The thing that Boston College fans should feel best about from Monday night’s 28-13 win over Florida State — and there were a lot of good things to choose from — came with two minutes left.
With a 15-point lead and the Seminoles out of timeouts, the Eagles simply took a knee to run out the clock from inside the FSU 10.
Most teams in college football, and especially the underdogs, would have tried to punch it in and add to the margin of victory.
While the rest of the country might have been surprised by the result, BC acted like a team that came in expecting to win and didn’t need to run up the score.
The Eagles didn’t win fluky or in unusual weather conditions. In new coach Bill O’Brien’s first game at the helm, BC went into Tallahassee and simply whipped one of the sport’s tentpole programs for the biggest win the program has had in a long time.
Nationally the narrative was: “What’s wrong with Florida State?”
And with good reason. The Seminoles, who are suing to leave the ACC, because the league isn’t good enough, have lost their first two games to unranked conference rivals. They’re eating crow with egg on their faces.
But that doesn’t diminish what Monday night’s win meant for Boston College.
This was a big deal. A road win over a team ranked in the top 10 is valuable for any program at any point in its evolution. But for BC, the timing couldn’t have been more ideal as Boston College attempts to resurrect its once proud program from a long run of mediocrity. They haven’t won eight games or finished above .500 in the ACC since 2009.
Back in Chestnut Hill, beating Florida State will sell tickets to September home games against Duquesne, Michigan State and Western Kentucky.
Winning in Florida should get the attention of some of the dozens of top-shelf recruits that state churns out annually. But most importantly, in the Eagle locker room, it will cement the players’ trust in their coach’s methods. Hope and faith are great, but Boston College now has evidence to back it up.
The Eagles’ offensive line, which has always been a pillar when BC is good, was dominant against a Florida State defensive line that was expected to be among the best in the nation.
But BC ran at will against it. The Eagles were never better than late in the third quarter. FSU has just cut the deficit to 21-13. But BC answered with a 60-yard touchdown drive, all on the ground to regain momentum.
“They were on a bit of a roll there. You have to have an answer drive,” O’Brien said. “Our guys did a good job. We ran the ball quite a bit and the offensive line really established themselves on that drive.”
BC has a chance for a big year now as the schedule sets up nicely. They don’t face Miami or Clemson – although the Tigers might not be as good as hoped after getting smoked by Georgia. SMU and Virginia Tech, who were trendy dark horses have looked shaky so far too.
BC was lucky to find O’Brien available when Jeff Hafley jumped ship in February. O’Brien, who did admirable work at Penn State before leaving for the NFL might have been a candidate at Michigan State, Indiana or Arizona if he’d been available in November. But all those jobs were already filled when O’Brien left the Patriots as part of the franchise cutting ties with Bill Belichick.
The combination of O’Brien’s resume and New England roots made him exactly the kind of candidate BC would have looked for. But even the most optimistic Boston College administrators couldn’t have expected this kind of win this fast.
All of which gives O’Brien a new challenge — making sure his players build off the win, but keep it in perspective.
“To come down here against a team that really had to have this win, that’s a heck of a statement for BC,” he said. “But it’s just one win. It’s only one. We have to understand that. We have to be able to handle success as well as we handled adversity tonight. But we’re on the right track, that’s for sure.”
Follow MassLive sports columnist Matt Vautour on Twitter at @MattVautour424.
