Not great and it feels like 7-5 might be on the high side right now.
BC did show some fight in its 42-21 loss to Virginia Tech on Thursday night, but with a lot of the same mistakes and coaching points popping up, it's becoming a trend...
-532 yards of offense and 368 of them on the ground is inexcusable for any D1 team, let alone an ACC program. Run defense has been a problem for a few weeks now and it's getting worse.
-Credit where it's due, that side created turnovers and ultimately helped get BC back in the game, but multiple back-breaking long runs from Tuten (he had 266 yards) are just absolute killers.
-The losses of Arnold and Jackson obviously hurt, but V-Tech didn't even really even have to test the secondary tonight. Drones only threw for 164 yards on 14/18 and V-Tech's leading receiver had 49 yards. This was all about the porous run defense.
-What more can you say about Castellanos at this point? This is who he is. Not a great quarterback, but rather a runner who happens to be playing the position. Turnovers weren't all on him (BC had two inside the red zone) but he still isn't careful enough with the ball.
-The team did run him more and ran overall more which was nice to see (20 carries for TC), but he only had 64 yards. Turbo had nine carries for 64 yards and Kye had nine for 35. Ward had six for 22 yards. So, they attempted 48 rushes and had 167 yards, which is probably the only positive aside from the no quitting part.
-Morales had five catches, need to find a way to get him involved even more. Rest of the team total only had 12 catches. Franklin had three, Harris, Bradley and Bond (four) were all quiet again. Skeete had one catch for one yard. There's gotta be a way to get these guys more involved.
-Having said that, this should have been a run-heavy game and it was given how bad VT has been against the run. The only problem is when you're down 28-0 you need more explosive plays. TC was asked about the play calling postgame and said "coaches are doing a great job calling plays."
-O'Brien defended most of his decisions on the night, except he said in hindsight he probably should have gone for the 4th down that turned into the ugly botched field goal. He also said the 4th-&-1 play where Kye got stuffed was a play he liked and wanted the team to run.
-Speaking of the botched field goal, that's what happens when that operation literally has only done it once for a FG attempt this season.
-On the bright side, I thought the punting unit had its best game and gave VT some tough field position at times, the defense just didn't make it hurt.
-Cam Martinez had a good night. BC is going to need him to step up even more going forward.
-If Arnold is out for any long period of time this defense and LB core in particular is in trouble. McGowan looked okay at times, but overall the depth there is now rearing its ugly head like we thought in might in camp.
-O'Brien expressed confidence in the staff to turn things around postgame. Said "it's not over yet," and "the sun will come up tomorrow, but it'll come up slowly.' Repeatedly said they have to coach better and added this program "doesn't know how to win yet."
-This season will now go one of two ways. Either this will continue to snowball and it'll be a disaster, or this staff and the leaders of the team will have something to say about it starting with a home game against Louisville on Friday night. Either way, the game against the Cardinals is now a fork-in-the-road moment because this schedule is not getting any easier down the stretch.
