Boston College Football Going to be Fine Without Starting Corners, DT at Stanford

There’s good news and bad news heading into Boston College football’s Week Three matchup at Stanford (0-2) for the Eagles’ fanbase.

The bad news is that the Eagles (1-1) will be without their two starting cornerbacks, senior Amari Jackson and sophomore Syair Torrence, and one of their starting defensive tackles, redshirt-senior Owen Stoudmire.

The good news is that BC defensive coordinator Tim Lewis runs a multiple defense, which means the Eagles will be able to maneuver their defensive formations and scheme in order to prepare for the Cardinal offense—which ranks dead last in the Atlantic Coast Conference in average scoring, total points, and average passing yards per game—with the personnel that they do have available on Saturday night.

In his Tuesday press conference earlier in the week, Stanford’s interim head coach, Frank Reich, attested to this facet of Lewis’ defense which makes it hard for opposing offenses to prepare for every possible look BC will line up in.

“You know, they mix, they’re multiple on defense,” Reich said. “They’re gonna play some odd front, some even front, they’re gonna mix it up in their coverages like everybody else, so it’ll be a good challenge for our team.”

Of all the players Reich noted when he was asked about BC’s defense, none of them will be out for Saturday’s contest, which means in the eyes of the opposing head coach, the Eagles still have their defensive structure intact for the game.

“Defensively, it’s a good team,” Reich said. “[Quintayvious Hutchins] is a real-deal pass rusher, [Daveon Crouch] is their best linebacker and he’s playing well, he’s aggressive, he’s athletic, he’s a good pass rusher when he blitzes. In the secondary, [KP Price] is their guy. He’s a good blitzer, a good tackler. So this is a good aggressive defense.”

With Stanford ranking worst in the ACC in passing offense statistically (125.5 passing yards per game, 4.0 passing yards per attempt, zero touchdowns), out of all weeks, this week is probably the best possible one for BC to be down a few players in its second and third level.

In addition to Jackson and Torrence, Njita Sinkala, Marcus Upton, and Ashton McShane have been listed as out on the ACC’s initial availability report for the game—which is a new rule this year that teams in the ACC must abide by for conference matchups—which does really thin out the position group for Week Three.