BC still trying to settle on a QB

BOSTON -- Boston College's first three games haven't done much to help coach Frank Spaziani settle on a starting quarterback.

In fact, they more likely have opened the door for third-stringer Mike Marscovetra.

After the school's worst offensive game in 30 years, Spaziani declined to announce who would start at quarterback in Saturday's game against Wake Forest. Both Dave Shinskie and Justin Tuggle will play, Spaziani indicated, and there are signs that Shinskie would get his first collegiate start after Tuggle started the first three games.

Shinskie, a 25-year-old former Toronto Blue Jays farmhand playing his first football since 2002, said he was getting most of the snaps with the first unit in practice. Tuggle told reporters that things "were pretty much the same" and that the snaps were "distributed pretty evenly."

Marscovetra came in later and said he was seeing more snaps than in the past few weeks.

"I'm not sure what's going to happen," Shinskie said. "I just hope that if I get a chance to start that I'll make the best of it. I think they might give me a chance, hopefully they do and we'll see what I do with it."

Spaziani said he hopes to have a true starter "maybe in a couple of weeks."

Tuggle, a redshirt freshman, was 4 for 20 including a touchdown last week and in three games is 13 for 37 for 229 yards, four TDs and three interceptions. Shinskie (17 for 27, 185 yards, two TDs, one interception) fumbled two of his three snaps last week, losing one.

Marscovetra, a true freshman, did not play last week in the 25-7 loss to Clemson, in which BC (2-1, 0-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) gained 54 yards on 49 plays and managed four first downs.

"The offense has a lot to prove," said running back Montel Harris, who ran for 13 yards on 12 carries at Clemson. "It's kind of embarrassing. We have to come out and show everyone that we have a high-powered offense."

Wake Forest (2-1) has already shown that.

Riley Skinner is coming off a career-high 289 passing yards in a 35-7 victory over Elon. But he hasn't had much success against BC: He has thrown for three touchdowns in three games against the Eagles while throwing seven interceptions.

Wake had some trouble on defense in a season-opening loss to Baylor, giving up eight straight pass completions to start the game, a 37-yard touchdown run and a 33-yard receiver option pass for another TD. The Demon Deacons followed that up with wins over Stanford and Elon.

"Obviously we made some mistakes in the first week being a young defense," defensive end Tristan Dorty said. "But I feel we're progressing pretty well, playing harder and showing more emotion on the field as each week goes on."

The Eagles cruised past Northeastern and Kent State by a combined 88-7 before their usually reliable offensive line got run over by Clemson. A team led by a pair of freshman quarterbacks playing its first road game and first ACC game was dominated by the Tigers.

Wake Forest coach Jim Grobe thought that playing at Clemson was just too much for the Eagles.

"They've got young guys that haven't been there before. And if you haven't been there before, Death Valley is a tough place to be," Grobe said. "I think that playing against a really good Clemson defense in front of 83,000 in Death Valley didn't help their situation. Being back home I'm sure will settle them down and they'll make a lot of improvement this week."

BC defensive captain and middle linebacker Mike McLaughlin is back after missing the first three games to recover from March surgery on his Achilles' tendon. Linebacker Dominick LeGrande, who has two interceptions and 12 tackles, was injured in practice and is doubtful.

Wake lost defensive end Kyle Wilber for six weeks with a broken fibula and suspended safety Junior Petit-John for the season for violation of team policy.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)