Boston College will look to build momentum from its first Atlantic Coast Conference victory of the season when the Eagles face Georgia Tech in a conference game Saturday afternoon in Atlanta.
The Eagles recorded a 27-21 home victory over Pitt last Saturday to improve to 1-2 in the ACC and 3-3 overall, while Georgia Tech (2-4, 1-2) has lost two of its past three games.
“Any time you’re coming off a win, obviously that’s good, but the trick is to keep it going,” Boston College coach Bill O’Brien said. “… Got to put another one together, one day at a time.”
Now, the Eagles will try to earn their first road win of the season in a homecoming of sorts for O’Brien, an offensive assistant at Georgia Tech from 1995-2002.
“(Georgia Tech) meant a lot to my career. I worked with some unbelievable players,” he said. “It’s going to be a big, big challenge on the road in a very tough place to play.”
Quarterback Mason McKenzie has thrown for 1,262 yards and seven touchdowns and also leads the Eagles with 444 rushing yards.
Georgia Tech, meanwhile, hasn’t built on the success from its first nine-win season since 2016. Since beating Boston College on Nov. 15 of last season, the Yellow Jackets have dropped seven of their last nine games and have an uphill climb to bowl eligibility.
At the midway point of a disappointing regular season, coach Brent Key still is searching for answers.
“To sit there and continue to do things the way you’ve been doing them and think things are going to change, that’s the definition of insanity,” he said. “We’ve made some tweaks and adjustments in practice, different ways of creating situational things, scripting things differently. But at the end of the day, you don’t have success because you don’t execute.”
Key’s team rallied to trim a 24-3 halftime deficit to seven points at Virginia Tech last week before falling 34-24. The Yellow Jackets are averaging 23.2 points per game against FBS opponents this season.
First-year starting quarterback Alberto Mendoza ranks fourth in the ACC with a 71.2% completion clip and threw for a career-high 335 passing yards against Virginia Tech.