At the end of last season, there was a legitimate argument to be made that Boston College football's kicking was its most consistent unit on the entire team.
In Bill O'Brien's first season on the Heights, the Eagles attempted just five field goals and converted three of them, which ranked dead-last in the country.
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But in 2025, BC's special teams experienced a 180-degree turnaround thanks to the consistency of Luca Lombardo, who went 16-for-17 on field-goal attempts and knocked in all 35 extra-point kicks.
Lombardo was one of the few silver linings to what was an otherwise pitiful year for the program, and his decision to return for 2026 after receiving All-ACC Honorable Mention honors and being selected as a semifinalist for the Lou Groza Award was quite a big deal.
His consistency this year, however, has gone completely out the door.
In BC's last two games, Lombardo has missed two PATs out of the nine he's attempted, and he also shanked a field-goal attempt from 48 yards in the first quarter of the Eagles' 49-27 massacre of Georgia Tech
last Saturday.
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It wasn't just Lombardo, either.
After missing the field goal, Lombardo was put on the bench after BC scored its first touchdown of the game in the second quarter via Mason McKenzie's 25-yard passing touchdown to Nedrick Boldin Jr., and freshman Jonathan Hewitt was brought in for the extra-point try.
But his first attempt of the season - and the first of his career, for that matter - also missed wide, which led to the Eagles reinserting Lombardo into the game for the next kicking opportunity.
It didn't take very long for BC to score again, as Bo MacCormack III capped off a four-play drive with a seven-yard rushing score after the defense forced a three-and-out.
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But once again, Lombardo's attempt flew right of the field-goal posts, and one could actually start to feel the rage bubbling up inside O'Brien as the unit jogged off the field with a two-point lead instead of what should have been at the very least a three-point one.
Something that was mentioned during Saturday's broadcast was that Lombardo kept picking up his head right after making contact with the ball, which caused it to veer off and not stay on the line he intended for.
It's a simple, yet integral part of keeping kicks straight, and it draws many similarities to hitting a golf shot.
When amateur golfers struggle to hit the ball straight and make square contact with the ball, it is often because they are too worried about the result of the shot before it's even hit, which happens in the form of picking up their head too quickly.
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Kickers sometimes have the same exact issue, especially when they are struggling because they get so eager to see where the ball ends up even before the kick is fully executed.
After the second miss, Lombardo appeared to have solved his issue by drilling a 23-yard field goal and the other four extra points to finish out the game.
But the score was a lopsided one by then, so there was less pressure on him overall.
"He's not this year," O'Brien said in the middle of a reporter's question about Lombardo's consistency from 2025 to now after Tuesday's practice. "He's not this year. [We're looking for] consistency. [He's] got to make a PAT. No, he's not this year, and I really like Luca, I got a lot of respect for Luca, but he's got to kick better."
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All things considered, it could be much worse - Lombardo is still 6-for-8 on the year and 1-for-1 from 50+ yards - but it just shows how high of a standard O'Brien has set for the fifth-year specialist, as he was a player the Eagles could depend on in most, if not all kicking situations last year.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/bostoncollege as Bill O'Brien Calls for Consistency From Boston College Kicker Luca Lombardo After Recent Struggles
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