could get the ball back, which I was wrong. So you can write that I was wrong and I should have gone for it.”
Q: What's the key to finding consistency offensively?
BO: “I have no idea. I have no clue. Tried hard to figure it out.”
Q: “Dylan threw his first interception today. I'm just wondering what you talked about with him after he threw it? Looked like it maybe brought him back down to earth a little bit after a great start to his career.”
BO: “Brought him back down to earth? Like, he threw an interception, he moved on to the next play. He didn't need to be brought back down to earth. He's a very good kid. He's an awesome kid. He's a consistent kid. He did not need to be brought back down to earth. I can promise you that, Graham. Like I said, we're not a good football team right now. So print that, write that we're going to work hard to be better. Hopefully we improve. Got a long way to go.”
Q: “You've mentioned in the offseason that this team kind of needs to learn how to not lose before they learn how to win. Is this one of those games? And as a coaching staff, where do you go from here?”
BO: “Yeah, I thought - again, this is such coach-speak. I hate even saying it, but I just told the team, ‘We're all in it together. There's no finger pointing.’ The coaches, we were terrible tonight. We gotta coach better - starts with us, starts with me. That will lead to better play. We gotta figure a lot of things out. We got to figure out how to stop the run. We got to figure out how to run the ball, and we - Mac, you're exactly right.
“I mean, we have a chance to go up in the game. We fumble the ball. Even if we get stopped there, it's still a 99-yard drive that they have to perform, right? So we got them backed up, but we don't. So it's a touchback, and then we fumble a snap, or it was a bad snap. Then we throw an interception. Just a lot of - some false starts, batted balls, can't stop the run, don't fit the gaps correctly, just really some bad football. So that's coaching. We got a good coaching staff. I believe in the coaching staff, but we did not do a good job tonight, and we have to do a much better job coaching.”
Q: “Bill, just comment on the explosive plays Stanford was able to get off, those two turnovers deep in Stanford territory.”
BO: “Yeah, it was terrible. I mean, the one run we gave up - the bootleg where we cut a guy loose. It was just bad communication. The run was - it didn't fit the run right, you know? And it was kind of a problem during the week. We took care of it. I felt like we had a good practice on Wednesday and Thursday on that type of run, but it showed up again. So yeah, we got a long way to go. But you're right, Rich. Just hard to explain. But we gotta coach it better. We gotta figure out what we can do. There's a lot of season left.
“I told the team - I'll tell you exactly what I told the team. ‘Everybody's got a choice. You want to be here. You don't want to be here. Make your choice. We're only in the third game of the second year of our program. And so far, it's basically been a little bit up-and-down, .500 football.’ So we're going to work hard to get it better and see where it goes.”
Q: “Obviously a unique type of road trip for you guys, one that a lot of guys probably haven't made that type of trip before. Not to give you a spot to make excuses, but just talk about how that is something that’s hard to balance, with the body clock and that weird travel for some of these guys that haven't really done that yet in their career.”
BO: “I thought we handled it well, though, Tom. I understand the question, you know? I really do. I thought we handled it the right way. We got off the plane, we went to San Jose State, we had a really good walkthrough. Felt good about it, got to bed after dinner. Went right to bed. So I don't think that's any excuse whatsoever for what we saw on the field tonight.
“It's not like in these games that we lose, it's very rare for us - I don't think we've ever really been blown out. And so that's why Mac’s question about bad football, we have to coach it better. We gotta eliminate bad football so we can win close games, because we're going to be in a lot of close games. And so far, we cannot. We can't win on the road. We haven't won on the road since Florida State, and we got a long way to go. We just keep fighting. It's the only choice we have, is to keep working and figure things out. And that's what we're going to do. We're going to keep working, keep working hard to try to figure it out.”
Boston College gets a much-needed bye in Week 4. They’ll be back at home for Week 5, as they’ll host an undefeated Cal team that has exceeded expectations so far in the early part of this season.
Only four games into the season, O’Brien’s Eagles are in a must-win situation.
The honeymoon is over. It’s time to get to work.
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