Second Viewing: The NC State Game (Powered By WePlayed)
Boston College dominated NC State on Saturday 45-24 in their annual Homecoming Game. It was a solid performance all around for the Eagles, but watching the game a second time can bring out themes and observations that might have been missed the first time around. Using WePlayed, I rewatched the game and wrote up some notes from my viewing. You can (and should!) head over to my Playlist on WePlayed to watch some of the plays I highlighted and the observations I made. You can also comment on my highlights and create your own as well. Here are my notes, and some individual plays are hyperlinked below.
* The offensive gameplan clearly was to run the ball effectively which is exactly what they did. But watching the gamefilm, what you noticed was that around the third quarter NC State really struggled to make tackles against BC. This most likely was due to the punishing power running style of AJ Dillon and David Bailey. By the second half it was pretty clear that NC State was no longer interested in tackling either of them, which is a testament to the backs but also to the offensive line who beat them up for four quarters.
* The offensive line, still needs to clean up the presnap penalties, but other than that had a near perfect game. They won almost every one on one matchup and by the end of the game where pushing the NC State line back 3-4 yards on some plays.
* This style culminated in the final AJ Dillon touchdown where BC's offensive line swallowed up the entire defense, and Dillon just bounced into the endzone without a defender even raising their arms to tackle him. Watch it here, it's really impressive.
* Dennis Grosel really didn't need to do anything to win this game, but he had one drive where he completed three third down conversions, two with his arm and one with his legs.
*Jason Maitre has all the makings of the next great Boston College cornerback. He had a handful of really good pass breakups, the pick six, and his form and showed a really great ability to stick to receivers with good form.
* Mehdi El-Attrach had a good game as well especially before the game got to garbage time. He had a pass break up and a big hit that forced a fourth down on a screen pass.
* Bill Sheridan deserves a lot of credit for dialing up a pressure heavy scheme on Saturday. Even though BC only got a handful of sacks, they hit Bailey Hockman and Devin Leary constantly and were in the opposing QB's faces a lot. Just getting pressure made a huge difference, passes were forced out faster than the QB wanted it to be, and reads were rushed.
* Max Richardson is a star in the making. He is a playmaker both in terms of getting pressure on the quarterback or making hits on the run. When Isaiah McDuffie comes back the two could be a really fun group to watch and really solidify the Boston College defense.