Those first ten minutes were the most fun I've had watching BC football in years. The offense was flying around! No names were stepping up! We forced an INT. It seemed like the classic BC formula. But we couldn't keep it up. The offense turned exciting possessions into field goals and the defense started allowing huge plays. The calls certainly didn't go our way (especially at the end) but that wasn't why we lost.
Hats off to Chase Rettig. He played really well and had the sixth best passing day in BC history. Despite the drops, Amidon had a great game too.
I will have more over the next few days. I am on the road so I don't know if the second viewing thoughts will be up Sunday or Tuesday.
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Spaz already blamed player execution for the loss. He's absolutely right.
However, you can't really expect BCS level execution from bottom-half-of-the-MAC level talent. Spaz's atrocious recruiting is a hole that will take BC years to get out of, regardless of who our next AD or HC is.
A massive, totally unreasonably great improvement over the last two seasons on offense. Turn a few of those drops into catches, get Kimble to hold onto the ball ... coulda been different.
I never saw a replay of Spiffy's goal-line catch; was it as close as it looked (as in review-worthy)?
I forgot how much I hate the "bend, bend, bend, aw crap" defense.
I had to leave home early in the 3rd, and missed the rest of the game. To that point, I was astonished at the big improvement in offense, and frustrated as usual by the bend and then break defense.
Kudos to Doug Martin and Bollman; we can't get rid of Spaz and McGovern fast enough for me. Kuechly covered a multitude of sins, as my dear departed mother would have said.
Would much rather have bc go out like this than to lose by 14 and only score ten points... I was at the game and after the first two possession I was super excited. Not what I wanted in the end but to see chase put 450 yards up is awesome and it shows we can hang some points up now... The rest of the season this team can only get better
Some quick thoughts on game
Overall, positive. No question team improved, well, at least the passing offense improved. Team seemed to have good energy and intensity. They came to play. I can see beating Maine, NU, WF, MD, Army, and NCSU. Heck, BC should have beaten Mami.
Rettig was awesome, even with 10 drops by Spiffy, Amidon, Miller etc, can Spiffy catch as a WR?
OL pass protection was incredible. WoW. But OL did not seem to be good at moving bodies and making room inside the tackles for the short yardage game.
What happened to BC's smash-mouted running attack? Most of rushing yards were from delay type plays
Defense: pretty disappointing, esp. the over-use of bend-don't-break strategy. But the big problem was very bad tackling. Awful.
Can Jim Noel play safety? On the two long runs by Johnson and the longish pass for a TD, Noel looked helpless as the Miami runer blew past him. He Did not take right angle and was burned each time. Just bad play. Other DBs seemed so so
The DL, esp. the DEs, was a major disappointment. Very little pressure. Very bad contain. Ramsey had a few excellent plays. Jaryd Rudolph had some good energy. Quinn? Continues to be largely invisible.
Run stopping was pretty weak. Miami averaged an eye popping 6.1 yards per carry.
special teams. Scary. No improvement from last year.
Seems to me our running backs were a little slow hitting the holes that were there. Their hesitation and indecisiveness struck me. Maybe with Montel this is a different game. Maybe not.
Overall, BC football was exciting to watch again. Hasn't been since 2007. Where have you been all this time Doug Martin? What are the odds next year's head coach will retain you? Unfortunately, the answer is zero.
On a Spaz getting fired note, only HE could oversee a team that uses a timeout BEFORE THE FIRST OFFENSIVE(pun intended) PLAY OF THE GAME! I've been watching football a long time, and I don't believe I've ever seen that. Ugh, the frustration continues.
Quantom leap in performance over the last few years. Offensive scheme and execution were excellent. BC appears to have an explosive team. Very well coached accross the board. The big game is Northwetern. Win that and you are 2 and 1 heading into the Clemson game.
Heading over to Logan and will weigh in tonight.
A big pat on the back to Rettig. As commented, tackling was bad. Young receivers made a lot of drops.
tackling was awful. overall defensive execution was disappointing.
the drops were absolutely killer. rettig had the best game of his career and the drops probably cost him another 50-75 yards. that he was able to throw for 400+ yards with all of the drops AND without probably 3 of the 4 best weapons offensively (no swigert, no larmond, no finch).
offensive line and offensive play calling were both excellent. such a great change as compared to last year's piss poor o-line play and bad play calls. thank god we have some competency at OC. the fumbles from kimble and williams were devastating, as was rettig's pick 6, but we fought until the end.
you cannot expect to beat a good team when you fail to execute in so many facets of the game. need to limit the turnovers and big plays on D moving forward. i think the U will wind up being one of the better ACC teams -- they have a lot of talent on both sides of the ball and their QB is way better than jacory harris was (that guy was so overrated).
lets beat maine and get our first W next week!
The game came down to 3 things: Challenges (unused), Drops, and Play calling.
While I want to blame the refs, the 2 biggest blunders they had in the game went unreview by the booth or Spaz. 2 first downs earned - 0 give. I've never seen a game where so many plays should have had booth reviews that didn't get any.
Drops are pretty self explanatory. Most of Amidon's didn't hurt is in the long run, but Miller's and Evan's were just awful, game changers.
Finally, play calling. After we went up 14-0 we went back to Run, Run, Pass and while the pass protection frm the OL was great, they weren't pushing the Dline around and creating holes to do that. Why we'd make those play calls after throwing up and down the field 2 straight drives is beyond me. At the same time, we coupled this with going to the Spaz/McGovern 10 yard cushion defense that will never work in the ACC. ALL of Miami's big plays came on 15 yd or shorter tosses that went big... doesn't help when we can't tackle, either.
