Evan Dickens touched the ball five times as a runner Saturday in Dallas, for 22 yards, in a 25-16 loss at SMU. Mason McKenzie carried it 21 times. The quarterback Boston College brought in from Division II went 20-of-31 for 208 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions, and he was also the offense's primary rushing threat. BC outgained SMU on the day and still lost, and now sits at 2-3 overall and 0-2 in the ACC with nothing on the schedule until October 17.
BC enters the bye with half of its offense working. The two things BC rebuilt its roster around were supposed to work together. McKenzie arrived from Saginaw Valley State as a 2025 GLIAC Player of the Year with more than 4,300 passing and 1,600 rushing yards in three seasons there. Dickens arrived from Liberty off a 1,339-yard, 16-touchdown season that ranked fifth nationally in rushing yards. The fix for an offense that averaged 280.2 passing yards but only 103.9 rushing yards per game in 2025. At SMU, half of that plan showed up.
McKenzie took the carries, and the hits that came with them
McKenzie's 21 carries were not all design. He was sacked five times behind a line that has been shuffling at center, and the running he did on top of that is the cost the box score hides. BC's most important player absorbed hits all afternoon because the pocket kept collapsing and the handoffs were not there.
Dickens, meanwhile, rushed five times for 22 yards while catching three passes for 45 yards including a 43-yard touchdown. He is producing. He is just producing as a receiver, which is not what BC signed him to be, and it leaves the ground game still unsettled five games in.
What actually went right
Ted Roof, hired as defensive coordinator in January to fix a unit that gave up 433.2 yards and 32.75 points per game in 2025, held SMU to 218 total yards, including 160 passing and 58 rushing yards on 32 carries (1.8 yards per carry). That is the clearest in-season improvement BC has. The defense did not lose this game.
Bill O'Brien did not sugarcoat what did. He called BC's progress "incremental," said BC "weren't a disciplined team today," and answered "yes" when asked whether BC beat itself. Eleven penalties for 95 yards. A dropped wide-open pass at the SMU 5-yard line in the fourth quarter. That's the gap between outgaining a ranked team and beating one.
What to watch over the next twelve days
The bye was always built into this schedule as the pivot. It went Cincinnati, then three straight at home against Rutgers, Maine and Virginia Tech, then SMU, then the break. The runway is used up, and BC got 2-3 out of it. What follows is Pittsburgh at home, then road trips to Georgia Tech and Duke, Florida State at home, and a road trip to Notre Dame.
One concrete thing to track before then. Bodie Kahoun missed a fourth straight game at SMU, but O'Brien indicated the linebacker could return after the October 10 bye, ahead of the Pittsburgh game, without giving a diagnosis or hard date. After a month of silence on him, that's the first forward-looking word BC fans have gotten. A healthy Kahoun would give Roof's best unit its starting linebacker back for the stretch where it will need the help.
BC will be an underdog against Pittsburgh. The simulations give BC a 24 percent chance at home, and the only game on the remaining schedule where BC projects as a favorite is Syracuse in late November at 71 percent. Projected conference finish is 1.6 wins, 6.4 losses. Which is roughly what ACC media predicted in July, when they picked BC 16th out of 17. O'Brien's first team went 7-6 and made the Pinstripe Bowl; his second went 2-10. Five games in, the 26-player portal class has not yet told us which of those two seasons 2026 resembles.
What BC can get out of these two weeks is narrow. Penalties and pass protection are things a team can clean up over a bye. A run game is harder. So watch who is carrying the ball early against Pittsburgh. If Dickens is getting handoffs between the tackles, BC found something during the break. If McKenzie is again the leading rusher, October is going to look like September did.
The interactive guide has the full picture, and the methodology explains where the projections come from.