Everything Boston College Head Coach Bill O’Brien Said After Loss to No. 14 SMU
The Boston College Eagles (5-5, 2-4 ACC) lost to the No. 14 SMU Mustangs (9-1, 6-0 ACC) 38-28 on Saturday evening.
After the game, Eagles head coach Bill O’Brien spoke about what he saw from his team.
Below is a transcript of everything O’Brien said.
Q: Just comment on the running game today. Wasn't as effective as Syracuse, but it was very good, especially getting third downs.
O’BRIEN: Yeah, I think it started out slow, but it got better as the game went on. Just once again, just don't play 60 minutes, so give SMU a lot of credit. They did a good job today. They got a good football team.
Q: Coach, it seems you were able to be a lot more consistent with the passing game. Just talk about Grayson James and his first start on the road and how he was able to handle everything this week.
O’BRIEN: Did a good job. Very proud of Grayson stepping into that situation. We got a lot of confidence in Grayson. Grayson did a good job, just we didn't do enough, right, in all three phases, just didn't do enough. Didn't coach it good enough, like I said, give SMU a lot of credit. They've got a good team.
Q: Did SMU’s game plan offensively match what you expected essentially?
O’BRIEN: Yes.
Q: Coach, 6-of-15 on third down, pretty good. Just what’d you see on third today?
O’BRIEN: It was a lot of gonna go for it on fourth downs. So third down, those stats don't really reflect what it was, you know what I mean. We're going for it on fourth down. So the third down stats, you can write about that, but it's not really reflective of what we were trying to do. Trying to score touchdowns. Going for it on, how many times we go for it on fourth down, six or seven? That's what you should ask about. But that's all right.
Q: What your overall thoughts are just on the battle going into a hostile territory, 9-1 team, I mean, or 8-1 at the time there. Just hear your thoughts on what SMU showed you.
O’BRIEN: We fight. I mean, we got a tough team. We have a tough football team. We're not there yet. Like I said, give SMU credit. They've got a good team. They’re a top, they're a potential playoff team. We fight, we just, if you're going to win a game like that, you have to make plays in critical moments and we weren't able to do that. Interception at the end of the half [that] led to a field goal after like a 50-yard run which was terrible. That was a terrible sequence of plays and then at the end of the game, we got a chance to get the ball back. We stop them, take two sacks, take a sack on fourth down. Just yeah, not good. Got to coach it better, No. 1, myself, starts with me. Got to do a better job of coaching, and we'll show up next week.
Q: Coach, can you talk about the relationship Grayson showed with Reed Harris and the other tight ends? It looked like he was connecting a lot with them, and had multiple big gains. Can you talk about that?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, they did a good job. They're good. Yeah, good combination of guys. Happy for Reed. Reed came up big in the game. Tight ends always come up big. They're good players. Yeah, all good. Yep.
Q: This is our first time hearing from you there since Tommy's announcement there, so just your reaction to Tommy's announcement there, and kind of his status on the team for one.
O’BRIEN: Tommy's not on the team. We wish Tommy the best.
Q: On going for it on fourth downs and is that the plan going forward?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, I felt like we were in manageable fourth downs and we had to outscore them. We were really struggling to stop them. I don't really think we stopped them at all. They probably stopped themselves. So, I felt like we needed 40 points to win the game which I was right about that. We were gonna [go for it] unless it was 4th-and-10, 4th-and-9. But all the fourth downs were manageable, 4th-and-5 or less. So we went for it. Think there was one 4th-and-7, but as long as it was manageable, we were going for it. We had to score touchdowns.
