Boston College Eagles: AJ Dillon’s career-day highlights upset win

True freshman running back AJ Dillon announced his arrival as the Boston College Eagles upset the Louisville Cardinals on the road Saturday.

The Boston College Eagles, who for weeks had been putting up valiant efforts against top-level programs only to fall short, finally hit pay dirt on Saturday.

Boston College pulled off the upset win on the road, defeating Louisville 45-42 on Saturday. And a huge reason why was the career-game from AJ Dillon.

Dillon, a true freshman, carried the ball 39 times for 272 yards against the Cardinals. Dillon found pay dirt of his own four times in the game, including a 75-yard scamper that put the Eagles up 42-28 in the fourth.

An inevitable upset

In games against Notre Dame, Clemson and Virginia Tech in 2017, Boston College seemed poised to pull off the upset victory. In all three of those games, whether it was running out of steam or melting down, Boston College ended on the wrong side of the box score.

Not this Saturday.

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Leading by 14 with 11:59 remaining, the Boston College Eagles allowed Lamar Jackson and Louisville to get back in the game. The reigning Heisman winner put Louisville on his shoulders.

Jackson threw for 332 yards and two touchdowns while running for 180 yards and three more scores.

After Jackson battled back to tie the score at 42, a late Louisville turnover allowed Boston College to march down and seal the victory. A 27-yard field goal by Colton Lichtenberg gave Boston College their first win against Louisville since 1994.

The day, though, belonged to Dillon.

The freshman rises

Dillon arrived with much fanfare after announcing he was choosing to go to school at Boston College over the Michigan Wolverines.

The freshman had seen his workload grow over the past few weeks, but was still giving way to primary ball carrier Jon Hilliman.

After Hilliman began the day with two carries for -6 yards, Dillon took over. And he didn’t look back for most of the day.

Dillon scored on runs of 1, 3, 11, and 75 yards, doing a bit of everything. There were tough runs between the tackles and outside runs of big gains. Many times on third-and-manageable situations, there was Dillon carrying the ball for a first down.

Entering this week’s game, Dillon had carried the ball 88 times for 336 yards and two touchdowns.

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While Louisville has stumbled in ACC play, this is a good win for the young Boston College team. If Dillon continues to carry the ball like this, Boston College might have a chance to get to six wins. And that means a bowl eligible team where many saw little possibility of that.

It might be a long shot, but as Dillon and the Eagles proved today: anything is possible when it comes to college football.