Boston College Football Opens 2026 Season With 34-15 Road Loss to Cincinnati

The Boston College football program might have brought in over 20 players in the transfer portal, a new defensive coordinator, and several new position coaches to change its dynamic following an utterly disastrous 2-10 campaign.

But many of the same problems that pitted the Eagles in 2025 were present in Saturday’s season opener at Cincinnati.

There were promising moments in the game, and the way that transfer quarterback Mason McKenzie played in his first-ever FBS start was commendable, as he never showed an ounce of quit — even after taking some brutal collisions right on the head, ones that could have ended much worse than the way they did.

But faults such as pre-snap penalties, lack of special-teams execution, and a costly no-touchdown call at the end of the first half were ultimately too difficult to overcome for the Eagles in their 34-15 loss to the Bearcats (1-0).

Cincinnati didn’t play flawlessly by any means, either, but BC (0-1) just could not stimulate enough positives to outweigh its negatives in the defeat.

"Too many false starts, snaps over the head, missed tackles, things like that," BC head coach Bill O'Brien said. "We’ll get right back to work here on a short week. We fought to the end. We have to understand we can’t do those things and expect to win. We don’t have that type of team. No team can do that. We have to coach it better. No doubt about it."

The Bearcats took the first lead of the game on Stephen Rusnak’s 54-yard field goal, the longest of his career, after a short first drive of the game for the Eagles.

The two plays prior to the field goal consisted of a Kris Jones tackle for loss and a combined sack for Christian Hudson and E’LIa Boykin to set up the long fourth down.

While the Eagles remained stagnant offensively into the second quarter, Cincinnati capitalized on a converted fake punt on 4th-and-5 from its own 39-yard line with a 13-play, 80-yard touchdown drive, capped off by JC French IV's first touchdown pass of the year, to extend its lead to 10-0 with 7:48 left in the half.

French completed the touchdown pass to JV Gibson on a four-yard slant with Ashton Cunningham in coverage. Gibson bobbled the ball initially but came down with it before making contact with the ground.

In the waning minutes of the initial half, BC finally sparked some momentum and entered scoring territory with a 15-yard McKenzie run.

After a timeout with 33 seconds left, however, McKenzie threw three incompletions in a row, the second of which appeared to have been caught by tight end Danny Edgehille, who then fumbled the ball and recover it in the endzone.

But the call on the field was an incompletion, and it stood that way after a review by the officials, even after FOX’s rules analyst said on the broadcast it was a catch and fumble, recovered for a touchdown.

This was ruled an incompletion and no touchdown.

Should this have been a Boston College TD? pic.twitter.com/XIB3zYzA9x
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) September 5, 2026

"I’m not sure," O'Brien said of the ruling. "I thought he possessed it, but they didn’t. We had three, right? Danny had that one, Reed had two, one he was out of bounds, I think, and the other one he got crunched there and didn’t hold on."

Then, Luca Lombardo, who knocked in 16 of 17 field-goal attempts for the Eagles last year, missed a 35-yarder to leave the Eagles scoreless entering halftime.

In the third, the Bearcats started to move the ball more efficiently, especially on the ground.

Nine of Cincinnati’s first 11 plays of the second half were runs, and the offense averaged 7.8 yards on the drive, which concluded with a four-yard rushing score for French to make it 17-0 Bearcats with 10:36 left in the quarter.

French registered his second rushing touchdown on the very next drive in similar fashion, as Cincinnati collected runs of eight, five, two, four, and 20 yards to march down the field into the redzone.

Following a quick pass of 12 yards to Gibson, the Georgia Southern transfer ran it in himself from four yards once again, increase the lead to 24-0 after another successful Rusnak PAT.

"Yeah, they definitely had a good game plan," linebacker Bodie Kahoun said. "We just got to keep on working with that. First half, energy was high, we we're doing great. We're all having fun out there, playing the game we love. And second half we got beat, and we got to take it on the chin and learn from it."

The Eagles finally got on the scoreboard on the very next drive, as running back Evan Dickens, who totaled 47 rushing yards on 11 attempts in the game, trounced into the endzone from four yards as well to cut BC’s deficit to 16 following a successful two-point conversion via McKenzie’s legs.

The Eagles then got the ball back at the start of the fourth quarter after forcing a three-and-out.

But after advancing all the way down to the Bearcats’ three-yard line, Dickens was swallowed up for a loss of two yards on second down, McKenzie threw an incompletion on third, and he was sacked for a loss of seven on 4th-and-5, resulting in a turnover on downs that took BC out of contention.

Rusnak nailed a 44-yarder with 5:00 left in the game and Cincinnati found the endzone once again with 1:59 remaining, as French garnered his third rushing score of the night.

With a minute left, McKenzie connected with Jonathan Montague Jr. for a 23-yard touchdown to make it 34-15, the final.

"We have to have a short memory, fix the mistakes, and look onto next week," Dickens said.

In the second half of the game, BC starting center Michael Crounse and left tackle Veguer Jean-Jumeau exited the game with injuries, but O'Brien is hopeful they both will be fine for Friday night's Red-Bandanna contest against Rutgers.

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