Boston College Eagles' Upset Win Over Florida State: How They Did It

Boston College's Season Outlook there's a huge win for Boston College on Monday night and the excitement hasn't slowed down yet you are locked on Boston College your daily podcast on the Boston College Eagles part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day hello and welcome this is locked on Boston College I'm your host AJ black thank you for making locked on Boston College your first listen every day now through today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel now throughout September 22nd all FanDuel customers can bet $5 and get a three week free trial of NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV visit fanduel.com to get yourself started today we have a jam-packed episode we have a guest today Mitchell wolf of Eagle Insider who was on our show last week we're gonna both talk about how we got these predictions wrong as Boston College defeats Florida State in a huge win a program uh a win that shifts some expectations around this program we're gonna look at the defense we're gonna talk about the win itself and then some of the other goodies that came out of this Victory Mitch how we doing hard to imagine being better you Boston College's Unexpected Victory Over Florida State know we went into this game Thinking basically anything that wasn't as bad as the loss two years ago was going to be a win and to come out with the actual win on the stat sheet was pretty remarkable and you know going into this game we kind of just everybody kind of figured FSU would find a way to bounce back after their lost to Georgia Tech and week zero and they didn't and I would I would posit they might have looked worse yeah so let's get into this uh BC had the ball for 14 minutes and 10 seconds I think in the first quarter that's about right yeah and Florida State ran three plays the entire first quarter as Boston College controlled the line of scrimmage controlled the clock and basically it was a battle in which BC controlled the the the trenches which which is incredible given that you're going against a team full of Blue Bloods High transfers guys that they P you know dished out bags for over and over again to rebuild and BOS little old Boston College goes out there punches them in the mouth and wins this game yeah I mean pretty much from the jump from the from BC's first drive you could tell okay they they probably have something cooking here um you know and basically if if Tron Ward doesn't drop that first wheel route uh probably has even more points and gets on FSU even earlier but it was just so impressive to see them come out with a very cogent game plan from pretty much every aspect of the game and compared to that to you know last year's game which was absolutely insane with you know program record number penalties you know having to you know get a fumbled kickoff back to get the ball again to get a fumble for return for a touchdown just to stay in the game um it was very impressive to see them have a plan that you know I would say at times I would say they stuck to it for the most part um maybe to their detriment mostly on offense but at the end of day I just think they did not have any respect for anything Florida State wanted to do them which is pretty remarkable and frankly it it bore out in a truthful manner yeah I mean the fact Building a Dynamic Run Game that they were just running and and doing a lot of simple runs up the middle over and over again and and it's not simple because I'm sure there's schematic things that I'm not you know getting into but it seemed like the heart of that that line they were just doing whatever they wanted stopping them and then we'll talk defense in a little bit but DJ UI AG his head must have been on a swivel through that whole game yeah and just just to stick with the offense like I thought it was interesting looking at how they kind of built this run game you know I think you saw a lot of similar schemes to what BC was doing last year um in terms of the man Gap style runs a lot of power a lot of counter um they added the little Sprint action where they would run castan a little bit one way and handed off the other I think turbo Richard had a big run off one of those um and in the passing game you know they didn't and this is what something they talked about in the broadcast you know they weren't asking Thomas castan to really play Hero ball ever um offensive and we should talk about the offensive line offensive line had a a banner day despite not having Logan Taylor and having to start Dwayne Alec uh him and Jack Conley you know you wouldn't even recognize them compared to how they played at do Campbell Stadium two years ago and you know Drew Kendall and ozie trpo played about up to expectations maybe surpass them and Jude bowry absolute lock down performance uh no pressures allowed I'm pretty sure PFF gave him an 89.7 pass blocking grade which is insanely good um you know absolutely protecting commas T's Blindside almost perfectly um I would say like the mistakes the offense did made you know there were a few times where they kind of tried to run some funky plays on Third and short um and most of them were basically giving castalanos the option like it was some kind of screen or something where If he if he got the throw he could throw it and if