The Eagles felt right at home at the Linc on Saturday as Temple Falls to 1-2.

Written By: Ajay Patel

Photo Courtesy of: @Temple_FB

The Eagles made the trip down to Lincoln Financial Field Saturday to take on the Temple Owls in their home opener. Not to be confused with the city’s beloved Philadelphia Eagles, 

The Boston College Eagles made themselves at home with a 28-3 win. 

Coming into this game, both Boston College and Temple University were missing their starting quarterbacks. Boston College’s Phil Jurkovec is likely out for the remainder of the season after undergoing hand surgery earlier this week. Temple’s D’Wan Mathis is listed as day to day after suffering a foot injury against Week 1 opponent Rutgers.

The Eagle’s backup quarterback, senior Dennis Grosel, stayed quiet for most of the game, producing 81 total yards with two touchdowns, and an interception. 

Right off the bat, Boston College’s special teams unit set the team up for success when Travis Levy returned the opening kickoff 67 yards to the Temple 29-yard line.

The Owls opened with an unconventional scheme on the kick-off, stacking all 10 players close to their kicker based on film the team studied over the week. Safety and special teams player MJ Griffin explained how Boston College traditionally returns kicks right up the middle. 

The attempt of taking the Eagles out of their comfort zone backfired on the Owls. Safety and special teams player MJ Griffin said, “He (Travis Levy) split all of us, and bent to the left so basically I had to come all the way back around to catch him.”

Good field position ended up setting Jaden Williams for a 19-yard touchdown reception. 

The rest of the half, and even game, was all running back production, rushing for a total of 187 yards, and two touchdowns. Coming from Travis Levy, who makes his presence known on offense as well, and Pat Garwo III, who stretched Boston College’s lead to 21-0. 

“That touchdown right before the end of the half made the 21 really hurt,” said Rod Carey while emphasizing the impact of timely scoring.

Contributing to a 21-0 score entering the half were the penalties initiated by Temple. Throughout the course of the game, the Owls were flagged 11 times for a total of 66 yards. Five of those penalties came in the red zone, letting the Eagles take advantage of better field position. 

“Those key situational penalties that were just self-inflicted wounds, as we call them,” Carey mentions. “Pre-snap, controllable penalties, combat penalties, I usually don’t get worried about.” Again, the concept of timing does not favor the Owls, this time with self-inflicted wounds.

On the other side of the football, Boston College got charged twice, for 25 yards. Carey expressed his displeasure with the officiating team saying, “They didn’t call anything on anybody else, they didn’t call anything on Boston College. So I wasn’t real happy with that.” 

Another area of irritation for Rod Carey was the offensive unit. Justin Lynch put up 161 yards on 24 attempted throws, completing 17. But he did not look like the same quarterback who led the team to a win last weekend at Akron. 

Having trouble going through progressions, mechanical issues, and potential nerves, is what drove Lynch to a rocky game. Veteran Jadan Blue explains this difficulty from the wide receiver position saying, “It’s frustrating when you know that at the end of the day, you got your guy beat and them DB’s they know, we put fear in their heart.”

Being one of the leaders of this unit, Blue talks about how important it is to control emotions. Even if the team is getting agitated with the way the game progresses, “we don’t never, ever, let that stuff show. Cause at the end of the day, that negative stuff is never gonna help,” Blue continued to say. 

Starting the season off with four out-of-conference games, Temple plays their final non-AAC opponent of the regular season this upcoming Saturday, Sept. 25. The Owls will host Wagner for their second home game of the season at noon on ESPN+.