CHESTNUT HILL — Boston College has repeatedly shown the capacity of turning a commanding early lead into a heartbreaking loss.
Louisville rallied from a 13-point first half deficit to defeat BC 31-27 before a crowd of 42,887 in an ACC match on Friday night at Alumni Stadium. BC had built 14-0 leads on Missouri and Virginia earlier in the season that ended in losses.
BC fell to 4-4 on the season and 1-3 with its third straight ACC loss while Louisville improved to 5-3 and 3-2. The Eagles’ will enjoy some rest and recovery over their second bye week and resume ACC play at home against regional rival Syracuse on Nov. 9.
“We were up 20 to 7 and I just felt like we were in a good position,” said first year BC coach Bill O’Brien. “We can’t play for 60 minutes.
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“I can’t coach them well enough to play 60 minutes and I have to coach a lot better. I have to watch the tape and figure out how to fix it. Terrible.”
The match was dominated by two dynamic quarterbacks, BC’s Tommy Castellanos, and Louisville’s Tyler Shough. Castellanos completed 13-of-28 passes for 164 yards and three touchdowns.
Shough shredded the Eagles secondary by completing 28-of-38 passes for 333 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions. Louisville had 461 yards of total offense to 318 from BC.
(Shough) “did a great job, a great player and good coaching staff that out coached us,” O’Brien said. “We didn’t do much on offense tonight.”
BC’s defense produced the first big play of the game at 9:21 of the first quarter. The Eagles pass rush pressured Shough to throw an errant sideline pass that was intercepted by defensive end Quintayvious Hutchins on the BC 16.
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Castellanos acted on Shough’s miscue by completing a 54-yard touchdown pass to tight end Kamari Morales to make it 7-0 with 7:26 to play. Castellanos completed a similar touchdown pass to Morales in the Eagles 27-21 loss at Missouri on Sept. 14.
BC got the ball on their own 39 when Cardinals’ place kicker Brock Travelstead’s 56-yard field goal attempt fell woefully short. Castellanos engineered a 61-yard, 10-play scoring drive that made it 14-0 at 10:24 of the second.
The drive appeared stalled on fourth and goal from the eight, but the Cardinals jumped offside prior to place kicker Liam Connor’s 25-yard field goal attempt. O’Brien put the offense back on the field on fourth and goal from the four and Castellanos delivered a soft touchdown toss to running back Treshaun Ward.
“In the first half they had they belief and confidence that we could convert with a touchdown,” Castellanos said.
Hutchins made his second huge play of the first half when he stripped Louisville wide receiver Ahmari Higgins-Bruce and recovered the fumble of the Cardinals 46. BC went 46 yards on seven plays and scored their third touchdown on a 4-yard run by Kye Robichaux with 6:28 to play. Connor’s PAT kick sailed wide left and BC led 20-0.
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Shough rejuvenated his dispirited offense with a time consuming 10-play, 76-yard, scoring drive to cut the lead to 20-7 with 1:17 to play.
“What got us open in the first half was a couple of gadget plays but we didn’t really do anything in the first half,” O’Brien said. “They turned the ball over and we didn’t.
“We did some good things in the first half but we didn’t do much on offense tonight.”
Shough transited the momentum into second half. Shough completed four passes for 55 yards on a 11-play, 69-yard scoring drive. The Cardinals drive went sideways inside the BC 10 and they settled for a 23-yard field goal by Travelstead to make it 20-10 with 10:42 to play.
Castellanos retaliated with 58-yard pass to Ward that set up first and 10 from the 11. Castellanos capped the trip with a touchdown to wide open tight end Jeremiah Franklin to make it 27-10 with 7:58 to play.
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Shough continued the shootout with a 9-play, 83-yard, scoring drive that made it 27-17 with 3:50 to play in the third. Louisville cut the Eagles’ lead to 27-24 on an 18-yard run by Issac Brown with 10:57 to play. Louisville took a 31-27 lead on a 6-yard pass from Shough to tight end Nate Kurisky with 7:12 to play.
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The Eagles got a final chance for redemption when K.P. Price intercepted Shough on the BC 47 with 3:43 to play.
“I think the second half we didn’t come out with the energy we needed to finish the game,” said nickel back Cameron Martinez. “I think that had been a problem for us all year so far, not finish in the second half and that is what you saw today.
“They came out in the second half with their hair on fire and finished the game.”
BOSTON (WHDH) – Police are investigating a stabbing in Boston on Sunday afternoon that left a victim with life-threatening injuries.
Officers responding to a reported stabbing in the area of 71 Summer St. around 3:30 p.m. found a victim who was taken to a nearby hospital with injuries that are considered life-threatening, according to Boston police.
No arrests have been made.
No additional information was immediately available.
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This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.
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The Trump administration’s accusation that Boston’s housing policies discriminate against white residents is part of a disturbing pattern (“US to investigate Boston for bias,” Page A1, Dec. 13). This is no mere policy debate. It is a calculated attempt by conservatives to whitewash history. They hope that if the past can be obliterated, then present-day racial inequality can be repackaged as something that never even existed.
For centuries, Black Americans have been subjected to legally enforced discrimination in housing, education, employment, lending, and voting, atop generations of enslavement. These evils shaped who accumulated wealth and opportunity and who did not. The Civil Rights Act made discriminatory practices illegal, but it did not erase the advantages and disadvantages those systems had already created. That’s why policies such as Boston’s were conceived — not as rewards or punishments but rather as pragmatic efforts to narrow gaps that were deliberately built.
