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Nearly two years ago, Boston College ushered in a new era of Eagles football. The move to the Atlantic Coast Conference was highly anticipated: T-shirts were proudly worn across campus celebrating the event, and even ESPN's College GameDay crew came to town.
But when BC took the field against Florida State that night, the cries of "ACC! ACC!" quickly turned to moans of anger when the Eagles fell behind on a pick-six on the game's opening play and soon after 14-0. Despite a valiant comeback, they faltered in their debut as a "southern" school.
The loss ended up costing BC the division title, and the team was forced into college football's version of purgatory - Boise, Idaho. Sure, it's a bowl game, but do you really want to go there?
Fast forward to Saturday. Once again, BC was opening up a new era in the program's history - the Jagodzinski era. The game against Wake Forest, much like the one against Florida State two years ago, was highly anticipated by the BC faithful - and once again, BC laid an egg on the first play.
On the first play from scrimmage, senior quarterback Matt Ryan, like his predecessor Quinton Porter before him, threw an interception returned for a touchdown, this one by Wake Forest's Alphonso Smith. Just 14 seconds into the Jagodzinski era, BC was down 7-0.
"He was so hyped up; he made a throw, and it was an errant throw, and they made a score off of it," Jagodzinski said.
Ryan said, "I just made a mistake on the draw and the play came off wrong and it went to the house. As a quarterback, I think you have to place your mistakes behind you and move on, and that's what I tried to do."
After a three-and-out by BC on the next possession, Wake Forest went down the field and scored again, moving the ball easily.
But the Eagles made a quick response: Ryan went 6-of-6 on the drive and tossed a touchdown to Kevin Challenger for the first BC score of the season.
Jagodzinski said, "I told [offensive coordinator Steve] Logan, 'Loges, it's 14-0.' He goes, 'Yeah, I know. Don't worry about it. It's no big deal.'"
From there, BC was mostly in control, finally taking the lead for good in the third quarter on the fourth of Ryan's five touchdown passes before pulling it out 38-28.
"Definitely, I think experience helped," cornerback DeJuan Tribble said of the Eagles beginning their third season in the ACC. Tribble tied a career-high with three interceptions in yesterday's game. "We've been placed in difficult situations and today we were able to get the win," he said.
"I think one thing [the comeback] showed was that these kids have a lot of character," Jagodzinski said. "They didn't care, they just kept playing. And I told them to play hard until the last play of the game. Don't look up at the scoreboard and good things will happen to us. Again, I'm real proud of these kids."
BC's offense also showed signs of the explosiveness that has been talked about under the new coaching staff. BC had scoring drives of one-and-five plays, showing the ability to go for the deep ball whenever they wanted to.
"I told you when I took this job, offensively, we're not gonna pull off," Jagodzinski said. "As far as keeping your foot on the accelerator, I had to tell Logan at the end, 'We need to run the ball a little bit here.'"
Sophomore receiver Richard Gunnell, who caught his first two career touchdowns yesterday, explained the difference between the more receiver-friendly offense of Logan and the more stagnant offense of years past under former offensive coordinator Dana Bible.
"Coach Bible had more of a power offense and he liked to run the ball," Gunnell said. "With Coach Logan, he likes to spread the ball around and allow all the receivers to make catches and plays. I thought today we did our job. Hopefully we'll keep up with this offense and score more points every game."
For Jagodzinski, it was a day of many firsts: first game as a head coach, first game back at BC, and, most importantly, first win.
"It was special," Jagodzinski said of walking out of the tunnel for the first time. "All the things up to that point brought me to that. God has a big plan for my life, I really believe that. I don't just think things happen. I think things happen for a reason. I'm at Boston College at this particular time, with these particular kids, for a reason."
What that reason is has not yet been determined. But one thing is for sure- this was a good start to a new era.
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