it didn't it would just be up to him to run and I think two of them turned into sacks but you know they're not really sacks because he's running you know it's not like an offensive linan got beat badly uh the one I one I remember is like the double screen where the defend the defensive lineman thought he was going through through left and so he turned around and Thomas ganos took that as a invitation to run and the defensive lineman just turned around quicker than quicker than Thomas ganos probably thought he could then got tackled for a loss or no gain or what have you um but yeah I think it was good that he didn't have play ha ball except basically until the end where and I think I think you're going to kind of see this as games go on I think they want to have Thomas castalanos like be the closer for this team because in those like final drives they started pulling out some a lot more of those quarterback run schemes that we saw a ton of last year you power read with the Jet Sweep uh the plays where they would have him roll out to his right and there was a guy sliding across in the flat and basically if if the defender ran with the receiver in man C had an open Lane right up the field and he took advantage of those two times for Big yards basically to ice the game away on the final drive um and that's what I think you want to I think that's what Bill BR is basically going to do with castalanos is say you know we don't want you to have to play herob ball but we're going to put the ball in your hands in clutch situations when we need it we're not going to make you do everything but when we have a dire need uh in a close game you know you're the guy we're gonna lean on and when you looked at the the Play Calling Strategy Against Florida State the play calling did you like that they kind of I mean how many passes attempts did Castle 16 I think were you oh I I know you thought they needed to be explosive but they kind of went the other route with this yeah they yeah I would say I was mostly wrong I was mostly wrong on that but they were able I was just surprised at how they were able to find explosives in the Run game uh I just didn't think that was going to be as easy as it was honestly um but yeah I mean I I think you're gonna see the passing game open up eventually I think they I think part of it is honestly they didn't want to put too much on tape you know you saw uh some Concepts get repeated I mean obviously the mesh wheel concept they ran a bajillion times um and I think that's super encouraging because now you look at lawing as a as a play caller he's a guy that basically is I'm going to if I have a matchup that I like and with Florida State they were down one of their starting linebackers who wasn't good to begin with so they had a backup in and they said we like this matchup and we're gonna pick at it until you stop it and frankly Florida State never did um they kept hitting that wheel route and throwing into the back out of the back field uh for pretty good Gams and you know the one time castanos did really try them deep he I I think if you watch the play I think he overthrew him a little bit but if you also watch the replay Reed Harris kind of slowed down as soon as he kind of broke into the deep part of the field and was like passive Defender he kind of slowed down to look back and was like oh shoot the ball's coming in and then he tried to speed up and couldn't get there another one of the intermediate passes was the one that got tipped uh that would have gone to Lewis Bond and probably would have been a good gain but gets tipped to the line and was nearly intercepted which was very frightening but very luckily it fell to the ground um but I think that you're going to see that open up a little more I think they basically said we I thought the other interesting part was how a lot for most of the early part of the game they were using a ton of condensed sets uh you know you saw would be on like the left hash and both wide receivers would be to the left uh they would have the two tight ends attached they would motion a receiver in and then motion another one across and basically by doing that you negate Florida State's athletic advantage and force them to play in a phone booth where that speed athleticism isn't as important and you can win on strength and power which obviously BC's offensive line can do all right in a moment we're gonna look at the defensive side of the ball this was our biggest question mark heading into the season and they answered that call with with the Blum so we'll get into that in just a moment passion drive and patience the formula for winning championships is also what keeps your ride or die alive eBay motors do everything you need to maintain your vehicle and level it up to Peak Performance superchargers roof racks exhaust kits LED headlights and more whether you're in the speed power or style eBay Motors has got you covered with over 122 million parts for your number one ride or die you'll find exactly what you're looking for and with eBay guaranteed fit your part is guaranteed to fit your ride every time or your money back because with eBay Motors you're burning rubber not cash with all the parts you need at the prices you want it's easy to make your car the MVP and bring home huge wins keep your ride or die alive at ebaymotors.com eligible