Two quick first quarter touchdown strikes against a team that had given up seven total points in the opening frame all year. A 97-yard scoop and score. A fake field goal hard count. A bobbling end zone catch. A 4th Down conversion from a former walk-on quarterback. A critical 3rd-and-1 stop.

Boston College’s game against No. 1 Clemson on Saturday afternoon had all the makings of a program-defining upset.

Except a game-winning drive.

Phil Jurkovec, who completed just 4-of-12 passes in the second half, couldn’t snap out of his second-half funk. The Notre Dame transfer has often thrived in the game’s waning minutes this season. But when it counted most in Death Valley, he overshot Zay Flowers twice and, on the next series, committed intentional grounding in the end zone.

The top-ranked Tigers escaped with an 18-point comeback victory, 34-28, preserving and extending their 36-game regular season win streak, despite missing their star quarterback.

Trevor Lawrence was sidelined with COVID-19 Saturday. His absence sparked national conversation and threw true freshman signal caller D.J. Uiagalelei into the spotlight. BC’s primary focus, however, was elsewhere. Eagles (4-3, 3-3 Atlantic Coast) head coach Jeff Hafley told reporters postgame that his team’s defensive game plan fixated on Travis Etienne.

“It was stop No. 9, stop No. 9, stop No. 9, and I told everybody if D.J. beats us today, then hats off to him,” Hafley said.

Uiagalelei filled in the potential No. 1 overall pick’s shoes admirably. The 6-foot-5, 250-pound five-star recruit threw for 342 yards and a pair of scores in his first collegiate start, not to mention his rushing touchdown and 25 yards on the ground.

Clemson (7-0, 6-0) was just fine at the quarterback position. Where the Tigers were exposed was the defensive side of the ball. Brent Venables’ group was without linebackers James Skalski and Mike Jones as well as defensive tackle Tyler Davis—and it showed.

BC outgained Clemson in the first quarter, 140-123, in total yards. The Eagles racked up seven first downs and averaged a whopping 10.8 yards per play.

A BC gunslinger hadn’t thrown for more than 140 yards versus the Tigers since 2013. Jurkovec cleared that bar in the first half. He completed his first three passes for 59 yards, two of which landed in Flowers’ bread basket, including an 11-yard touchdown.

The Tigers responded in a heartbeat. Offensive coordinator Tony Elliott did a good job of getting the ball out of his young quarterback’s hands quickly. That’s exactly what Uiagalelei did when a blitzing Jahmin Muse came rushing toward him on 1st-and-10 from the BC 35-yard line. The Bellflower, Calif. native calmly delivered a pass to Etienne out to the flat, and the versatile running back took care of things from there, scampering into the end zone to tie the game.

Jurkovec went right back to work on the ensuing Eagles drive. Off play-action, he unloaded a deep pass to a striding Jaelen Gill, who not only hauled in the reception but also ran away from Clemson cornerback Derion Kendrick to cap a 48-yard gain. A Sheridan Jones defensive pass interference penalty in the red zone sling-shotted BC to the goal line, at which point David Bailey pushed his way past the plane for his third rushing touchdown in the past two weeks.

Later in the quarter, a Tate Haynes illegal block in the back negated a Gill punt return touchdown. BC eventually took a 21-7 lead—the Eagles would just have to wait until the second frame for their home run play.

Clemson churned out a 12-play, 67-yard drive that started and ended with Etienne. After being bottled up on back-to-back goal line runs, the future NFL running back had his eyes on the end zone. He never got there.

The ball bounced off his pads, fingertips, and finally the turf of Memorial Stadium before ending up in the hands of cornerback Brandon Sebastian. Holding the fumble like a newborn baby, Sebastian paused for a moment. Then, he shot out of the gates.

With his head up and his arms pumping, the redshirt junior cornerback sprinted 97 yards to the house, silencing the crowd of 19,000.

