Toal speech fired up Eagles

It wasn't a ""Win one for the Gipper ""speech. But it wasn't bad. And it served its purpose.

At halftime of last week's game against Central Florida, Boston College linebacker Brian Toal had seen enough. The Eagles were trailing 7-3 and the fifth year senior knew that another loss would doom not only the Eagles' day, but send their season spiraling.

Not acceptable thought Toal, who said something about it to his teammates. "I don't talk much,'' said Toal before the Eagles' practice this afternoon. "But I felt something had to be said. We were down 7-3 and it was at a point in our season and in that game things were either going to go our way or go Central Florida's way.''

The game went BC's way as the Eagles' broke loose in the second half with a 31-0 outburst which translated into a 34-7 win. ""I'm not saying my speech had anything to do with it, but we did respond in the second half,'' said Toal. ""It was a pretty decisive win. It was an important win.''

Toal is familiar with fiery halftime speeches. His father Greg is the coach at Don Bosco Prep in New Jersey and has given his share of pep talks, including one that was so forceful it has made U-Tube. "I took it out of his book,'' said Toal with a laugh. ""I've heard enough of his in the past. The biggest thing I wanted to say was that this is not a team that is used to losing and we're not going to get used to losing around here.''

While Toal was firing up the defense, fifth year senior QB Chris Crane, who was temporarily benched and replaced by Dominique Davis in the first half, was making his own pep talk to the offense.

All of it seemed to work and the Eagles say they are now ready for their game this week against the University of Rhode Island, which they hope will serve as a launching point for the ACC schedule which will begin next week at North Carolina State.

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Eagles could have a celebrity in the crowd on Saturday, which is also Parents Weekend. Bruce Springsteen, whose son Evan is a freshman at BC, is expected to be at the game....BC coach Jeff Jagodzinski said he will continue to use Dominque Davis in certain game situations with the goal of getting him 20 snaps each game. Jagodzinski is adamant about having a QB with some game experience ready for next season, something he did not have with Crane, who sat for two years behind Matt Ryan

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Rhode Island has kicked up its passing attack with senior QB Derek Cassidy. Since 2003 Rhode Island has went over 200 yards in passing only four times, all of them coming this season...URI is coached by former Ram player Darren Rizzi, who came to the Rams from Greg Schiano's staff at Rutgers this season.

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Jagodzinski said he expects all of his walking wounded to play this week, with no one out of the game, although Josh Haden and DeLeon Gaus (ankles) both could see limited action if BC takes charge early...Game time for next week's game at North Carolina State has been set for noon.