Boston College readies for Clemson coming off loss to UNC

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Mon Oct 27 15:49:08 GMT-04:00 2008

Don’t look for Boston College head coach Jeff Jagodzinski or his team to overlook the wounded Clemson Tigers when the two squads square off in ACC action in Chestnut Hill next Saturday.

The Eagles dropped to 5-2 overall, 2-2 in ACC play, when they lost 45-24 to UNC in Chapel Hill on Saturday, committing three costly turnovers that helped North Carolina score 24 points in a torrid second quarter.

“You have to take care of the football, and we didn’t do that,” Jagodzinski said. “It has not been good the last two games, and we got away with it against Virginia Tech, but yesterday it came back to bite us. I was looking at what we did to our defense, putting them in short field situations, and you can’t do that to a defense.”

The loss snapped a four game winning streak for the Eagles, and makes Saturday’s game against the Tigers an almost must-win situation, a scary proposition when Jagodzinski looks at the talent on Clemson’s roster.

“They have as much talent as anybody in the ACC, probably more so,” he said. “That football team right there has a ton of talent, more than anyone else in the ACC, so that (overlooking them) won’t happen. It just goes to show you that you have to come to play every week.

“You can’t just show up and expect to win, you have to earn every win you get. You gotta play sixty minutes regardless of who you are playing. They have two weeks to prepare for us, and I am sure we are going to see some things we haven’t seen so far, and we’ll have to adjust on the fly. They are a dangerous team.”

Boston College quarterback Chris Crane has thrown 12 interceptions on the season, and his head coach says that his team has to stop turning the ball over if they want a chance to win.

“You have to take care of the ball, because yesterday we lost the turnover battle and gave up big plays and we lost the game,” he said. “We just have to take care of the ball, because when you are always defending a short field, it puts pressure on the defense.”

In 2007, the Tigers and Eagles squared off in Death Valley in an electric night game that was for the chance to play in the ACC Championship game, and No. 18 Boston College came away with a 20-17 win over No. 16 Clemson on Matt Ryan’s 43-yard touchdown pass to Rich Gunnell with 1:46 remaining.

Jagodzinski said his first game as head coach in the series will always be remembered because of the noise.

“It was loud,” he said. “That was a great atmosphere and a great football game. It does not get any better than that.”