Ron Cherry doesn't deserve the moniker zebra.
Rettig was great (minus one bad read turned pick six). The OL was tremendous in pass blocking. They actually looked like a vintage BC OL ... which we havent seen in quite some time. Run blocking left something to be desired. The RB's are pretty weak running the ball especially Williams. The guy has size, strength and speed but for whatever reason he just doesnt have it. He should ride the bench once Finch is back. Kimble will be a great weapon catching the ball. What was scary was all the fumbles by these two especially considering Finch is probably the most questionable when it comes to holding on to the ball.
The drops were bad. Spiffy Evans looks terrible. No way to sugar coat that. Miller gets a pass as it was his first game. I am actually excited to see what this offense can do once Swigert and Pantale return. Hopefully Larmond's injury isnt too bad.
Now for the defense. The bend dont break works only when it actually does just that, bend but does not break. This defense was bending and breaking. That equals loss. The DL is horrible again. Just horrible. Ramsey is all by himself there. The DB's were pretty bad as well outside of Asprilla. ALJ cant come back soon enough.
Some positives, some negatives. They should have won this game. All that said, for all we know, Miami could suck this year (I think they are more likely to suck than be any good) and this is all bloated statistics much like opening week last year.
Can someone clarify a stat for me? The BC website, as well as the Boston papers are recording that Rettig had the best single game passing performance since DOug Flutie in 1984. However, their media guide lists Shawn Halloran with 453 against Syracuse in '85 and Foley with 448 against Va Tech in 1993. I believe the media guide is correct. Why would the official website have this wrong?
Maybe they mean in the ACC?
Miller ought to have his scholarship revoked. He didn't just join the team from Andover High. He was here last year.
The touchdown pass over the middle to Miller was the BEST play call I have seen since the Tom COUGHLIN era. There is NO excuse for dropping that. Jesus.
He dropped another touchdown pass on the pass interference call in the fourth. Had a legit chance to catch that though not easy.
I agree with alot of the comments. One thing I notced in the second half was that we started three or four drives in a row with WEAK handoff calls up the middle. Those plays killed us especially since Amidon and the Full back were so productive.
Spiffy Evans scored on the pass late in 4th(SHOULD HAVE BEEN REVIEWED). He was decent. Don't understand the comments against him
Crowd was better than I thought it would be for a nice, sunny Labor Day Weekend - although very late arriving, as usual.
The first 2 drives were so great compared to the RRPP offense of the past.
This team is exciting, so let's not give up on them already. We can improve.
Let's note that this team did not quit, even down 18 points. Although many so-called fans left early, those of us who stayed felt that we could score a couple more TDs and make the last 2 1/2 minutes very interesting. When was the last time we felt like that?
Many positives and the whole feel around this team is different - even in pre-game. Let's cheer for these guys as much as we can.
We really missed Pantale, Finch, Swigert, Larmond Jr (Hamstring I think) and ALJ. Also Harris Williams and Appiah.
Amidon will be even more of a threat when the other starters are back.
Let's give Miller a little slack - it was his first college game and coming back from a horrible leg/knee injury is not easy.
Martin and Bollman = good things to come for BC.
Kimble and Sinkovec are 2 new weapons this year and beautiful to watch as options for Rettig coming out of the backfield, or wherever they line up..
We're not perfect so Rettig's pick-6 and muffed snap (who's fault?) hurt, but he was fantastic and looked very poised.
Running up the middle is still a problem, so let's stay focused on what works.
I won't dwell on the negatives, which have been covered pretty well. Obviously McGovern needs to reevaluate his schemes. We will have to take more chances.
Let's hope Miami can get by Kansas State next week, and that they are an up and coming team. Of course they have issues on defense as well.
Go BC. We're not quitting - hell, we're just starting.
Look out Maine - you're a good and tough team in your division, but our new offense is going to give you all sorts of problems.
OL did a very good job, and hat's off to them.
With an up-tempo offense, our DL needs as much depth as possible. They played as hard as they could and looked pretty good when they actually rushed 4 guys. I know that some don't agree - but let's see what happens. This team does not quit.
Improvement is coming. This was game 1 of a new coaching staff and the team we fielded yesterday was still very young in certain positions.
I thought Evans was in the end zone and agree that there should have been an automatic review or coach's challenge.
I had a nice time in Boston and this new offense was worth the trip.
#8 for Miami is a load, and BC won't be the only team that has trouble stopping him - and he's only a freshman.
The Miami contingent was pretty large - and the ones I interacted with were ok. They are worried about Kansas State and already asking about ND.
That's why I'm hoping they beat Kansas State next week. I want to believe that they are a good team this year under Golden. Otherwise this loss will sting a lot more.
Go BC - here we come!
I agree with the generally positive results from this game...that's how I feel about it too.
I think anyone watching it can at least say that we don't know what this team will be - and going into the game, I think many were ready (and some perversely hoping) for a disaster.
I'm happy to see us score so many points. I think the refs really junked up our last drive. I'm annoyed we went back to the run after that first near fumble on first down. I get that running it deep in your territory is a safe play, but obviously it didn't turn that out way.
Miami's obviously not a great team, but you know what, neither are we, and most outsiders would say their ceiling is higher than ours in any year. I'm okay with the result. Can't expect to win with that many turnovers.
Let's shore up the defensive effort and general execution and move forward.
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