Sometimes good isn’t good enough.
Taking on defending national champion Florida State — winners of 25 straight coming in — Boston College held its own on a rain-soaked afternoon in Tallahassee. It took a last-second Robert Aguayo field goal to finally put the Eagles away, as the Seminoles escaped with the narrowest of victories, 20-17.
“I’m truly disappointed,” said Boston College coach Steve Addazio. “I feel like we really had a good opportunity in this game. It’s not a lack of effort. We just needed to make some more plays to win this game.”
One such play was a 43-yard go-ahead field goal the Eagles missed with 4:37 remaining.
Still, the team did enough, riding a dominating run game all afternoon. Boston College finished with 240 yards and a touchdown on the ground on 51 carries. Jon Hilliman (73 yards) and Marcus Outlow (61 yards) led the way.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to knock off college football’s giant.
Meanwhile, since losing to Florida State on Oct. 18, Notre Dame has been on quite the downward spiral.
The team has now lost four of its last five games. That includes a surprising 31-28 defeat at the hands of Louisville on Saturday.
With 51 seconds left, placekicker Kyle Brindza had an opportunity to send the game to overtime, but his kick went wide right from 32 yards.
“We’ve lost back-to-back games because we couldn’t put down a ball and kick it 32 yards,” said Irish coach Brian Kelly, referring to Brindza’s missed kick in overtime last weekend against Northwestern. “We played a lot of freshman in there and a lot of young guys. They battled as best as they could.”
Sophomore running back Tarean Folston continued his torrid pace, rushing for 134 yards and a touchdown on 18 carries. Quarterback Everett Golson had a solid game as well, throwing for 236 yards, two touchdowns, and an interception on 16-of-24 passing.
Notre Dame (7-4) will look to turn things around when it travels to take on USC in the season finale.
Boston College (6-5), losers of two straight, also will look to get back on the winning track when Syracuse comes to town on Saturday.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Results for Catholic colleges around the US
Catholic schools, in italics below, went 21-13 this weekend
Division I FBS
Louisville 31
Notre Dame 28
Florida State 20
Boston College 17
Division I FCS
Dayton 19
Campbell 14
Duquesne 22
Robert Morris 0
Army 42
Fordham 31
Georgetown 21
Holy Cross 16
Central Connecticut State 22
St. Francis 17
Cal Poly 34
San Diego 3
Villanova 35
Delaware 28
Division II
Ohio Dominican 34
Colorado Mines 23
Division III
Wheaton 43
Benedictine 14
John Carroll 63
Centre 28
Salve Regina 48
Norwich 21
St. John’s 35
St. Scholastica 7
Wartburg 37
St. Thomas 31