Rams hope to dispatch Eagles to air
chestnut hill, mass. » The Colorado State Rams traveled to Boston on Thursday, staged theirwalkthrough Friday at theNewEngland Patriots’ facility in Foxborough, and also had a team study hall as several players took proctored tests. Saturday, it’s all football. Coming off a bye week, CSU (2-1) faces the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Boston College Eagles in a 10:30 a.m. matchup at Alumni Stadium.
BC is 3-1, with the most impressive victory coming against then-No. 9 Southern California, and quarterback Tyler Murphy has rushed for 500 yards in the four games and thrown for 491. Murphy transferred from Florida after last season and was eligible to play in 2014 because he already had his undergraduate degree.
“It’s a great test,” said CSU coach Jim McElwain. He added: “I’m sure they’re sitting there saying, ‘Hey, look, this is a ball squad fromtheMountain West conference coming all theway over here. Let’s just get out of this one and get ready for conference.’ And yet, they’ll get prepared and ready to play.”
In their previous true road game this season — CSU also was designated the visitors against Colorado in Denver— the Rams fell behind 30-10 at the half and gave up 676 yards of total offense in a 37-24 loss at Boise State on Sept. 6. Broncos dual-threat quarterback Grant Hedrick did considerable damage, both running (80 yards) and passing (352).
“We watched some of our negative plays in theBoise game and got those corrected,” said CSU linebacker Aaron Davis. “We can’t let up on (Murphy). We definitely can’t have any mental errors or breakdowns and have to keep him contained.
“He has more rushing yards than passing yards this season so we need to force him to throw. That’s our plan. Keep him out of his game, keep him contained and force him to pass.”
And offensively, can the lesson from that game be applied to the gameat Alumni Stadium?
“I guess the biggest thing is not to be shocked … if something goes bad in that first drive or whatever it is,” said CSU quarterback Garrett Grayson. “Start fast iswhat I’m trying to say. That’s what Coach Mac wants out of us, that’swhywe start practice the way we do, why he has certain drills set up the way he does. That’s something I don’t think we did against Boise. We came back from watching the film and kind of agreedwe put ourselves in the hole. We knowgoing into this gamewith the running team that (the Eagles) have, we knowwe need to stay on the field and start fast and keep our defense fresh.”
The blot on the Eagles’ record is a 30-20 home loss to Pittsburgh on Sept. 5. In fact, this will be BC’s fourth consecutive home game after the Eagles opened the season with a victory over Massachusetts at the Patriots’ Gillette Stadium.