Key Takeaways From Boston College Football’s Loss to SMU as Eagles Enter Bye Week
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After Boston College football dropped its second defeat in a row heading into the first bye week of the season, BC head coach Bill O’Brien was brutally honest about the Eagles’ self-inflicted wounds, and where the program stands overall through five games.
"I think this team's made progress, but it's very, like, incremental,” O’Brien said. “We battled a really good Virginia Tech team, we battled an SMU team, but we lost. We're not in the business of losing. We're in the business of winning, and we're not winning."
When asked if it felt like BC beat itself in its 25-16 loss to No. 21 SMU on Saturday, he didn’t hesitate to answer.
“Yes,” O’Brien said.
He was correct.
The Eagles accumulated 11 penalties, pass blocking was atrocious at times, allowing quarterback Mason McKenzie to be sacked five times, and the offense suffered mightily from something as simple as failing to catch the football.
“Too many mistakes,” O’Brien said. “False starts, 11 penalties, just too many mistakes. We’re not that type of team. … We work very hard to coach a disciplined team, [and] we weren’t a disciplined team today.”
And once again, BC’s offense was a one-man show, as McKenzie notched 282 of the offense’s 322 total yards.
Here are three key takeaways from the defeat.
Kossmann’s Costly Drop
Out of all the position groups on the Eagles’ roster, the tight-ends room is notably thin, but there is no excuse for the drop that Cameron Kossmann had in the first few minutes of the fourth quarter with a chance to make it a one-score game.
With SMU ahead 19-10 heading into the final quarter, the Eagles drove the ball all the way to the Mustangs’ five-yard line before McKenzie’s was stopped on 3rd-and-1 with a rush for no gain.
O’Brien could have brought the Eagles’ field-goal unit out to make it a six-point game with plenty of time remaining, but the offense stayed out.
It was then that McKenzie lifted an easily-catchable ball to Kossmann on the perimeter with no defender in sight, and it seemed like there was enough room to make it a touchdown after the grab.
But Kossmann did not grab the ball, which bobbled off his fingertips and fell to the ground.
A transfer from Florida, Kossmann was in utter disbelief after the drop, and it had some Eagles’ fans in the stands looking even more disturbed than he was.
— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) October 3, 2026
That wasn’t the only bad drop that occurred in crunch time, but it was one that ultimately allowed SMU to take off another 4:17 of the game clock, which the Eagles could not recover from.
O-Line Woes Continue
From pass protection to run blocking to overall discipline, this BC offensive-line unit continues to cause problems for the offense.
False starts and delay of games happening on the first play of offensive drives simply can’t occur — ever — but the Eagles suffered that fate on three separate occasions in Saturday’s loss alone.
“I mean, yeah, it’s hard when you start out the drive like that,” McKenzie said. “It was a lot of, like, first plays of the drives. But, I mean, we also have to be able to overcome it, too. Things happen. It’s not always going to be perfect. Obviously, you don’t want that to happen. We got to clean that up.”
While McKenzie continues to rack up plenty of rushing yards himself — he had 74 on 21 carries on Saturday — the same cannot be said for the rest of the offense, which combined for just 40 yards in the game.
Part of that is play design, but it also falls on how the offensive line sets up angles and paths for the ball carriers to make plays, and that seemed awfully lacking once again.
Sound Defensive Gameplan
Despite coming away with the loss, BC defensive coordinator Ted Roof once again designed a superb gameplan against the Mustangs, who were limited to just 160 passing yards — over 100 yards less than their average coming into the matchup — and two scores, 1.5 less than average.
The Eagles also held SMU’s ball carriers to 58 total yards on 32 attempts, good for just 1.8 yards per carry, which is a very promising sign.
“Ted did a good job with the plan, and the guys executed it really well,” O’Brien said. “You know, trying to keep [quarterback Kevin Jennings] in the pocket [was key]. Once he gets outside the pocket, it was tough, right? Trying to contain them, limit the explosive plays.They’ve got a lot of speed, and I thought our guys fought hard.”
The defensive effort was especially impressive considering that two freshmen, Cam McGee and Gavin Neil, started at interior defensive line with Chris Marable Jr. and team sack leader E’LIa Boykin out with injury.
“I thought those guys fought,” O’Brien said. “We gotta, you know, we got to score more points.”
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Graham Dietz is a 2025 graduate of Boston College and subsequently joined Boston College On SI. He previously served as an editor for The Heights, the independent student newspaper, from fall 2021, including as Sports Editor from 2022-23. Graham works for The Boston Globe as a sports correspondent, covering high school football, girls' basketball, and baseball. He was also a beat writer for the Chatham Anglers of the Cape Cod Baseball League in the summer of 2023.
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