items only exclusions apply eBay guaranteed fit only available to us customers this is locked on Boston College I'm your host AJ black I want to shout out all of our every dayers all of you who have made locked on Boston College your first listen everyday I saw we uh uh one of the 985 the sports hubs um Michael felger mocking that he would never he would be rather sell insurance than talk about Boston College sports well here at blockon BC we'll talk about Boston College sports every single day because there's people out there that want to hear about it and if you're one of those hit that like And subscribe button right now make this your first listen every single day we're here joined by Mitch wolf of Eagle Insider part of the 247 Network and going into this game we did not know what this defense was going to look like you had a defensive coordinator who hadn't coached in the college ranks in years hadn't coached the NFL in years and had been bouncing around a lot of those you know spring football leagues in Tim Lewis well Tim Lewis was named by Matt zenet on of 247 on Monday as his ACC defensive coordinator of the week Mitch what did you see out of Tim Lewis well to return Tim Lewis' Defensive Strategy to things that I got wrong SL right you know when we talked about preview in this game I said that Tim Lewis needed to aggressively Blitz dangal and need to change the picture from post Snap from pre- snap to post Snap so basically show something before the snap give the cor direct indicator and after the snap rotate out of it and get into something else to confuse him and he did exactly that and it worked to charm now he actually didn't Blitz as much as I thought he did according to True Media he only blitzed on 22.9% of Wang's dropbacks which isn't that high uh usually you see that number be between 25 to 30% from most teams um and last year BC was up around 33% and based on what I've watched from Tim Lo that's usually where he he is a pretty aggressive Blitzer but the difference was that he is a huge fan of these things called simulated pressures which or simulated blitzes which I've talked about I'm not probably in this podcast at least once I've definitely written about it it's basically any play where the the defense shows like they're going to Blitz but they only Rush four and they drop they bring guys from OD alignments they bring you know a safety or a linebacker from depth or the slot corner and they only Rush four so it's technically not a blitz but the quarterback can be confused because you're bringing a different rusher he might have called the wrong protection he might still think it's a blitz so he throws to his hot receiver which can be you know take it out for no a minimal gain or he could you know just misread the play and then throw it to an area that he thinks is safe and it ends up being interception and I didn't get an exact count uh from where you're watching the tape but Tim Lewis threw the bag at DJ uang in terms of uh simulated pressures and blitzes like there were so many different types of plays where they would have six or you know seven guys on the line and then they would drop there was one early in the game I think it was on like fsu's second Drive they had like six or seven guys at the line and they only rushed four but they dropped the two defensive tackles into like short Zone coverage and then everybody else was in man which is a pretty crazy play call honestly but it worked and you know looking at the coverages you saw a lot more diversity it wasn't just cover one cover three which is what Jeff Halley was doing BC ran a ton of quarters like the true cover four they ran a ton of cover six which is cover two to one side of the field and cover four to the other side of the field they still ran a decent amount of cover one and cover three but they mixed it up they did they used different types they they showed a two high shell before the snap and then they rotated into one high you saw guys moving around you you saw guys like Carter Davis and kri Johnson and KP price be using these hybrid roles to confuse even son Hala to confuse the def to confuse the offense and as we all saw DJ OU angal couldn't really do much of anything um you know he had his few drives here and there where I will say like if you need somebody to hit a deep comeback from the opposite hash he's your guy because those few those like three or four passes he completed like that those ones were on the money I think the one that was a went for a touchdown was that as well um but yeah so you know you really just frustrated him obviously that um interception he threw at the beginning of the second half which BC returned and then scored right off it that was huge um but you also just saw the the pass rush return to BC you know they got two three sacks depending on how you score some of them Donan as Raku had the game of his life uh just absolutely embarrassing preseason all ACC offensive tackle Darius Washington which is bull crap because it should have been ozie trapilo I mean you saw I mean there were tweets from everybody you know NFL draft anal Jordan Reed Mike gock Jr basically every say like ezaro who was just eating this guy for lunch and you NATO had a great game too he actually LED BCM pressures with six um he got his sack he had it the play of the game where he took the dive