Post Training Camp Injury, Owen McGowan Back in Leadership Role for BC Football

Circa 2025, the Owen McGowan hype train just keeps on choo-chooing along.

The redshirt-junior linebacker, who hails from Canton, Mass., and played at Catholic Memorial High School in West Roxbury, was voted as a captain for the Boston College football team this season.

Through two games, McGowan is a clear-cut starter at the second level of BC’s defense after missing parts of fall training camp.

“I feel good,” McGowan said. “Obviously, I had to work on my conditioning when I came back, so that was a big thing for me, just trying to do a little extra here and there because I missed those two, three weeks. But yeah, I feel good. And I feel like, even though I missed those couple weeks, I'm caught up now.”

His contributions in the tackling realm—which the Eagles desperately need to improve ahead of their road trip to Stanford, Calif.—is key for defensive coordinator Tim Lewis, who was tasked with replacing the defensive production of linebacker Kam Arnold, defensive end Donovan Ezeiruaku, and defensive tackle Cam Horsley going into this season.

“He's a captain,” BC head coach Bill O’Brien said. “Owen is a BC guy. He's a tough guy. He's really smart. I thought he played a great game the other night. There were a couple plays, just like everybody, that he probably wishes he had back. But without Owen, you know, we probably would not have been in that game.”

O’Brien is exactly correct about that statement.

In BC’s 42-40 double-overtime loss to the Michigan State Spartans this past Saturday, McGowan notched eight tackles (three solos), a sack, and two tackles for loss. His sole sack virtually gave the Eagles a chance to tie the game and make it to overtime.

With 5:43 left in the fourth quarter, and the game tied at 24 apiece, BC’s defense needed to halt MSU quarterback Aidan Chiles from stretching the field and gaining positive plays en route to a touchdown, which could have sealed the win for the Spartans in regulation.

MSU had an Elijah Tau-Tolliver touchdown nullified because of an offensive holding penalty, and on 3rd-and-goal from the Eagles’ 9-yard line, McGowan saw his shot.

The Spartans lined up in 11 personnel with a tight end and running back Makhi Frazier to Chiles’ right, with two receivers wide right—the ball was snapped in the middle of the hashes—and a third receiver wide left.

The Eagles’ pass rush sent five players, including McGowan, in Chiles’ direction while the remaining six dropped back in zone coverage. Merely seconds after Chiles received the ball from the snap, McGowan, just six-feet, 232 pounds, snaked through the offensive line and was not picked up by the left guard or Frazier.

By the time McGowan was on Chiles’ tail, it was too late for the Spartans’ signal caller to do anything but accept his fate, and he was sacked for a loss of 12 yards.

After a Michigan State touchdown was called back for offensive holding, Owen McGowan and the Boston College defense come up with a big sack on third down to force the Spartans into a field goal.

There are 5 minutes left in the 4th. Dylan Lonergan now up.

Spartans: 27
Eagles: 24 pic.twitter.com/aBCn4CjHpM
— Grant Smith Ellis (@GrantSmithEllis) September 7, 2025

“I was just right up the gut, and no one picked me up,” McGowan said. “I was a little surprised, but got there [and] made the play. So that was fun.”

After the game, another player on BC’s defense who was voted a captain, safety KP Price, attested to the fact that McGowan’s sack was essential in the state of that matchup.

"Big time sack,” Price said. “I told him, as soon as he made the play, the whole defense told him, like, that's what we need. We were fluctuating up and down throughout the whole game. ... That was a big-time play for us."

McGowan is a player who fully understands the O’Brien mantra of carrying a one-play-at-a-time attitude.

He showed his grasping of this mindset after Tuesday’s practice leading up to the Eagles’ Week Three contest against the Cardinal—their first ACC game of the year. He is ready to forget about the sack that almost helped BC capture its second win of the season last week.

“We’re just excited to move on with Michigan State, it’s in the past,” McGowan said. “So we're just focused on beating Stanford every day. Focus on Tuesday. Now we gotta look at the film. Focus on Wednesday. Same thing. So we're just focused on every day, trying to be better than we were the previous day, and that's how we're gonna win.”

McGowan, redshirted his freshman year in 2021, knows a thing or two about what it takes for the Eagles to win conference games, particularly how to win games on the road, which is not often easy—especially when the program’s next stop is on the other side of the country, further than some players have ever traveled to in their lives, according to O’Brien.

“If you're not physical, you're not gonna make [tackles],” McGowan said. “So I think you have to have the mindset that you’re not gonna miss tackles trying to be as physical as you can. And if you're not physical with the guys, you play the ACC, there's a ton of good running backs, good quarterbacks, receivers, so any way you can get them down.”