Boston College Runs Over Georgia Tech 49-27 Behind 399 Rushing Yards

At halftime, Boston College had missed a field goal, missed two extra points and trailed by a point. By the final whistle, the Eagles had piled up 399 rushing yards, scored 37 second-half points and turned a Georgia Tech homecoming into a long afternoon for the home crowd.

Boston College beat Georgia Tech 49-27 on Saturday afternoon at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta. A crowd of 47,239 was on hand. It was the Eagles' second straight ACC win and their first road win of the season, and it moved them to 4-3 and 2-2 in the conference. Georgia Tech fell to 2-5 and 1-3.

A rough first half for the Eagles

Georgia Tech came out sharp. On the opening drive, Alberto Mendoza hit Jordan Allen for 43 yards, the Yellow Jackets' longest completion of the season, and the eight-play, 79-yard march ended with Mendoza finding tight end Kevin Roche Jr. for a 4-yard touchdown. It was Roche's first career touchdown. Boston College's Luca Lombardo missed a 48-yard field goal, and Aidan Birr's 32-yarder made it 10-0 after one quarter.

The Eagles finally answered early in the second quarter. Mason McKenzie found Nedrick Boldin Jr. for a 25-yard touchdown, the first career touchdown catch for Boldin, a second cousin of former NFL receiver Anquan Boldin. The extra point was missed, and it was 10-6.

Bo MacCormack III gave Boston College its first lead with a 7-yard run that capped a four-play, 50-yard drive, but the extra point was missed again. Birr's 20-yard field goal with 11 seconds left in the half sent Georgia Tech into the locker room up 13-12.

It could have been worse for the Eagles. Georgia Tech reached the Boston College 5-yard line three times in the first half and scored a touchdown only once, and a Mendoza touchdown pass to Allen was wiped out by a holding penalty.

The turning point

The second half flipped in barely seven minutes. On the first possession after the break, McKenzie kept the ball on a play-action fake and ran 40 yards up the middle. MacCormack punched it in from 2 yards out to finish the five-play, 75-yard drive, and Boston College led for good at 18-13. A two-point try failed.

Then Charlie Comella jumped in. The cornerback picked off Mendoza on a deflected throw and returned it 23 yards, and five plays later McKenzie scored on a 6-yard keeper with 7:40 left in the third quarter. Lombardo's extra point made it 25-13.

"The team you saw in the second half, to me, that's our football team," Boston College coach Bill O'Brien said.

Putting it away

Lombardo opened the fourth quarter with a 23-yard field goal for a 28-13 lead. Georgia Tech pulled within a score when Justice Haynes ran 15 yards for a touchdown on a quick three-play, 70-yard drive. Boston College answered with a six-play, 75-yard drive that ended in a 15-yard McKenzie touchdown run.

On the next Georgia Tech series, Comella struck again. He intercepted Mendoza a second time and went 47 yards the other way for a 42-20 lead. It was the first touchdown and the first multi-interception game of his career, and it gives him a team-leading four picks this season.

Backup Grady Adamson replaced Mendoza with a little more than eight minutes left and threw a 30-yard touchdown pass to Dalen Penson, but MacCormack closed the scoring with a 19-yard touchdown run with 3:14 to play.

The backfield did the damage

McKenzie ran for 170 yards and two touchdowns on 16 carries and completed 9 of 17 passes for 101 yards and a touchdown. MacCormack ran for a career-best 155 yards and three touchdowns on 20 carries, the first multi-touchdown game of his career.

"It's a special thing when you can run the ball like that," McKenzie said. "It opens everything up."

MacCormack credited the people in front of him. "I was seeing a lot of red jerseys blocking a lot of white jerseys and moving them," he said. Left tackle Veguer Jean-Jumeau put it more bluntly: "Going out there and performing how we did today, we really put the staple on O-line U."

MacCormack, a Westford, Mass., native, is the all-time leading rusher in Massachusetts high school history, and Comella is from nearby Wellesley, so this was a big day for local products. Georgia Tech's defense, thinned by injuries on the defensive line, gave up nearly 9 yards per carry.

The Eagles did it without running back Evan Dickens, who was sidelined, while center Michael Crounse returned to the lineup.

On defense, linebacker Anthony Palano led Boston College with nine tackles and a sack, and Comella added five tackles to go with his two interceptions. The Eagles held Georgia Tech to 101 rushing yards. Haynes had 53 of them on 14 carries.

For Georgia Tech, Mendoza finished 17-of-24 for 186 yards with a touchdown and the two interceptions. Penson caught five passes for 88 yards.

The numbers that mattered

Boston College outgained Georgia Tech 500-360 and won the rushing battle 399-101. The Eagles had 28 first downs to 22 and held the ball for 33:53. The 399 rushing yards were the most for Boston College since it ran for 496 at Syracuse on Nov. 2, 2019, and the 49 points were its most against a conference opponent since 2019.

The Eagles were far from clean. They were flagged for 91 penalty yards and missed a field goal, two extra points and a two-point try. It did not matter once the second half started, as Boston College won it 37-14.

The full scoring and stats are in the official box score (opens in a new tab), and Boston College posted its recap (opens in a new tab).

What it means

For Boston College, which went 2-10 in 2025, the win doubles last season's victory total and leaves the Eagles two wins away from bowl eligibility. The ACC took notice: Comella was named the league's Defensive Back of the Week, Jean-Jumeau its Offensive Lineman of the Week and MacCormack its Running Back of the Week. MacCormack also picked up a Gold Helmet Award from the New England Football Writers Association.

"It hasn't been easy," McKenzie said. "We've come back from behind, but that's just the type of guys we have on this team."

Georgia Tech is headed the other way. The Yellow Jackets have lost eight of their last 10 ACC games dating back to last season and are 2-9 in their last 11 games against FBS opponents. They need to win four of their final five to reach a bowl, with a schedule of Pittsburgh on the road, Louisville, Clemson on the road, Wake Forest and Georgia on the road.

Coach Brent Key did not hold back. "Talked about consistency," Key said. "The only thing consistent is poor football."

"You turn the ball over that many times and you can't stop the same play that keeps coming 14 times," he added. "Poorly prepared, poorly adjusted. That's all."

Next on the schedule for Boston College was a trip to Duke on Saturday, Oct. 31. Georgia Tech's next game was a Saturday night trip to Pittsburgh on Oct. 31.

The last word

Mendoza summed up the home side's afternoon. "We have a lead and we just don't execute enough," he said. "We've got to execute better. It sucks. We lost, and we got our butts kicked."

On the other sideline, O'Brien called the second-half version the real Boston College. That team showed up after halftime, and it ran right through Georgia Tech.

Sources: Boston College Athletics recap, official box score and ACC honors release, The Associated Press, The Boston Globe, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta News First, Field Level Media and FOX Sports. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: Boston College Athletics.