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Saturday, December 8, 2018
After all the speculation and predictions, Boston College ended up with a surprising bowl location. They will play #25 Boise State in the Servpro First Responder Bowl at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. It's a decent opponent in a decent venue (hopfully some Texas BC fans will be able to attend) but a strong finish to the season would have likely put BC in a better bowl closer to New Year's Day. Georgia Tech drew the "short straw" and will be headed to Detroit on the same day (Dec 26th).
Thank you to everyone who voted in the three-part Boston College Football MVP Twitter Poll. Zach Allen came away with the comfortable win with Wyatt Ray coming in second. Allen is the seventh defensive player to win the MVP vote in the 14 years I've been running the MVP poll. Two-time winners are Luke Kuechly and Matt Ryan.
Steve Addazio's approval rating on the bceaglesfootball.com fan poll has dropped to 42%. I think people were feeling pretty good through 10 games (including the Clemson game), but the last five quarters have left a bad taste in the mouth of a lot of BC fans. If the season isn't already a disappointment, a loss to Boise State would certainly clinch that status. You can still vote in the Head Coach/Athletic Director Approval polls if you go back to the home page.
Sunday, November 11, 2018
I don't think that BC had much of a chance to beat Clemson yesterday even with Anthony Brown healthy for four quarters BUT it's incredibly frustrating that they were cheated out of that opportunity on the very first drive of the game. Sometimes I call BC "Badluck College" because it seems like things like this always happens to them late in the season. Clemson led by only 6 points at halftime and scored just three offensive touchdowns, one of a fourth down. Anthony Brown may have been able to produce some offense and make this game interesting. The BC defense played admirably given the situation they were put in (repeatedly coming back out after three-and-outs by the offense). I was not overly impressed with the Clemson offense though you have to be impressed with their defense, backup quarterback or not. Total domination.
There was a lot of criticism of Steve Addazio and rightfully so. They didn't appear to have a backup plan (no pun intended) for Anthony Brown getting knocked out of the game. When E.J. Perry first entered the game it made sense to play cautious football and the score was still close at halftime. But when Clemson went up 20-7, BC needed to be more agressive and they were not. It looked like they were playing to avoid the blowout loss, rather than trying to win the game. I sympathize with a coach trying to beat the #2 team in the country with a quarterback who has thrown 18 career passes but you have to try something other than running the ball for 0.3 yards per play.
You have to feel absolutely terrible for Anthony Brown. His season ended last year at about the same time. "Internal injuries" is a particular scary injury report. Hopefully Anthony is okay and his recovery will be speedy. A.J. Dillon clearly is not healthy and seemed to reaggrevate his ankle injury late in the game (not sure why he was even in there during garbage time).
Dabo Swinney drew my ire in the game at BC two years ago when he called for an onside kick up 35-3 in the third quarter. Last night he had his starters in the game in the final minute trying to score more touchdowns rather than taking the knee. His starting quarterback was throwing deep balls with about two minutes left in the game. Clemson fans made the excuse that he was going for "style points" for the NCAA playoff selection committee but that's nonsense. Clemson is #2 and undefeated so they will not be at risk of missing the playoffs if they keep winning regardless of the scores of their games. And even if it made a difference, you shouldn't be doing it. In pro football it's fine but these are college students and they shouldn't be subjected to it, particularly on their home field. It's classless.
It will be quite a battle for the bowl slots in the ACC. Six ACC teams have either 6 or 7 total wins. Syracuse is 8-2 with Notre Dame next week and BC to close out the season. 12 ACC teams could end up bowl eligible. My assumption is that BC neither helped not hurt themselves yesterday as far as potential bowl games go.
Sunday, November 4, 2018
Yesterday's victory was a huge one for BC. A road win against a legitimate ACC foe to set up BC's biggest game in ten years. The Eagles were as high as #2 in the country in 2007 and went to the ACC title game where they lost to Virginia Tech. They went back to the ACC Championship in 2008 and again lost to the Hokies. They really haven't had a game of this magnitude since then. Clemson is annihilating opponents and will clearly be a huge favorite in Saturday's game but even a loss to the Tigers would set the Eagles up for a potential 9-3 regular season and a more notable bowl game. They showed a lot of character yesterday by coming from behind on the road and overcoming an injury to their best player. Steve Addazio deserves a lot of credit (in spite of the bad decision to go for it 4th and 1 in BC's territory late in the 3rd quarter) for what this team has accomplished so far this season. But 7-2 can easily become 7-5 so it's too early to stamp this season as a success.
I'm still seeing the Music City Bowl and the Sun Bowl as predicted bowl destinations for BC. ESPN hasn't released their latest predictions of now.
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
The weakness of the ACC this season (other than Clemson) has given BC a great opportunity to win nine regular season games and possibly attend a much more notable bowl game. ESPN is projecting a BC trip to the Sun Bowl on New Year's Eve in El Paso, Texas where they would face a Pac Ten team. CBS Sports has the Eagles going to the Music City Bowl in Nashville to face Mississippi State. The Sporting News and SB Nation both say the Camping World Bowl in Orlando vs Iowa State (interesting since they lost to Iowa in the bowl game last year). Four weeks is a long time but at least the Eagles have put themselves in a better this year heading into November.
When the season began, the ACC had four ranked teams with Clemson at #2. Clemson is still at #2 but the other three are not Miami, Florida State and Virginia Tech but instead Syracuse, Virginia and Boston College. After the ugly loss at Purdue I'm not any of us expected BC to return to the Top 25.
Clemson has been destroying opponents so it would be somewhat miraculous to see the Eagles win that game in two weeks. But the other three games are a different story. BC is actually a 2-point favorite at Virginia Tech on Saturday. They play at Florida State in three weeks. The Noles have generally been awful. The game against Syracuse on November 24th could be a battle of 8-3 teams, possibly fighting for the second-best bowl slot in the ACC.
I've added my fan approval polls for Steve Addazio and Martin Jarmond. Addazio's fan approval rating has taken an interesting path from 86% and 94% in his first two years, bottoming out at 28% in 2016 and back up to 64% last year.
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