WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Boston College came into Winston-Salem with its bowl fate in its hands.
A win over Wake Forest would make the Eagles bowl eligible for the third time in four seasons after going 0-8 in the Atlantic Coast Conference a year ago. A loss would have put them in a small pool of 5-7 teams sweating out the selection process to see if a bowl would choose them despite a losing record.
No one in the Eagles wanted to wait to see how the scenario played out. After all it took to get out from under the cloud of a 12-game ACC losing streak and to dust themselves off after blowout losses to ACC powerhouses, they wanted to go out and earn a bowl berth.
“We heard that we could’ve gone either way, whether we won or lost, but that’s all we wanted to do was come here, get a win, get to six wins,’’ said tight end Tommy McCarthy. “That was our goal, to get bowl eligible.’’
It took a defense that created chaos early and refused to give an inch late, it took an offense that came up clutch in the fourth quarter, and it took some nail-biting as the Eagles watched the Wake Forest kicker miss a game-tying 22-yard field goal with 1:22 left in the game, but the Eagles pulled out a 17-14 win that allowed them to check off the primary goal they set for themselves coming into the year.
Reaching the postseason allows the Eagles to put the struggles and disappointments behind them and soak in the reward at the end of a long season.
“Whatever happened in the past this season, it is what it is,’’ said defensive end Harold Landry. “It’s a great feeling, last game to get bowl eligible, win out, it’s just a great feeling. That’s all I can say.’’
With three sacks, Landry anchored a defense that muzzled the Demon Deacons for most of the night, shutting them out in the first half and holding them to 239 total yards for the game.
Wake, which came in with the best turnover margin in the ACC (plus-10), hadn’t been the type of team to beat itself. But the Eagles squeezed two takeaways out of the Demon Deacons that set the tone.
On Wake’s second driv, Landry hounding John Wolford as he was throwing, Eagles safety John Johnson jumped the pass for his third interception of the season. The turnover set up a 22-yard field goal that got BC on the board, 3-0.
Later in the quarter, after Wake forced the Eagles to punt after a three and out, BC’s Myles Willis put a hit on return man Jessie Bates III that led him to cough up the football. The turnover set up the Eagles at the Wake Forest 25-yard line. Five plays later, Willis found a seam on the left side and ran 11 yards for a score that put the Eagles up, 10-0. It was the first TD of the season for Willis, who had just 42 carries coming into the game.
“Anything this defense can do to help this offense get their rhythm going, it’s a big deal,’’ said Landry, whose three sacks gave him 15 for the season, moving him past Erik Storz and Mike Mamula for the school record.
But the lead the Eagles built in the first half disappeared in a three-minute blink in the third quarter. First Wolford hit tight end Cam Serigne for a 5-yard touchdown, then, on the next drive, Wake took advantage of a pass interference call on Eagles corner Will Harris that set up the Deacons at the 50-yard line.
After going to the run on back-to-back plays to pick up a first down, Wolford took a shot down the field and found Cortez Lewis in the corner of the end zone for a 37-yard touchdown pass that gave Wake a 14-10 lead.
A week after putting together his most complete game of the season, Eagles quarterback Patrick Towles struggled, completing just 10 of 23 passes for 74 yards. But with the season on the line, he knew the offense had to do its job.
“If we want to change the way that people think about us, now’s the time to do it,’’ Towles said.
Towles engineered an eight-play, 73-yard game-winner, capped by a 13-yard touchdown pass to tight end Tommy Sweeney to go up, 17-10.
Eagles coach Steve Addazio said there was a level of trust that Towles would find a way.
“He was having a hard time a lot of the game and we just hung in there with him,’’ Addazio said. “He had that drive and that really beautiful throw to Tommy. So sometimes, you’ve just got to keep the faith, man.’’
Despite several points in the season when fans were calling for his job, Addazio joined Jack Bicknell as the only coaches in BC history to lead the Eagles to bowl games in three of his first four seasons.
“The faith that people have had in us on the inside has been unwavering,’’ Addazio said. “And that means a lot to our football team. Starting from the top of our university, unwavering faith in this football program. And that’s what it takes to be able to build and grow for the future.’’
BC athletic director Brad Bates threw his support behind the coach he hired four years ago.
“I have the good fortune of seeing everything behind the scenes,’’ Bates said. “How he recruits, how he interacts with the students, how he leads them through practices. So we have the benefit of working with him day to day, how he’s built a foundation for the program. He’s the second coach in Boston College history to take a team to three bowls in his first four years and he inherited a two-win team.’’
The Eagles will wait a week to see where they fall once bowl selections are announced next Sunday.
Independence Bowl selection committee member Pesky Hill was on hand at BB&T Field. He was more than familiar with the Eagles having hosted them in Shreveport for the 2014 Independence Bowl. The ACC team the bowl will feature this year is still up in the air, Pesky said, but the Eagles’ win means the selection committee will have its choice of 6-6 teams — the Eagles, N.C. State, and Wake Forest.
“We enjoyed having BC two years ago,’’ Pesky said. “We’re very familiar with Brad Bates and coach Addazio, and I think we made some lifelong friends. The Boston market’s a great market, so BC will be given very heavy consideration.’’
The Eagles’ immediate postgame plan was to take the celebration from the locker room to the plane, live it up until they got home, then get back to work for the game that lies ahead.
But before his team did that, Addazio made sure to let his seniors know that he wanted each of them to have a game ball with one word etched into it: Grit.
“I want them to look at it as they go through their lives — whatever they’re doing, whatever they are — and remember the grit it took to hang together when sometimes it wasn’t all there, to hang together, believe in each other, have faith in each other and have grit and overcome,’’ Addazio said.
“And if our kids walk out of here and learn that lesson at Boston College, that’s one of the greatest lessons.’’
Julian Benbow can be reached at jbenbow@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @julianbenbow.
