 Sophomore Jamie Silva levitates momentairly as he gets down to pick up the ball after a punt was blocked by Kevin Challenger. [Click to enlarge]
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 Andre Callendar bowls over a Ball State defender on his way to some of his 53 yards. He and L.V. Whitworth combined for 119 rushing yards while QB Matt Ryan ran in for two TD´s.
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 Will Blackmon skied for a touchdown catch in the third quarter of Saturday´s game, but was ruled out of bounds on the play.
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All week Boston College football players dwelled on one number. They became obsessed with it; nothing else would have been acceptable. They were going to pitch their first shutout since September 2002, and Ball State University was just going to have to comply with it.
Well under three hours later, they walked away content with a 38-0 victory over a depleted Cardinals team that had left 16 players back in Indiana because of NCAA infractions. The game featured an efficient and overpowering offense that ran down the Cardinals and a defense that refused to budge, despite the talented quarterback of Ball State, Joey Lynch.
"It was big; we were preaching it all week that we wanted the shutout," said senior linebacker Ray Henderson, "so we went out and we did what we had to do."
The beginning of the game could have been very different if not for the soft hands of Larry Anam. On the opening kickoff the Cardinals decided it would try a little trickery and short hopped a well placed onside kick that Anam calmly grabbed for BC at the 50 yard line. Two plays and 22 seconds later L.V. Whitworth took the ball into the end-zone from 14 yards out and the Eagles were off.
"We came out and we established ourselves early," said coach Tom O'Brien, "and didn't want to give them any reason to be excited."
Then the defense trotted out and took another chunk of BSU's heart out. Following one nice 15-yard completion and a BSU holding penalty, the shifty Lynch was brought down by Matthias Kiwanuka, a 4-yard sack on third down. On the ensuing punt, receiver Kevin Challenger made sure Chris Miller never got the ball in the air, barreling to block it, even with a limited rush of five players.
The block gave the Eagles the ball at BSU's 29 yard line and they took advantage in seven plays. Two nice plays by Andre Callender, and another third-down run by linebacker Brian Toal, set up the Eagles with a first-and-goal. And when quarterback Matt Ryan scrambled into the end zone on a 10-yard run, BC took a 14-0 lead halfway through the first quarter.
Late in the first quarter the Eagles were poised to get the ball back after another sack, this one by Jamie Silva. But a high spinning punt sent Will Blackmon twisting backward and it hit straight off his hands into the waiting grasp of BSU's David Gater. BSU had the ball at the 18 and the shutout was in serious jeopardy.
But the defense wasn't having that, and instead of giving them some easy points, they pushed them backward. Kiwanuka chased down Lynch again for a 1-yard sack, his fifth tackle in a quarter where he sat out one entire drive. On second down Nick Larkin took down Lynch at the 21 and a third-down pass set up a 32-yard field goal try for Brian Jackson. Jackson missed wide left, and the Cardinals were left empty handed on their closest chance to score in the game.
"We probably would have been really angry with ourselves if we had given up a score," Henderson said, "but we pulled it off and we are happy with what we did."
The offense responded following the field goal, and drove 80 yards in 13 plays. Matt Ryan completed four passes in a row on the drive, and Callender added 29 yards on the ground. Then Ryan again scrambled into the end zone from 10 yards out, earning the Eagles a 21-0 lead and himself a new nickname in the process.
"We always make fun of him for running too much," said Henderson, "We call him Matty Vick."
In the third quarter, Whitworth took over the game for the Eagles. On their first drive of the second half he gained 47 total yards and set up a Ryan Ohliger 26-yard field goal. Whitworth's power running attack destroyed the last hopes of Ball State on route to the 24-0 score.
The fourth quarter opened to another Kiwanuka sack, his third and the team's sixth of the afternoon. When BC got the ball back, Ryan and Whitworth again drove down the field where Ryan threw to an open Brandon Robinson in the end zone for the 30-0 lead.
The final touchdown was added as redshirt freshman quarterback Chris Crane came in and marched down the field, leading to a Jeff Survival Ross 17-yard touchdown run.
But even with 38 points on the board, the story of the day had to reside with BC's defense. They held the Cardinals to 159 total yards, and a 1.4 yards per run average. Until late in the third quarter BC had held the Cardinals without a third down conversion, and by the end of the game they stopped 12 of their 14 tries on third down. That means that in the last two weeks the defense has only given up two first downs on the 25 third downs they have seen.
They kept a talented and quick quarterback from making the plays, and constantly running for his life. They kept the yards and penalties to a minimum. And they got that goose egg on the board.
Spring Break
