Flying high once again

After a tough home loss to Kansas, the Boston College football team went to New Jersey on Saturday and defeated Rutgers

PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Coach Steve Addazio needed a response from Boston College after being embarrassed last week and his offense line, and running back AJ Dillon gave it to him in one of those early must-win games.

Dillon ran for 150 yards and two touchdowns and Boston College bounced back from a horrible 24-point loss to Kansas and beat Rutgers 30-16 on Saturday.

"I feel a lot better today from the standpoint that we responded. That's a growing thing," said Addazio, whose team was a 21-point favorite a week ago.

"That's a thing that you have to grow in football. You got to get punched in the face — when you get punched in the face you got to be able to learn how to respond."

Boston College (3-1) did on a day almost 20 players and coaches returned to New Jersey.

Local product Anthony Brown scored on a quarterback sneak and running back David Bailey tallied on a career-long 42-yard run as the Eagles ground out 272 yards in handing Rutgers (1-2) its second straight loss.

"After last week, obviously came off disappointing loss," said Dillon, who scored on second-half runs of 1 and 4 yards. "We had to look within and I don't want to be over theoretical or anything like that, but we had to take a step back and realize what was important to us."

The important thing was hanging together and playing tough. The Eagles did it on both sides of the ball.

The win was Boston's College's 11th straight over the Scarlet Knights, and it extended its unbeaten streak against them to 14 games (13-0-1). This was the first game between the two founding members of the Big East Conference since 2004.

The Eagles left the following year to join the ACC. Rutgers joined the Big Ten in 2014.

Aaron Boumerhi kicked a 37-yard field goal on the final play of the first half to give the Eagles a 17-13 lead. Dillon scored from a yard out on Boston's College's next offensive series to cap a 13-play, 82-yard drive on which he ran eight times for 44 yards.

The junior added a 4-yard TD run with 6:32 to play, his 30th career rushing touchdown.