Ryan turns it around
By Steve Conroy
October 26, 2007
BLACKSBURG, Va. - One minute he was old news. The next he was being compared to Doug Flutie.
That’s how fast Matt Ryan’s fortunes changed last night when he led the Eagles to two touchdowns in the last 2:11 for a 14-10 win.
When one reporter drew the comparison to Flutie, Ryan refused to play along.
“I think Doug did things at BC that were unprecedented. He really put BC on the map,” Ryan said. “What he did for the school and as a player is really phenomenal. I’m just happy to be a part of this team with so many great players.”
That is Ryan at his humble best. He led the Eagles to a victory last night that defied logic. He looked as bad as he has all season. He threw two interceptions, and before the last two drives, was held to 127 yards. The Eagles were just 4-of-16 on third down conversions.
“Tech’s defense did a phenomenal job,” said Ryan. “They have so many good players here and (defensive coordinator) Bud Foster does such a great job here and his schemes are tough. He confused us a little bit, but to our credit we hung in there. We kept saying on the sideline, ‘Hang in there, hang in there. We’re going to get something.’ And that’s what we did.”
The Eagles’ anemic offense suddenly got its act together with 4:16 left.
“Sometimes when you’re in the two-minute offense and hustling, it keeps the defense off balance,” said Ryan. “We made some plays there at the end. We scrambled around, the offensive line did a great job of keeping the play alive. And the receivers and running backs didn’t quit. They did an awesome job.”
Ryan said it was the best win of his career.
“I think that was a pretty good win for us and pretty exciting to be a a part of, especially being on the road at Virginia Tech, a great place to play, on a Thursday night,” said Ryan. “I’m so happy with how the guys kept battling and kept grinding. Our defense kept us in the game the entire day when we really couldn’t do anything on offense for the first 55 minutes of the game. They just kept us in it and it’s what they’ve done all year.”
No off Day for coach
If you need any more evidence that football coaches are a different breed, take the case of Boston College wide receivers coach Ryan Day.
On Wednesday, Day was not feeling well and went to see the BC medical staff, who sent the coach to St. Elizabeth’s, where they performed an emergency appendectomy.
After the operation, both coach Jeff Jagodzinski and director of football operations Barry Gallup phoned Day to tell him not to come to last night’s game. But he woke up yesterday morning feeling well enough to go and phoned Gallup to tell him he was on his way. He jumped on an 11:30 a.m. flight out of Logan and met the team in Roanoke.
“He told me that he was watching all the promos for the game on ESPN (Wednesday) night and he said he just couldn’t miss it,” said Gallup.
Wearing a heart monitor, Day was on the sideline, as usual.
“He’s a key guy for us because he does all the substitutions. We had a contingency plan in place with (running backs coach) Ben Sirmans doing it and he would have done it fine, but (Day) is dedicated,” said Gallup. “He said the kids needed continuity.”