uh after the shove from teren Ferguson got up and then gritted away from it which was incredible um that that was the that the game was over then because Flor state had to punt uh with that pen that penalty tacked on after the play uh and and auraku also drew a flag too where he forced uh wangal into intentional grounding so on the back on the back end terms of coverage you know you saw guys you know have not not the best days you know Max Tucker gave up a few plays here and there breis Bown Brown had a decently rough day um even though he was kind of rotating in for Amari Jackson who had to leave for a bit with cramps um but car but a lot of the new guys like KY Johnson Carter Davis KB price had really good games um yeah so I mean it was just an incredible and the obviously one thing we talked about is L the lack of mixed tackles I think there were only three um one of them was on the touchdown to KRON potier um I'm trying to think the other two but I can't remember off the top of my head but that's just that's a huge difference and you know you saw it in a lot of ways you saw it tackling in space then like the second play of the game where Carter Davis came from depth and just flattened or submarined the running back and threw him to the ground um so I think that's kind of that that comes from the increased physicality and practice because that was something that Bill O'Brien talked about mentioned with Craig Fitzgerald the new Strength conditioning coach just being more physical in practice to be more prepared for the game and that paid major dividends against Fort State and in one Kameron Arnold's Perfect Play play I think I have not talked a lot about I was on yesterday's show and I didn't even mention it was cam Arnold ripping that ball out of I think it was the tight end in the in the end zone that was oh yeah yeah incredible like like that's a tough play because so that I believe that play is a cover six so like I said it's cover four to one side of the field it's cover two to the other side but the long this the short story is that cam marnell basically has the tight end going up the seam and he's the only guy there like and basically and and the th the offensive coaching point there is when that tight end's running that seam if the tight end if the linebacker turns his back to the quarterback you throw it to his outside shoulder and and you know dial it in there and it works a lot of the time but cam Ronald played that perfectly played the ball perfectly to rip the ball out and I think I'm not sure if that was I guess that would have been third down because that forced the field goal after but yeah incredible play from cam Arnold who had had one or two mistakes in coverage otherwise but I mean that was just a perfect play from a linebacker you know Mitch before I put this show together I was like I was gonna ask your thoughts on dju but you know what I've I've been watching all these different sport shows and the the uh frame in which people are talking about this is all just about Florida State losing so I'm not even gonna mention it because you can go watch a million other shows they're GNA talk about itly I've Florida State Reaction Podcasts watched about every Florida State reaction podcast I can find it's this is the the South Park meme of Cartman licking up that dude's tears it is it's been a very fun day yeah shout out to locked on FSU I heard um I don't remember the guy's name Brian Bri I watched him that's Brian Smith it was an hourong episode too I heard yeah I heard he went on a huge rant uh so go watch check out Lockton FSU when you get a chance as well now in a moment Mitch and I are going to talk about just some other little nuggets from the game including special teams penalties in where should our expectations for Boston College football B for the rest of the season we'll get into all of that in just a moment you've heard a lot about us talk a lot about FanDuel America's number one sports book well we have something a little different for you now through September 22nd all FanDuel customers can bet $5 and get a free three free three-week trial of NFL Sunday Ticket I'm getting ready for the NFL too can't wait to watch my Patriots it's gonna be so great this year well you can get it all on the YouTube TV based plan you'll be able to watch every regular season Sunday night afternoon out of Market game all you need is a Google account and a current form of payment and you can cancel anytime just go over to fanduel.com Patriots 4 and a half I am smashing that on right now you can too by going to fanduel.com and downloading America's number one sports book this is locked on Boston College AJ black when you're done with this episode two go check out lock on acc I know I've Saw an Eagle Insider a lot of you guys on the message board have been checking it out um and make sure you go let Alex and Kenton know about their predictions about BC losing that game make sure you get in that comment section and let them hear about it I don't know if I'm supposed to be doing that but I'm instigating our fan base to go to some more of the podcast right now listen Special Teams Struggles in Boston College Football you're driving engagement that's what the job is okay I'm doing the right thing okay speaking of Engagement come over to Eagle Insider part of the 247 Network right