The Heights
Monday, November 19, 2012
B3
emily fahey / heights staff
graham beck / heights Editor
quote of the game
graham beck / heights Editor
It’s a little bit more than just, ‘Oh there’s 59 seconds left, let’s make this decision.’ And I do understand that. But we as coaches have to do a little bit more than that. Is there second-guessing? You better believe it. But under those circumstances, we thought that was our best chance to win. I’ll tell you why: throwing the ball we were 13-for-something. We were getting sacked. Our guys weren’t open. We were having pressure there. We were playing some good defense. We felt going into overtime was our best calculated [chance] to win. It turned out wrong. Now, did it turn out wrong because of that? I don’t know. There were a lot of other things. There’s a lot that goes into that. Second-guessing? I don’t know, maybe we would have thrown a screen rather than run a draw on the first play [of overtime]. But the decision? I would do the same thing. I would do the same, taking into account everything that I just told you. It’s a little bit more than—that’s why we try to take the feelings out of it. We try to do a professional job with it. That’s what coaches do. - Frank Spaziani
Yesterday, after reviewing the tape, commenting on whether he second-guessed his decisions at the end of the game
key performers
game-changing play Virginia Tech got the ball with 4:11 left in the fourth quarter, and drove 62 yards down the field before Cody Journell kicked a 41-yard field goal to tie the game at 23-23 with 1:05 remaining in regulation.
it was over when... Logan thomas
Deuce Finch Graham beck / heights editor
graham beck / heights editor
After being buried on the depth chart, Finch had his best game of the season, taking 26 carries for 138 yards. Meanwhile, Thomas burned BC for three touchdowns.
On fourth down in overtime, Chase Rettig threw a screen pass to an open David Dudeck in the flat. Dudeck only made it seven yards before he was tackled, four yards short of the first down BC needed.
Eagles lose lead on Senior Day Deuce was loose against Virginia Tech football notebook
Crushing OT Defeat, from B1
By Ryan Dowd For The Heights
After sitting out for the middle chunk of the season, Deuce Finch returned to the backfield in a big role on Saturday against Virginia Tech. Finch brings the speed and necessary thump to move the chains, and that’s what he did. He rushed for 138 yards on 26 carries for a 5.3 yards per carry average. Finch also led the Eagles with five receptions for 53 yards, all on swing passes or screens. “I thought Deuce was doing what Deuce is supposed to do,” said head coach Frank Spaziani. “We were very happy for him and for us.” Finch used his vision to cut against the grain of an overaggressive Hokie defense. “They blitz so much. They do a lot of slants,” Finch said. “So that’s something we talked about all week that could be there, because they blitz all day. So when they did their slants, the cutback was open, and I just tried to hit it.” It was a prodigal return for last year’s leading rusher, who has had an up and mostly down year. And then, as if anything else could happen in this 2012 football season, Finch suffered a minor injury late in the fourth quarter. Spaziani did not go into detail on the injury, but Finch described it as only a little nick. After Finch went down, true freshman David Dudeck, who saw sig-
nificant time in prior weeks, provided a solid presence. Dudeck scampered for a 12-yard touchdown late in the fourth quarter to put the Eagles up 23-20 for a time, before the Hokies tied the game with a late field goal. Dudeck ran for 38 yards on eight carries, but was tackled short of the first down on a swing pass to the flats in the final play of overtime. Clancy returns After suffering a concussion against the Fighting Irish, senior middle linebacker Nick Clancy’s status was uncertain for much of the week. “By the time Thursday came around, I felt fine, I was ready to play, so I came out like it was any other game,” Clancy said. Clancy played and put forth a Luke Kuechly-type 20-tackle performance. Seventeen of his 20 tackles were solo tackles, and Clancy had 2.5 tackles for loss. “There was something about this week,” Clancy said. “I wanted it so bad, to leave Alumni on a good note.” With 1:30 remaining in the second quarter with BC still up 10-3, Clancy made one his best plays of the day. On a fourth and short at the BC 40-yard line, the no man’s land between field goal and punt range, Virginia Tech ran a slant but right into Clancy’s zone. Clancy blew up the receiver and drive, giving the Eagles a chance to go on and kick a field goal.
