The Boston College Eagles (5-5, 2-4 ACC) lost to the No. 14 SMU Mustangs (9-1, 6-0 ACC) 38-28 on Saturday night.

After the game, Eagles quarterback Grayson James spoke about his performance and how the past week has gone for him.

Below is a transcript of everything James said.

JAMES: Obviously I’ve been in this position before when I started playing football, but obviously not to this extent. I was prepared all week and continued with the game plan, felt confident in what we could do as an offense and just wanted to go out and execute. I didn’t understand it, didn’t come out with the win in the end. So it hurts, especially coming home, but we’re looking forward to next week in North Carolina and getting the win.

Q:Are you feeling pretty good? Will you feel better if you play more and more games this year?

JAMES: Absolutely, and I feel like as the games go on, I feel more confident and comfortable, we’re able to execute better as an offense, just kind of get into that groove and find a rhythm. I would say I definitely felt that.

Q: You said you were coming home. Did that help calm the nerves early on?

JAMES: I would say so. I wouldn’t say I was at all upset at first, it was just kind of finding a groove and how the game wanted to go, and how they were going to play defense against us, especially after the bye week, kind of I expected just that I would probably get something else, and it was nothing too crazy. I mean, I feel like we were able to move the ball the way we wanted to. We just didn’t execute at crucial moments when we needed to.

Q: Just comment on the running backs consistently giving you the 2-and-4, 2nd-and-3 in that second half. How would that play out for Pitt and Carolina in these upcoming cold weather games?

JAMES: Yeah, that’ll be huge for us. Coach O’Brien always preaches all the time that we’re on the right track, and that makes it a lot easier for us as an offense… Just situations that are easy to change. So I mean, we have a lot of backs that can go out there and run the ball really well for us, an O-line that blocks their butt every week. So I know we’re confident in what we can do in the run game, and they make my job a lot easier when that happens.

Q: What was the most important thing you learned from this game, and especially in that last drive, what did you learn from that as well?

JAMES: Just give ourselves a chance. It’s a tough situation to be in, it won’t always be pretty or perfect, but just give us a chance to win. Anything can happen. I have to get the ball out of my hands, not take sacks, that’s entirely up to me. But yeah, like I said, we just have to give ourselves a chance to at least try to win the game.

Q: Grayson, tough loss. But how do you feel about coming back home and playing in front of family and friends? And did you have a lot of family and friends in the stands? And what was it like to come home and perform for them?

JAMES: Yeah, it felt great. I think my final ticket count was around 33 or 34 people, so I had quite a few family members who were able to come see me, so it was fun. It was a really fun, fun time out there just from the jumps, being able to see them in pregame and stuff like that. But it’s hard when you don’t come out on the winning side. So that definitely clouds the mood a little bit because that’s all I want to do is win and win for BC football. So that didn’t happen today, so I wouldn’t have marked it as a failure, but we’re on to next week in North Carolina and what lies ahead.

Q: Can you tell us how this week has unfolded, given the Tommy situation?

JAMES: Yeah, I heard the news from coach on Sunday. He told me and then told the whole team what the plan was moving forward and he gave me, as well as everyone on the team, a vote of confidence. So we just continue. I have confidence in it myself and having that behind me certainly helps a lot. And I felt like we were able to execute today, but we just didn’t come up in the crucial moments, like I said before.

Q: To get things like that on you. I mean, you had a week to prepare, but like at this point in the season, I mean, how much of that is a weight on your shoulders to say something like ‘please, it’s game time?’

JAAMES: Yes. I mean, it’s definitely a tough situation, but it’s nothing I wouldn’t want to tackle. I always prepare to play and when I decide I want to play college football, you want to play in games like this, and it hurts not to win, but we have two more chances in front of us to wrap things up action, and I know the whole team is looking forward to it.