Quotables and Notables: Syracuse Game
Andy Backstrom (@andybackstrom)Staff Writer
Boston College rotated two quarterbacks, went for it on fourth down three times and reached the red zone on four separate occasions, yet the Eagles still couldn’t score a touchdown against a Syracuse defense that was allowing 24.6 points per game.
BC has mustered a combined 40 points in four ACC games after erupting for 41 against Missouri. The Eagles are soul searching on offense while their defense continues to impress, with the exception of a few costly explosives.
BC lost in the Carrier Dome Saturday for the first time since 2015. The Eagles had an injury-riddled quarterback carousel that season and finished 0-8 in ACC play. They are in danger of succumbing to the same fate this year.
QUOTABLES
Second-year Eagles head coach Jeff Hafley made the decision to start veteran Dennis Grosel but also play true freshman Emmett Morehead, who he scheduled to debut on the third series, regardless of how Grosel and BC began the game offensively. Earlier in the week, Hafley didn’t reveal his game plan, however, he did say that the choice was “not very hard.” He explained why postgame.“When you really watch the film really hard, and you go drive by drive, and you look at it,” Hafley said, “if I could have said it was all the quarterback’s fault, then I would have made a different decision. But when you look at it really hard, and it’s not the quarterback’s fault, we’re not playing enough around him. That’s why we decided to go with [Emmett].
Hafley continued: “We feel like Emmett’s been practicing really well over the last two weeks, and just like you would rotate another guy in a position, we felt like he was ready. We felt last week he was almost ready but just not quite there yet. And we thought he could give us a spark with some of the things we saw—him throwing the ball in practice and hitting some of the deep balls, which he did early in the game. So we thought we could take advantage of how he’s been practicing.”
Morehead ended up playing 14 more snaps than Grosel. That said, Grosel’s number was called for what would be the Eagles’ final drive of the game. Morehead had piloted the previous three series. Hafley said that decision was influenced by the disparity in experience between the quarterbacks. Grosel was a fifth-year redshirt senior who was in his 14th career start, while Morehead was playing his first game since his junior year of high school (COVID-19 wiped out his senior season).
“Just felt that was something he had experienced before,” Hafley said of Grosel. “So just the guy with the experience in that type of situation, we felt like the best bet was to go with Dennis.”
Syracuse did all of its damage in the third quarter when it rattled off three consecutive touchdowns of 48-plus yards, the first of which was a 51-yard Sean Tucker run. Tucker, who leads the FBS in rushing yards, finished Saturday’s game with 207. He averaged eight yards per tote. Filling in for an injured Isaiah Graham-Mobley, BC middle linebacker Vinny DePalma noted that the Eagles tried to get creative with their defensive front to figure out where Tucker was going at the line of scrimmage. At times in the first half, it worked. Not so much in the second.
“Sean Tucker’s a great player,” DePalma said. “He’s one of the top backs in the country. He’s fast, he’s explosive, he runs hard. … Run defense a lot of times comes down to getting off blocks, running to the ball and tackling effectively so we’ve gotta do that better.”
Still, BC’s defense was not the reason for the Eagles’ fourth loss in a row. The Eagles, who limited Syracuse to 12 total yards of offense in the second quarter, gave their offense plenty of chances to go up big early in Saturday’s game. Not only that, but the unit also buckled down in the fourth quarter to keep BC’s comeback hopes alive. Hafley said he was proud of his defense’s effort.
“They gave up 14 points today against a pretty good offense and two really good guys who can run the ball,” Hafley said. “Now, we could have been better, and we need to be better. But we should be able to win games with that.”
It has been a rollercoaster season for Grosel. The longtime backup guided the Eagles to their first 4-0 start since 2007 and then was 11 yards away from knocking off Clemson in Death Valley. After that infamous dropped snap, though, everything has gone downhill. He was put in a tough position Saturday at the Dome. But, after the game, he maintained that he wants to do whatever it takes to get back in the win column, whether that means he or Morehead—who Grosel called “a hell of a player”—is under center.
“At this point, it’s any way to win games,” Grosel said.
“When you’re losing four in a row, and you start struggling to make plays and score points, whether it’s me or [Emmett], I don’t really care. Let’s just get it going and get a win in the win column. Any way to do that, we’re gonna do that and send the best guys on the field.”
NOTABLES
— Grosel was 9-of-17 for 93 yards. Morehead was 6-of-15 for 87 yards. Both quarterbacks completed passes to Zay Flowers of 40 or more yards.— Flowers registered his fifth career 100-yard receiving game and his second of the season. He had six grabs for 116 yards.
— Pat Garwo III led the way on the ground for the Eagles with 84 yards on 17 carries. But Garwo only got three rushing attempts in the fourth quarter. Travis Levy was given the ball on 4th-and-Goal from the Syracuse 1-yard line during BC’s final series.
— Orange quarterback Garrett Shrader was 0-of-6 in the second quarter and ended the game with just 65 yards through the air. He was much more effective with his legs. The Mississippi State transfer piled up 78 rushing yards, 48 of which came on a third-quarter score.
— Tucker received just two carries in the second quarter but then had 14 total in the final two frames as Syracuse shifted away from its passing game.
— Both teams struggled on third and fourth down. BC was a combined 6-of-21. Syracuse was a combined 4-of-15.
— BC averaged 3.5 yards per play, marking the fourth straight game in which the Eagles have averaged fewer yards per play than they did the previous week.
— Syracuse recorded five sacks Saturday. The Orange now rank first in the ACC in sacks per game (3.6). And BC has allowed 15 sacks in its last four games after giving up just two in its first four outings.
— DePalma notched a game-high and career-high 11 total tackles at Syracuse. Six of them were solos. Also notable, true freshman linebacker Bryce Steele made seven total stops.
— Syracuse defensive end Kingsley Jonathan had himself a day. Beating up on BC’s left tackles, Jonathan racked up three sacks in the Orange’s decisive win.