now I have nine 10 articles up about the uh game from last night Mitch has already done his three stars he's still got his film reviews you can get all of that for like 225 a month right now 75% off go sign up right now you'll get all of our work and we have more writers coming on board it's going to be great um and you're going to get excellent constant stream it's like it's it's going to keep coming to you from Eagle inside so go and sign up right now the deal is gonna end soon want to see you guys all over there so check that out as well all right let's wrap things up Mitch there's a few nuggets here let's talk about one one area that was a little mixed and started off really poor which was special teams uh the announcers said that Sam kandadi had his punt block but he clearly didn't uh he shanked that first punt uh and then there was a few other issues like Dino Tom was standing in the end zone what was going on with special teams to start this game yeah this was not the best I mean let's get the good things out of the way extra points were great didn't have to kick field goals kickoffs were out of the end zone no chance for return great I think actually I think they did return one but covered it well great got that out of the way punting mostly good except for that one I think maybe his first one wasn't the best but after the one that he shanked he got a lot better um even the ones that bounced in the endzone for touchbacks were placed quite well punt coverage was really frustrating because the first one like you mentioned I get that in college the it's only the ball can't cross the plane of the end zone and you can stand in it but I just don't understand why he would do that just stand at the one it's fine don't even risk it going in the end zone because I'll get to this later actually but uh just don't don't do that that just doesn't make any sense to me and then the other one was when Jaylen Williams kind ran into maybe kind of got blocked into the Return Man and that Drew a penalty which gave FSU a good field position but you know it's it happens but it's just like in when you have a bad game going and that's just like that's that's not good um but with with kad's punting this because of how many times this happened when those balls land on the ground they seem to land really hard maybe it's I don't know if it's just like the humidity of Florida where they just drive the ball into the ground it bounces weird ways maybe because it's natural grass I don't know but again I don't know enough about punting to tell you well how exactly that's happening maybe he needs to put get more rotation on his kicks or something I don't know but uh that was that was of all you know we didn't much to complain about that was probably the biggest one but other than that you know we mentioned the penalties to go from 18 last year to one and again I I think maybe you could argue it was jayen ons getting blocked into the returner and you know I'm there were probably times I'm sure you know you can call holding a bunch of times every game blah blah blah um I will say think there were a few times the refs did give BC a pretty nice spot or you know didn't call the pending where there could have been one so you know that's nice but hey when you're suing the ACC that's what you're gonna get so you know Texas saw how that worked for them last year so that's just kind of how the chips fall for Florida State um but yeah I mean it was a very enjoyable game to watch you know even though it's you it's heart pounding as you know BC had those few three andout drives towards the end of the game where you you just hope the defense can hold and they did and you know now we need to think about what this team looks like moving forward yeah let's talk about expectations right now um I saw I forget what ESPN um uh statistical system was out there but BC now has a 12% chance of making the college football I think that was fpi football power index uh which is insane yeah yeah um which yeah I don't know we've Gonna we're gonna have a lot of fans out there that are going to have really high expectations now and I I think it's fair I think clearly this team is going to be better than five and seven uh but you know where are your expectations now well so a few things to temper it so first of all this is a one game sample size and I think that I was wondering how much this would count but I think it's extremely important to recognize that BC not having any tape out there with these two systems like with the players on the team was a huge Advantage for BC on both sides of the ball you know obviously they they did a lot the same stuff on offense terms of running the ball and Thomas castalanos and all that but still that and on defense especially not having that tape is huge that gives BC a massive Advantage um my other thing is that and this is something that I brought up when talking about the Miami versus Florida game is that the the Two Worlds where Miami is the best team in the country and Florida is the worst team in the country those those two can't really coexist for you know if if Miami blowing out the worst team in the country me means nothing and uh Florida losing to the best you know the quote unquote best team in the country then means nothing so I think we can all agree Florida state is was massively overrated