Eagles make a loud statement

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Before the game, Chief Osceola and his trusty steed, Renegade, came charging out to the 50-yard line for the ceremonial planting of the burning spear. It was all part of the pre game pomp and pageantry of a Florida State home game at Doak Campbell Stadium.

At the end, however, Boston College made a huge statement by planting its proverbial flag into the soil of Bobby Bowden Field, where the Seminoles had gone 55-3 against Atlantic Coast Conference opponents before the No. 22 Eagles came calling in their first trip to Tallahassee as an ACC member.

Playing before a crowd of 83,043, BC capped a brilliant two-week stretch of football with a rousing 24-19 victory over the unranked Seminoles that wasn't decided until replay officials reviewed Larry Anam's one-handed, jump-ball interception over 6-foot-6-inch wideout Greg Carr in BC's end zone as time expired and upheld the ruling on the field: Touchback.

"This was a statement game," said Anam, a 5-11, 196-pound cornerback from Hialeah, Fla., by way of Lagos, Nigeria. "I mean, coming here and watching the horse go on the field and planting the spear, it was neat to see all that. But this was a huge win for our program, a huge win."

The victory, which came on the heels of BC's impressive 22-3 triumph over Virginia Tech last Thursday, enabled the Eagles (6-1 overall, 3-1 ACC) to become bowl eligible for an unprecedented eighth consecutive year and, coupled with North Carolina State's second consecutive conference loss, put BC squarely in the mix for the Atlantic Division title and a berth in the ACC championship game Dec. 2 in Jacksonville, Fla.

"We lost one of these at N.C. State, and we got one back today," said BC coach Tom O'Brien, referring to a 17-15 setback Sept. 23 in Raleigh, N.C., where redshirt quarterback Daniel Evans beat the coverage of BC junior cornerback DeJuan Tribble with a 34-yard TD toss to John Dunlap with 8.5 seconds left.

And so, when Florida State quarterback Drew Weatherford (32 of 48, 326 yards, 2 interceptions, 1 touchdown) dropped back on first down from the BC 42 and let fly a Hail Mary heave, everyone on BC's sideline seemed to have a nightmarish flashback.

"That was unbelieveable, I mean, Larry went up and made a great play," said junior linebacker Brian Toal, who scored on a 1-yard plunge to give BC a 7-3 lead with 6:07 left and then came up with a huge quarterback hurry on Weatherford that resulted in a fourth-and-4 incompletion from the BC 9 with 1:54 left. "To make a play on that receiver -- a 6-foot-6 guy who could jump through the roof -- there wasn't much more you could ask Larry to do."

Nor could the Eagles ask much more of junior quarterback Matt Ryan, who was listed as questionable and showed up for his regular press briefing Wednesday wearing a protective boot on his injured left foot.

"I'm a guy who likes to think I'm going to play no matter what the situation is," said Ryan, who completed 16 of 26 passes for 262 yards and one interception, despite getting sacked twice and clocked once in BC's end zone just after he let fly a 48-yard strike to Tony Gonzalez on third down at the end of the third quarter.

"Sometimes that might be to a fault," Ryan added, "but I woke up expecting to play, and if not, I was prepared to go into another role. But, fortunately, I did feel good enough to go and I'm glad that we got a win."

"There isn't a quarterback I've seen in this conference better than him," said O'Brien of Ryan, who expects to play in next week's nonconference home game against Buffalo.

"Matt, he's our Tom Brady," said junior running back L.V. Whitworth, who rushed 18 times for game-high 53 yards and scored on a 6-yard run that sparked a 14-point flurry in the final 51 seconds before intermission, with Tribble's game-changing 36-yard interception return coming 31 seconds later for a 21-10 halftime lead. "He's cool under pressure and he knows all the defenses and he knew all the looks that we got [from Florida State]. He's a great quarterback."

"I don't know if L.V. knows what he's talking about," said Ryan, laughing off the comparison. "Have you seen Tom Brady play? If that's what L.V. thinks, then I'm glad he holds me in that esteem."

Steve Aponavicius extended BC's lead to 24-10 with a 26-yard field goal that capped a 10-play, 64-yard march with 7:18 left in the third. It provided the buffer the Eagles would need in the fourth quarter when Weatherford scored on a 1-yard plunge to pull the Seminoles within 24-17 with 13:36 left.

After a 17-play, 68-yard march by the Seminoles came to a halt at the BC 9, BC's offense took over and was forced to punt from its own end zone, prompting O'Brien to take an intentional safety as a way to safeguard against a catastrophic turnover and kill some clock, leaving the Seminoles with just 17 seconds to cover 55 yards.

"I think it's a big win," Toal said. "To come down to Tallahassee and beat Florida State, not too many teams have done that before. I think it makes us for real in the ACC. I think people are going to start to respect us more. We beat Clemson two years in a row, we beat Florida State and we beat Virginia Tech last week. I think teams are going to start to realize that, hey, BC's not that bad."

Michael Vega can be reached at vega@globe.com