Opposition to these programs is an attack on history and truth itself. Limiting what can be talked about in schools, removing displays honoring the struggles of Black Americans, taking Martin Luther King Day and Juneteenth off of the calendar of fee-free days at national parks — these are all part of a coordinated and cynical strategy to foster ignorance in America. This scheme allows the Trump team to attack programs such as Boston’s or any DEI policy and call it a defense of fairness and neutrality. It’s another Big Lie.
For this president and the movement he leads, ignorance is no longer a mere failure of politics. It is the whole point.
Front Row to Boston Sports shares stories from the past by area media legends, including the Globe’s Bob Ryan and Dan Shaughnessy.
The Front Row to Boston Sports channel has launched on YouTube. screenshot
By Chad Finn
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4 minutes to read
When reminiscing about sports moments and personalities of days gone by, the familiar anecdotes are often a joy to hear again and again.
Even better, though, is when there are fresh new stories to be told by those who were there.
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The new YouTube channel Front Row to Boston Sports offers both familiar tales and ones you may not have heard before, as told by four of the most connected journalists and best storytellers in the modern annals of sports in this region.
Legendary former sports anchors Mike Lynch (Channel 5) and Bob Lobel (Channel 4), along with Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy and former Globe columnist Bob Ryan, have teamed up to share the funniest, most heartfelt, and illuminating tales from their storied careers, from press row and the locker room.
The project is the brainchild of Peter Brown, a former news director at Channel 4, where he spent 22 years before moving on to an accomplished career in public affairs and communications.
“You come from a news background, you’re always thinking about what’s the best way to tell a story,” he said. “What better story is there to tell than those about Boston sports? Everyone who is from here or has lived here is in some degree a fan. I thought a look back at some great moments and some behind-the-scenes details that only the most plugged-in reporters would know would be a fun thing to do.”
So Brown reached out to Alan Miller, a former sports producer at Channel 4 who worked with Brown during the local news heyday in the 1980-90s. Miller, who later worked at the Globe and in the Channel 7 newsroom before retiring in May 2024, has long been one of the most well-liked figures in the Boston sports media landscape, someone who knows everyone and whose word is as good as a signature on the dotted line.
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Miller thought it was a super idea, and reached out to his close friend Lobel, along with Lynch, Shaughnessy, and Ryan. They all said yes immediately.
“We basically said, just tell us your best stories,” said Miller. “We wanted the stories that maybe you couldn’t tell on TV or in the newspaper, but the ones you might have told your buddies at the bar. The ones about what people are really like and what gets said behind the scenes. The ones about relationships. These were the four perfect guys to tell those.”
Currently, there are eight clips posted on the channel, ranging in length from just longer than three minutes (Ryan talking about his top five all-time Celtics) to 13 minutes (Shaughnessy sharing an assortment of Terry Francona stories). One of Lobel’s clips includes an emotional discussion of Ted Williams, while Lynch is especially insightful talking about Bill Belichick’s candor off camera during their old Bellistrator segments.
Brown and Miller plan to sprinkle out a few new clips each week. Since the project has been in the works for approximately a year, they were able to build up a catalogue of 30 clips before launch.
Miller said there’s another reason that everyone involved wanted to be part of the project — the fear that institutional knowledge about Boston sports isn’t what it used to be because of the changing media landscape.
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“When I was at Channel 7, John Havlicek died, and I think there were about three people in the newsroom who knew how John Havlicek was,” he said. “It’s not their fault, a lot of them are 20-something kids and half of them are from out of town.
“But there can be a real lack of knowledge about the past. And Boston sports, as you know, has an amazing past. You’d like the legacy and the memories to stay alive.”
Bonkers ratings in Boston
It’s no surprise that Patriots television ratings have risen this season corresponding with the team’s return to prominence.
But even if the rise in ratings is logical, some of the heights that they are reaching — or returning to, a half-dozen years after Tom Brady’s final season in New England — are remarkable.
Take last Sunday’s 35-31 loss to the Bills, which aired at 1 p.m. on CBS as a regional broadcast. The game had a 31.4 household rating and 78 share in Boston.
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That household rating — the percentage of households in a defined area tuned in to a program at a given time — is the highest for any Patriots game on any network since the regular season finale against the Dolphins in 2021. That also happens to be the last season the Patriots made the playoffs.
The 78 share — the percentage of households with television in use — is reminiscent of the viewership the Patriots enjoyed during the dynasty. As noted here previously, the Patriots averaged a 35.3 household rating and 66 share in 2018, their most recent Super Bowl-winning season.
Nine of the Patriots’ 14 games have aired on CBS this season. Those broadcasts have averaged a 25.7 household rating and 73 share, up 35 percent from last year (19.0/59) through the same span.
Overall last Sunday, the 1 p.m. slot — which also included the Chargers-Chiefs matchup — was a massive success for CBS, averaging 18.9 million viewers across the games. That made it the most-watched regional window on any network in 37 years.
Chad Finn
Sports columnist
Chad Finn is a sports columnist for Boston.com. He has been voted Favorite Sports Writer in Boston in the annual Channel Media Market and Research Poll for the past four years. He also writes a weekly sports media column for the Globe and contributes to Globe Magazine.
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