BC Isn’t Taking Colgate Matchup for Granted
Andy Backstrom (@andybackstrom)
Staff Writer
Boston College is a 50.5-point favorite heading into its season opener against Colgate Saturday, according to Action Network. And ESPN’s Football Power Index gives the Eagles a 98.2% chance of beating the FCS Raiders.
Second-year head coach Jeff Hafley couldn’t care less. He’s not getting comfortable.
“We are 100% not taking this team for granted or lightly,” Hafley said Wednesday. “We need to prepare this week as if we’re preparing against the best team that we play in the ACC. That’s how we’re gonna do it all year, and it doesn’t matter who the opponent is.”
Hafley has good reason to take Colgate seriously. After all, the Eagles’ lone non-conference foe in 2020, Texas State, nearly staged a historic upset last September. If it wasn’t for a fourth quarter comeback, capped by a 36-yard, game-winning field goal from Aaron Boumerhi, the Bobcats would have left Alumni Stadium with their first-ever Power Five victory.
Colgate is hoping to pull off a similar feat. The Patriot League representative hasn’t opened the season against a Power Five opponent since 2016 when it traveled to the Carrier Dome and lost, 33-7. Colgate is actually 31-42-5 all-time against teams currently in the ACC—except that statistic is super misleading. All 31 of those ACC wins came against Syracuse, and, more importantly, the last one occurred in 1950.
It’s a tall order for first-year head coach Stan Dakosty, who, before this season, spent 15 of his first 17 years in coaching in different assistant roles for the Raiders. Colgate needed a change after last spring’s shortened season. The Raiders combined for 18 points in their two games, both of which were decisive losses.
Colgate returns fifth-year quarterback Grant Breneman, who ranks eighth all-time in program history for passing yards (5,206) and all-purpose yards (6,216). He’s a dual-threat, with 1,010 rushing yards and 16 touchdowns to his name.
“I have a ton of respect for him,” Hafley said. “He’s really tough. Runs the ball really well, can make throws, gets on the move, can sit in the pocket. But the biggest thing that jumps out to me on tape is how tough he is. And I respect that.”
Breneman hasn’t been able to replicate his 2017 freshman campaign, a year in which he set Colgate rookie records for passing yards and touchdown totals. The 6-foot-1, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, native posted an 18:5 touchdown-to-interception ratio and ripped off 401 yards and six scores on the ground. That season, he was named Patriot League Rookie or Offensive Player of the Week five weeks in a row.
He’s hoping to bounce back from a COVID-19-affected spring season that saw him throw five picks and zero touchdowns in two games of play. Breneman will have the benefit of a wide receiving corps led by senior Garrett Oakey, who Hafley said has good speed. Last year, Oakey hauled in a team-best eight catches for 128 yards.
The Raiders also have a pair of capable tight ends: sophomore William Parker, who they line up in the backfield at times, and senior Mike Bevino. Sometimes, Colgate will spread both of them out wide. Up front, the Raiders have an experienced offensive line, equipped with four starting seniors. Hafley mentioned that, similar to BC, Colgate has clear chemistry in the trenches.
On the other side of the ball, the Raiders line up in a 3-4, which pits BC center Alec Lindstrom against a nose tackle. It’s a man-on-man blocking assignment, as opposed to the double teams a center typically faces, Lindstrom explained.
“It’s a little bit more physical for me,” he said Tuesday. “They kinda play a two-gap nose so essentially what that means is he’s reading my feet, and he wants to play both gaps.
“So it’s really kind of man-on-man for me, but we still get those double teams in. I’ll have the guy in my face, and then they’ll have two bigger defensive ends on the tackles and maybe on the guards with overhang linebackers, like a pass-rushing linebacker.”
Hafley said that Colgate’s defensive front is big and wide. Two of the Raiders’ three down linemen, including defensive end Owen Rosenberger, are at least 6-foot-3 and 275 pounds.
But Hafley was most impressed by Colgate middle linebacker Milton Braasch II, a senior who registered 13 total tackles in the Raiders’ abridged spring campaign and ranked second on the team in 2019 with 76 total tackles.
“In my opinion, he’s one of their most physical players,” Hafley said. “He shows up all over the tape.”
The 42-year-old head coach noted senior defensive back William Gruber. Hafley said that Gruber, who’s slated to play left corner Saturday, caught his eye because of his athleticism and good coverage skill. He’s Colgate’s kickoff return man, too. And this spring, he collected All-Patriot League first-team honors as a specialist as well as a second-team nod for his defensive back play.
Gruber’s part of a Raiders defense that gave up a combined 64 points in two games last season and is three years removed from greatness. In 2018, Colgate stormed out to a 9-0 start, allowing 29 total points in that span. Over a seven-game stretch, the Raiders conceded six points, notching five shutouts in the process.
The Raiders won’t blank BC, but they’ll have to pull out a 2018-like defensive performance to even hang with the Eagles, who are locked and loaded offensively.
In last year’s season opener, BC quarterback Phil Jurkovec threw for 300 yards despite not having much of a spring ball or a normal training camp, not to mention him never having started a college game before. Now, he and the rest of his teammates are more comfortable in their respective schemes. And they’re about to face an FCS team at home.
Still, Hafley is wary. Even though BC has the luxury of an extremely manageable non-conference schedule, he isn’t thinking that way.
“You know how first games go,” Hafley said. “A lot of teams come out a little rusty, and we just gotta make sure we do the best we can so that doesn’t happen to us.”