The Tigers chipped away at their deficit with a 33-yard B.T. Potter field goal, largely set up by a couple of chunk receptions by Cornell Powell.

BC offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti Jr. made sure to keep the momentum on the Eagles’ side the following series. The longtime NFL assistant worked the clock, calling 11 runs on a 15-play drive that spanned close to eight minutes.

Hafley trotted out his kicking team on 4th-and-2 from the Clemson 23-yard line. They initially set up for a field goal, but then tight end Danny Dalton split out wide, and holder John Tessitore sprinted up to the line with Aaron Boumerhi trailing. Tessitore got the Clemson defense to jump offside with a head fake and hard count, gifting BC a fresh set of downs.

Jurkovec cashed in on the opportunity, threading an 18-yard pass to CJ Lewis for his fourth touchdown catch of the year. Lewis, who struggled with drops early in his BC career, used incredible concentration to reel in the bobbling reception.

“I just had single coverage to the boundary,” Lewis said. “Phil put it in a great spot. It was a little tough because the defender was trying to push me out of bounds. But I didn’t really want to push him too much and get a PI. Phil gave me a chance to make a play, and we scored.”

Clemson avoided trailing at the half by 18 points for the first time since 2013 with a 50-yard Potter field goal. And the Tigers rode that momentum into the third quarter.

Etienne opened up the frame with a 40-yard kick return. It was a promising start to a Tigers scoring drive that culminated in a 30-yard, zone-read touchdown run by Uiagalelei. Just like that, Dabo Swinney and Clemson were within eight points of BC, trailing, 28-20.

Venables made some big-time defensive adjustments at intermission and found ways to get pressure on Jurkovec, who nearly threw two interceptions (both called back because of personal fouls) and almost lost a fumble. The high-flying Eagles offense of the first half disappeared, as BC mustered just 66 total yards in the final two quarters.

To make matters worse, the Eagles’ penalty problems continued in the back half of play, at one point erasing two consecutive Grant Carlson punts downed at the 1-yard line. BC finished with 11 infractions on the day (above its eight penalty per game average).

Clemson capitalized and, as the program is wont to do, stitched together scoring drives with relative ease. Midway through the third frame, Uiagalelei connected with Etienne for a 42-yard pass-and-catch down the sideline. The true freshman later moved the chains with his legs on 4th-and-1 before dialing up a back shoulder touchdown pass to Amari Rodgers.

Clemson failed the two-point attempt, but it wouldn’t matter. Etienne, who did most of his damage through the air until late, finally broke free on the ground at the beginning of the fourth quarter. A 16-yard run at the start of the drive gave him the ACC’s all-time leading rushing record and a 17-yard scamper at the end of the series proved to be the game-winning touchdown. Clemson burned a pair of timeouts after the touchdown, yet it was all for naught because Potter doinked the extra point.

BC’s best shot to retake the lead came on another marathon drive—this one 13 plays, also around eight minutes. The series included a healthy dose of runs and a negated interception, and even saw Jurkovec leave the game after taking a hard fall on 3rd-and-3. Backup quarterback Dennis Grosel, who started the final seven games of last season, kept BC’s hopes alive with a four-yard pass to Hunter Long on 4th Down.

The rest was downhill for the Eagles. Jurkovec turned the ball over on downs, misfiring twice on deep shots intended for Flowers. The nail in the coffin was an intentional grounding penalty in the end zone on BC’s final drive, which gave Clemson a game-sealing safety.

It was a painful loss for the Eagles, who had combined for a meager 31 points in their previous four meetings with Clemson. BC was on the doorstep of its first ranked win since 2014 and, arguably, a top-three victory in program history. Hafley said postgame that he’s proud of his team, which has now given a pair of top-15 teams a run for their money.

BC isn’t satisfied, though.

“We won’t take any moral victories,” Jurkovec said. “We were up big in the first half, and we let them come back. Close isn’t good enough. But I think we will get better from this.”