“It was just one of those plays where you just have that instinct, that intuition inside of you where you know what play is coming,” Clancy said. Despite a heroic performance, Clancy left Alumni Stadium for the last time as a player in a loss. “It hurts,” he said. “We prepare the same for every game, but I really wanted this one bad. I just wanted to end on a good note and walk away from my last game at BC with victory.” Defense fumbles opportunities In what was, for the most part, a stout performance from the BC defense, the Eagles missed five opportunities to give the ball back to their offense, which may have swung a game that ended in overtime. BC forced three Hokie fumbles. Early in the third quarter, with the Eagles up 13-10, defensive end Kasim Edebali strip-sacked Virginia Tech quarterback Logan Thomas at Virginia Tech’s two-yard line, but the Hokies scrambled to recover the ball, and did so. Aside from the three fumbles, the BC defense fumbled two catchable interceptions. Linebacker Kevin Pierre-Louis dropped an easy interception down the sideline. Virginia Tech, though, would give the ball to the Eagles on downs shortly. Linebacker Steele Divitto also dropped a catchable deflection early in the fourth quarter. n
and the offense—the team’s most reliable weapons throughout the season—began to stall. When asked about his unit’s mid-game struggles, Rettig looked to Virginia Tech’s constant pressure as the worst he’s seen all year. “Definitely the most [pressure],” Rettig said after a 129-yard performance. “We knew they were a blitzing team. Sometimes we were able to pick it up, and sometimes we weren’t.” Thanks to the consistent kicking of Freese, who notched three field goals on the day, the Eagles were able to stay within striking distance despite the offense’s struggles. With BC trailing 20-16 and just over four minutes to play, the ball was placed in the hands of true-freshman running back David Dudeck. He burst through the line and found himself in the end zone with his first career rushing touchdown, a timely score that put the Eagles up 23-20 and seemingly sealed a dramatic victory on Senior Day. If BC has learned anything from its 2012 season, though, it is that faulty defense can allow a lead to slip away. The Hokies used the end of the final frame to drive up the field on the Eagles’ D, setting up a 41-yard field goal attempt that kicker Cody Journell sent soaring through the uprights to tie the contest at 23. With a little over a minute to play, the Eagles took the ball back at their own 17-yard line. Instead of attempting to orchestrate a last-minute drive to set up a reasonable field goal attempt for a near-perfect Freese and the win, Spaziani elected to play conservatively for overtime. Three straight runs amounted to minimal yardage, and after Rettig took a final knee to end regulation, the stadium erupted in boos. After Virginia Tech scored on its first overtime possession and stopped Dudeck short of a first down to end an excruciating Eagle
defeat, many were left to question how a 2-8 team playing for its own dignity could pass up an opportunity to win. “There are a lot of factors that are involved in it,” Spaziani said in reflection of his team’s final possession in the fourth quarter. “We ran the draw hoping we were going to get a good play on first down and we were going to up-tempo it. They could have made us punt, we could have thrown an incompletion, wound up punting, they kick a field goal, win the game and the game is over. We could have done some positive stuff. We were backed up and we felt our better chance was to go into overtime.” Rettig was quick to defend his coach’s decision after the game, even though it forced him to take a knee rather than lead his offense downfield. “Every competitor wants the ball, but it was a smart decision to play for overtime there,” Rettig said. “We were tied at that point. I don’t think that decision had an impact on the game.” Unfortunately, Spaziani’s controversial strategy and the team’s inability to execute in overtime overshadowed a bittersweet farewell from the Alumni faithful to the team’s departing seniors. For Clancy, who tallied over 20 tackles for the second time this season, the game meant more than just another loss on BC’s record. “It doesn’t get much worse than that being the last home game, to fight hard until the very end only to come up short,” Clancy said. Such a disheartening loss leaves the Eagles looking for one last ray of hope to finish their season strong against NC State next week. Although Spaziani shared Clancy’s sentiment of disappointment, he made it clear that BC’s tumultuous struggles throughout 2012 are not the result of poor effort. “We think the seniors came to play and played hard,” Spaziani said. “How efficient they played remains to be seen, but they played hard and so did everybody else. We’re playing hard.” n