Anthony Palano Delivers Heroic Second Half for BC After Best Friend Bodie Kahoun’s Scary Injury

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — BC linebacker Anthony Palano was visibly shaken when his best friend and fellow position mate, Bodie Kahoun, was unable to get up after making an awkward hit midway through the second quarter of Boston College football’s Red Bandanna Game with Rutgers on Friday night.

They came to the Heights from different schools this winter — Palano from Washington State and Kahoun from Notre Dame — but immediately embraced one another like long-lost brothers who had finally reunited, and that relationship has continued to blossom.

“Obviously, Bodie’s my best friend,” Palano said after the game. “[I’ve] been best friends with him since the first day.”

Both redshirt sophomores, the Eagles’ linebacker tandem has been one of the primary strongholds of the program’s revamped defense this season, so losing Kahoun to such a frightening injury in the middle of a game was quite a rough ordeal for the entire team, not just Palano.

Kahoun was actually leading BC in tackles when he went down, and the Scarlet Knights had still not scored any points.

While this game, in particular, was played in honor of Welles Crowther, the man who sacrificed himself to save as many as 18 lives in the Sept. 11 attacks, Palano and his teammates also had Kahoun in mind for the rest of the night after he was carted off the field in an ambulance and taken to the hospital for further evaluation.

Kahoun raised a thumbs up to the crowd just as he was being lifted into the ambulance on the field, and BC head coach Bill O’Brien confirmed that he had feeling in all his extremities, but the fallout of the incident was still a shock to the Eagles’ system — one that likely catalyzed some extra fuel to Palano’s second-half performance.

“I was a little struck by it a little bit,” Palano said. “I was like, ‘Whoa.’ Like, they got the ambulance out and everything, and [we’re] praying for him. … I feel like on the sideline, like obviously it takes you by shock a little bit. You don’t see somebody get taken out by an ambulance every single day.”

“This is a lot built up.”

Linebacker Anthony Palano, who totaled nine tackles, a sack, two TFLs, and two INTs, and saw his best friend carted off the field in an ambulance midway through the game, on getting in the win column: pic.twitter.com/9NQbU2uVHO
— Graham Dietz (@graham_dietz) September 12, 2026

“But I think there was another level of like, ‘Let’s go,’ if you know what I mean. So it was bigger than just for Welles, too. It was for Bodie as well, because obviously he would never have chosen to be in that predicament.”

After entering halftime up 20-7, BC let Rutgers into the game in the second half with some costly turnovers, but its defense held down the fort, and Palano was at the center of that operation.

The first major play of Palano’s heroic second-half act came at the 29 second mark in the third quarter, when Rutgers quarterback AJ Surace was tackled for a loss of two yards by the middle linebacker on a keeper to force a turnover on downs on the Eagles’ 11-yard line.

Had the Scarlet Knights converted there, there was a solid chance they would have knotted up the score at 21 apiece, but that evidently did not happen.

The ball ended up going right back to Rutgers anyway just a few moments later after BC punted, and the Scarlet Knights drove down into the red zone once again.

But on 4th-and-3 at the BC 21-yard line, Surace tossed his third interception of the game right into Palano’s hands, and the Eagles turned it into a two-score game on the ensuing drive with Dawson Pough’s 78-yard touchdown reception.

Palano takes it away‼️ pic.twitter.com/rb4rAu2UWN
— Boston College Football (@BCFootball) September 12, 2026

“It showed my receiver days, [like] back in high school,” Palano said of his interception. “I was excited to obviously have that happen.”

His contributions didn’t stop there.

After Mason McKenzie’s second interception of the game following KJ Duff’s 60-yard touchdown reception to cut Rutgers’ deficit to 28-21, the Scarlet Knights were marching down the field once again when Palano collected his second pick off Surace in the quarter, which pretty much clinched the Eagles’ victory.

That final turnover of the game, with 1:51 left in regulation, was one that almost felt like it resulted from divine intervention, as if Palano’s suffering from witnessing his best friend experience tragedy had been taken into account by some greater force — a force that granted him the game-winning play in return.

“I wish [Kahoun] was here with us,” Palano said. “But he’s doing alright, so I’m happy to hear that, and I’m happy we got it done for both [him and Welles].”

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