Three Stars: Syracuse Game
It was a dark day in Western New York for the Boston College Eagles, suffering another ACC defeat at the hands of the Syracuse Orange. Another third-quarter explosion by their opponent doomed BC, thanks to two long rushing touchdowns and a punt returned for a score. While the defense played well for most of the game, the offense remained anemic at best, struggling amidst rotating quarterbacks.
Nevertheless, we need to recognize positive performances when they occur. We will touch on one negative showing that greatly affected the outcome of the game for the Eagles. But we will also discuss two players and one unit that did their best for Boston College.
Black Hole: Jack Conley - 5 pressures allowed (3 sacks, 1 QB hit, 1 hurry)
Either quarterback could fit earn this designation, to be frank. Perhaps even Jeff Hafley and the confusing strategy of switching back and forth between quarterbacks. But I do not want to be overly critical of a true freshman earning his first career snaps (and playing his first meaningful football snaps since 2019) on the road against a very solid passing defense. I also do not feel like any more criticism can be levied against Grosel that hasn’t already been said.
Therefore, I will instead look to the offensive line. Some feel that this offensive line has been extremely overrated. I have said repeatedly that the interior blockers have been as advertised and perhaps even better. However, the tackles on the outside have been somewhat disappointing. Ben Petrula has struggled with penalties this year, as he has for multiple seasons. Tyler Vrabel, to his credit, has dealt with injuries for a few weeks now and missed the majority of the Syracuse game with an upper-body injury. But even before that, Vrabel was not making the progression and improvement many expected of him this year.
This brings us to Jack Conley. Conley, a redshirt sophomore, was a massive recruit that the coaching staff felt highly confident about going into this season. Their confidence was so strong that they rotated him with Ben Petrula in the starting lineup in the season's first few games. After Vrabel’s injury mentioned above, however, Conley flipped over to replace him at left tackle. To put it bluntly, this has been disastrous for BC. Most know how vital the left tackle position is, and its importance is exacerbated with backup quarterbacks in the lineup.
Against Syracuse, Conley had a disastrous performance replacing Tyler Vrabel at left tackle. He allowed three sacks and another hit on the quarterback. In previous articles and podcasts, I mentioned how the offensive line struggled with making mental mistakes in their protections, especially with defensive line stunts and twists. With Conley in, however, the issues were much more straightforward. On multiple occasions, he simply whiffed on blocks and allowed his man to go right by him to the quarterback. Based on what I’ve seen out of him, it seems that Conley lacks the requisite athleticism and quickness as a pass blocker to survive at tackle in the ACC.
These failures were so problematic that Zion Johnson replaced Conley at left tackle on BC's final two drives, and Ozzy Trapilo slid into left guard. In his post-game press conference, Jeff Hafley said this change was made solely to protect the quarterback better. As of press time, Vrabel’s injury status is still up in the air, especially on a short week. But against a dangerous defense in Virginia Tech, I hope Hafley keeps Johnson at left tackle; even though his future in the NFL is undoubtedly at guard, he settled into his role there last year as the season went on. If they want to give Conley a shot at left guard if Zion moves outside, I’m all in favor of that; Conley brings great size and strength to the guard position, and his deficiencies can be hidden on the interior. But putting Conley back at left tackle against the Hokies’ deadly pass rush would be coaching malpractice.
Third Star: Patrick Garwo - 17 carries, 84 yards, 4.9 YPC
Unfortunately, for another week, the BC offense had to move away from the run game late due to being down by several scores. But Pat Garwo continued his very strong season, rushing for just under five yards per carry; he also converted first downs on six of his 17 carries. Frankly, the only problem with Garwo’s performance was that he did not get enough carries, especially at the goal line.
It was abundantly clear that Syracuse was loading the box to stop the run as they did not respect the Eagles’ passing game. Nevertheless, Garwo exhibited excellent vision, contact balance, and power. He consistently ran through weak arm tackle attempts and punished Syracuse defenders at the end of his runs. However, Garwo never really broke through into the second level. His longest rush only went for nine yards, which is his shortest longest rush of the season.
As previously mentioned, BC needs to start leaning on Pat Garwo more in short-yardage situations, especially in the red zone. This was Garwo’s third straight game without a touchdown. While the other running backs have scored in recent games and have played well in relief, at this time, Garwo is the most consistent and reliable threat in this offense. While Flowers is also reliable and extremely explosive, getting him the ball is a more significant challenge. Moving forward, Frank Cignetti Jr. should use Garwo more in the red zone. If he is in the game, the defense will most likely assume BC is running the ball, which should open up the play-action pass game more.
Second Star: Defensive Line - 18 tackles, 14 solos, 2 TFLs; 6 pressures, 2 sacks, 1 forced fumble, 1 batted pass, 1 QB hit
For weeks, we here at BC Bulletin have been wishing, begging for the defensive line to start making more splash plays. Against Syracuse, they finally delivered. For most of the game, they controlled the line of scrimmage. The stats are somewhat deceptive, as most of the Orange’s rushing yards came on a handful of explosive breakaway runs. 62% of Sean Tucker’s 203 yards came on just three carries; furthermore, those long runs are more the fault of the second-level defenders. Regardless, the defensive line did an excellent job of making plays against the run and setting the table for the linebackers to make tackles.
Additionally, the defensive also generated some big plays against the pass. The biggest came from Marcuz Valdez's sack and forced fumble of Garrett Shrader in the red zone. But the rest of the defensive line harangued Shrader throughout the game. The defensive line got two sacks and six pressures alone, but the Eagles pressured Shrader on 33% of his dropbacks, which was instrumental in Shrader only completing five passes. On the nine dropbacks where Shrader was pressured, he only completed one pass for four yards. Syracuse’s offensive line is not known for its pass blocking prowess, but this success is a good stepping stone for this unit to build upon.
First Star: Zay Flowers - 12 targets, 6 catches (0 drops, 2/2 contested catches), 116 yards (19.3 YPC), 5 first downs
Statistically, this was Zay Flowers’ best game of the season. He did not make as many situationally significant plays against Missouri, and his performance against Colgate was expected. Even though Flowers only caught half of his targets, he didn’t commit any drops; furthermore, he converted both of his contested catch opportunities, something Flowers is not necessarily known for, relative to his other talents.
Of course, one of the big stories of the game was both quarterbacks hitting Flowers on deep shots. Morehead barely missed Flowers on a few deep shots, but on his second attempt, Morehead fired an absolute dart to Flowers by the sideline for a crucial first down and 44 yards. Later in the game, with Dennis Grosel back in, Flowers got wide open again on a perfect out-and-up double move route, and Grosel finally hit him deep down the sideline for a 40 yard gain. Obviously, correlation does not equal causation, but on the two drives where BC hit deep shots to Flowers, they put points on the board.
But even on drives where they didn’t score, both quarterbacks did a solid job finding Flowers open underneath on short quick routes. These routes allowed him to work his magic after the catch and generate yards with elusiveness. Sadly, Flowers was not able to get a catch in the endzone. However, he was wide open in the back of the end zone on BC’s final drive; sadly, Grosel never looked his way, and BC eventually turned the ball over on downs. Even though the offense generally struggled and the result was not what anyone wanted, after displaying frustration with the quarterback situation last week, it was good to see Flowers look like the 2020 or even the 2019 version of himself.