there seems to be a lot of problems internally in that program um I was hearing some things that are not not but just like it's things are really falling apart there um you know I'm not sure they're gonna be able to get it back but you know now BC needs to regroup and they play and we'll talk about it later but I mean they play a a middling to bad FCS team on Saturday and you know I'm I like I say to you I am more now more nervous about the Duane game than I ever was for the Florida State game because I was going to the game think okay we'll lose and that's fine now I'm like man if we beat Florida State on the road and then we come back home and lose to Dukane then I'm just gonna be in a fit of rage but looking at the rest of the schedule and how poorly the rest of the AC has played and granted most of them it's only one game but looking at BC's opponents you know of the teams remaining the only one where I'm like that is very much likely a loss is Missouri you know look at the rest of the ACC know Louisville panted a an FCS team said what 62 to nothing okay we don't really know what that team's going to be like um Virginia and you know was okay against FCS team Western Kentucky got absolutely blanked by Alabama Michigan State barely got away with the win against Florida Atlantic um cus and pit you know kind of messed around with some mid to bad uh Mac teams and eventually pulled away SMU is hard to figure out UNCC I do not think is good at all um you know beating a Miss field goal after losing and after losing their starting quarterback for the season just bad so you know looking at this like Virginia Tech you know losing at to Vandy in overtime um I just look at this I'm like man if BC continues to play like this and again it's one game sample size they're teams are going to figure things out about them BC is gonna have to adjust to that like it's hard not to see like the path might be back the path might be alive and well yeah I I could see eight wins right now I mean I'm I mean I'm Overreacting to College Football Schedules getting I'm getting you know unrealistic and right now because I'm like I don't think 10 is out of the question which and this is exactly like this is exactly what we do as college football fans is it's a one game sample size and you overreact as much as you can but like again like just looking at the schedule like it's so funny how you know this whole offseason we talked about oh the schedule's so hard the schedule so hard schedule hard and you know one week in and again it's one week and we need to take that the gra of salt but it's like wow this schedule is now super easy yep yeah you you just won one of the games that we had talked about for eight since when it get released in January like oh that's you're gonna go to Tallahassee You're Gonna Play Florida state with a new head coach that's not gonna go well and well we're spec sitting at one and0 all right Mitch we're gonna we're gonna end things here where can people find your work you can find me Mitchell T wolf wolf on Twitter uh obviously check out Eagle Insider uh like AJ said the three stars is up I'll have my game rewatch pieces coming out in the next few days I was lucky enough to get all 22 basically hours after the game ended so I've been watching that all day today so we have those Recaps and then it's Onre duain and like I said they're they're interesting I don't know if they're good but they're interesting so uh you know it's you know we we'll preview them like we do every other opponent you know we'll get the matchup report and the three preview out in the days before and hopefully BC takes care of business because man I can't imagine a bigger swing of emotion to beating a quote unquote top 10 team to losing to a bad FCS team right so I think there's gonna the the sense I get is there gonna be a lot of fans of this game I think the students it was great to see like a lot of the burner accounts are putting out pictures of you know fans watching it in the mods and all that stuff so I saw a video of um I didn't I didn't watch all of it but it was a bunch of dudes on the comab bus or something singing walking in a Tommy Wonderland or something so I mean yeah I mean I think that's going to be the most packed Beast versus an FCS opponent that we've seen in some time so get out there watch that game because this is you're you're you're the hope of having a big program I think what we're getting at and we'll talk more about it later this week is you've got your coach now BC's putting the money in now as a fan you got to show up so get to those games especially tomorrow uh on Saturday all right Mitch this is AJ black follow me on Twitter at AJ black2 247 and make sure you hit that subscribe button here at locked on PC check out locked on college football with Spencer mlin after this episode I'm sure he's going to talk about the BC game or if he didn't he talked about it yesterday check that out we're on YouTube or you podcasts and follow this the uh Twitter account of lockon BC where I kind of take more of a fan base uh wi with some of my tweets I I do more of the less journalistic stuff out there and I think you'll enjoy some of that so check out lockon BC on Twitter as well for Mitch this is AJ we'll see you all again tomorrow for another episode of Locked on Boston College your team every day