BOSTON (AP) — Boston College’s Spiffy Evans broke into a wide smile thinking about how he couldn’t catch Johnathan Coleman to celebrate his teammates’s first career touchdown catch.
One quarter later, the entire Maine punt team had no chance of catching Evans.
Evans grabbed one of Chase Rettig’s three TD passes and ran a punt back 82 yards for another score as Boston College overcame a pair of early fumbles to beat Maine 34-3 on Saturday.
The 6-foot Evans electrified his team and the sparse crowd with his return late in the third quarter.
Leading 7-3 after Evans’ TD catch midway into the second, Coleman grabbed Rettig’s toss along the back line of the end zone and sprinted away from his teammates. He cruised down the sideline, to the far end of the bench, with many players trailing behind trying to celebrate the score.
A little later, Evans had his own chance to get his teammates excited. He backpedaled to handle a long punt, bolted up the middle and raced untouched for the score, making it 27-3.
“He has a lot of potential and he showed it,” said Rettig, who completed 16 of 32 passes for 219 yards without an interception.
Rettig had X-rays on his aching back after the game, but said “it was stiff, but fine.”
Rolandan Finch carried 17 times for 90 yards for the Eagles.
Nate Freese booted two field goals, helping the Eagles (1-1) rebound from a season-opening loss to Miami last week.
The loss was the season opener and the 1,000th game for Maine’s program. Brian Harvey had a 19-yard field goal for the Black Bears, of the Football Championship Subdivision.
“The experience will help us tremendously moving forward because we now have some things to look at going into next week,” Maine coach Jack Cosgrove said. “We will go back and fix some things.”
The longtime hockey rivals were locked in a surprisingly tight battle before the Eagles scored 17 points in the final 7:09 of the second quarter. They broke it open with a field goal and two TDs late in the third.
Maine’s Marcus Wasilewski was 20 of 42 for 134 yards and two interceptions.
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