CHESTNUT HILL – The Boston College football team demonstrated toughness and competitive fire in its road losses at Michigan State and Stanford.

The underlying issues in both road setbacks and last Saturday’s gut-wrenching 28-24 loss to California at Alumni Stadium were the same defeatist symptoms that turned those winnable games into losses.

Defensive lapses that allowed explosive plays, costly turnovers, excess penalties, and missed tackles will beat toughness and competitive fire just about every time.

BC coach Bill O’Brien’s objective in practice this week is to minimize the former and maximize the latter as the Eagles (1-3) prepare to engage the Pittsburgh Panthers (2-2) in an ACC match on Saturday (noon) at Acrisure Stadium.

“We’ve been competitive, I would argue we’ve been comp

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