It was a noon kickoff, which in late September in Boston is the perfect setting for a James Taylor ballad and a BC upset.
It was the Eagles' annual Red Bandana game, a chance to honor Boston College graduate Welles Crowther, who saved more than a dozen lives by sacrificing his own on 9/11.
It was supposed to be a tune-up for No. 3 Florida State, a game against battered BC to pad the stats before a potentially season-defining trip to Clemson in Week 4.
It was a trap so diabolical, it could've been the plot of a "Saw" sequel.