Thursday, September 09, 2010

BC-Kent State preview

I am not scared about this game nor am I building up an opponent like Lou Holtz might, but this is easily the best Kent State team we've faced. They have a good mix of returning starters, a solid defense and showed signs of life in their passing game last week. BC should control, but it will require a little more focus and intensity than playing Weber State did.


Narrative talking point that you’ll tire of by the end of the game. "Eugene Jarvis is only playing with one kidney..." First let me state that I am not making light of Jarvis's toughness nor the seriousness of his injury. I just fear that since it was BC that knocked him out of his Senior season, and it was that injury that led to the discovery of his single kidney, that we will be hearing a lot about the sixth-year Senior's story. Jarvis is one of the toughest 5'5 running backs you will ever see, but he is not the key to this game. BC has proved as much in the past two Kent State games.


Three Simple Keys

1. Give Spencer Keith multiple looks.
We were fairly vanilla on defense last week. I don't expect Spaz to show all his cards with Virginia Tech looming but we do need to mix things up with Keith. He is efficient and accurate and will move the ball if we just play base D with our standard zone. A few blitzes, dropping more guys into coverage, or something to keep him guessing.
2. Move Shinskie out of the pocket. Shinskie is not Michael Vick, but he moves better than most recent BC QBs and he seems pretty comfortable rolling out. A few bootlegs or other designed plays to get him on the move might create some easy plays and help improve the offense and his efficiency.
3. Improve kickoff coverage. We finally have a kicker who can actually generate a touchback. But on the returned kicks we looked a little slow and out of position in a few spots. It must be tighter for this game.


Gambling Notes
-- Kent State is 3-29-1 in their first road games of the year.
-- Doug Martin is 1-12 vs BCS teams
-- Spaz is now 7-1 at home

The current line is BC-17.5


Factoid

After this game, BC is not scheduled to play another MAC team until 2015. Our last MAC-less season was 2001.


Scoreboard Watching
Miami takes on Ohio State and Florida State plays Oklahoma. For better or worse, how these two play will determine the national perception of the ACC. If we ever hope to get two ACC teams into the BCS, we need both to win convincingly.


I hope to see...

A better defensive effort. I know it was the first game and I know most of the yardage came after the game was no longer in doubt, but I really want to see a better effort from our defense. They have enough talent to be dominant and need to establish that mentality early in the season.


BC is in trouble if…

Shinskie has another rough day. I am not harping on his mistakes. I actually thought he did some nice things. But if he puts up similar numbers against Kent State, it doesn't mean we will lose, but it probably means we will have a tough time with good defenses.


Bottom Line

We didn't learn much from last week. This week will be a better indicator of what's ahead. I still believe in this team's potential for greatness, so I am expecting a very, very good performance. I think Shinskie will be better and the defense will be intense for 60 minutes. BC controls and gives us hope for Virginia Tech.

Final Score: BC 31, Kent State 6

7 comments:

BCNorCal07 said...

"Jo-Lonn Dunbar, Boston College"

That was pretty awesome. Congratulations Jo-Lonn. All that hard work and persistence has paid off.

mod34b said...

Kent State DT Rainey 5-11 235; DE Simmons 226 other DE is 254 and other DT 274

Yet they held BC to 137 yards rushing last year and only 3.4 ids per rush.

Think of Claiborne (330) or Lapham (320) against a guy they have 100 lbs on.

BC had better mow these guys down.. Let see if the line has that killer instinct .. I have my doubts.

Also the Kent State secondary is supposed to be the class of the MAC so they should provide a good test for Shinskie.

We need a blow out as a confidence builder.

Dan said...

Great to see Jo-Lonn starting for the Saints. Add to that Ricky Brown, Vinny Ciurciu and Robert Francois and we'll soon be adding Linebacker-U to our O-Line claim.

Speaking of O-Line U, not much doing on the recruiting front so far this year with O-Lineman.

This is a good selling point on the recruiting front. Current QBs protected by a BC O-Lineman:

Eli Manning
Mark Sanchez
Tom Brady
Tony Romo
Matthew Stafford
Jay Cutler

Unknown said...

Bill - Waiting for you to go on the record re: Isaac Johnson...

mod34b said...

Herald reports IJ left team and suggest he is tranferring because he is not a starter

ATL_eagle said...

Red:

I tweeted it earlier. Heard rumblings for a while. Not showing up for classes Tuesday was probably the final straw. It is a loss but not a huge loss. My bet is he will be at UMass shortly.

mmason said...

If Gause gets burned deep again, and more than twice is twice too much,then the long season will be upon us. If the pass coverage remains a cover 2 soft cushion,not only will Kent hurt us, but VaTech will light us up bigtime.

We have lots of new weapons and the promise of our youth looms large--but the vets need to step up and Shinskie has to get control of his act. Weber State outscored us 10-7 in the second half and out team speed was...not that speedy.

Go Eagles--Let's turn it up this time on both sides of the ball.