Clemson 36, BC 14: Expect the expected
By Joe Micik
And the expected was that the Eagles would lose, which they did. In what seemed like a strange game at times, Boston College has fallen to Clemson on the road, 36-14, and are now 1-5 (0-3) through the first half of the 2011 season. This is BC’s first 1-5 start since 1991.
Clemson struck first and struck often, hooking up on a number of big plays to take a 20-0 lead in the second quarter. The Eagles, for their part, seemed to be slowing the Tigers down afterwards and had scored a touchdown, but the turning point of the game was when Chase Rettig hit Bobby Swigert for a 43-yard touchdown pass — which was called back on a facemask penalty. The Eagles only scored once more in the game while Clemson tacked on 16 more.
In the second half, unfortunately, Clemson QB Tajh Boyd was injured on a clean tackle, and to be perfectly honest, it did not look good. Regardless of how you feel about the Tigers, that’s just a terrible outcome for a team primed to have a special season, and we here wish Boyd all the best in his recovery.
This game, by and large, went just about as badly as expected. The Tigers ended up with 498 yards of total offense, while Boston College had only 258. Clemson had 25 first downs; Boston College 14. Clemson consistently moved the ball; Boston College did not. Clemson almost consistently got to the quarterback and took advantage of Boston College’s dreadful offensive line; the Eagles did not create a lot of pressure on Tajh Boyd and Cole Stoudt (except for the obvious play where Boyd was injured).
Chase Rettig was off, but clearly, it wasn’t all his fault. I spent plenty of time cringing every time Rettig got hit, and it was certainly a repeat occurrence throughout the game. I also cringed every time the offensive line folded up like a cheap tent or the defense got gashed for big gain after big gain, not seeming to know how to handle Clemson. They got a number of stops, holding Clemson to field goals on five occasions, but they were unable to get THE stops they needed, nor were the Eagles able to take advantage and put points on the board. It felt like every time BC started to do something right, they followed it up with something catastrophically wrong (e.g. 43-yd TD comes back on a penalty, offensive line starts to play well followed by a Rettig pick, et al.).
That’s not to say that it was all bad, however. Luke Kuechly had a boatload of tackles (15, unless he made a few more that I didn’t see) and Bobby Swigert just kept coming up with big plays.
It was, in short, an ugly and forgettable game for Boston College, in what has turned out to be a forgettable season. Every week, more and more people are facing the reality that this team isn’t even all that competitive (in an overall sense) when they play. Lots of guys played hard and I give them credit, but if Clemson needed a big play, they got it, just like Wake Forest, Duke, UCF, and Northwestern did. Don’t hold out for another late-season surge this year, because a) the schedule is not going to cooperate and b) they’re not even playing at the same level as they were last season.
At least there’s a bye coming up. And hockey.