[Ed. note -- Promoted, Busy day, eh?]

The season is right around the corner now. Just two weeks from tomorrow, the Eagles will tee it up for the first time and of course with that comes all the excitement surrounding a new season. Optimism is something that most every fan comes into the season with. Rarely do you hear anyone say, "boy are we gonna suck." But looking back at the conclusion of last year and all through the winter and spring, there didn't seem to be a lot of hope.

But the summer sun appears to have given a lot of people a new lease on life and BC football. No, I haven't seen posts calling for an ACC title or a BCS National Championship game, but I have seen a lot of people looking at this team as a bowl team and one that could win 6-8 games.

Most of the pre-season publications and computer predictors are looking at this as a 3-5 win team with an overall ranking of between 70-90 or worse among the 124 FBS teams. Of the mags I have looked at, only Phil Steele -- a good resource I would agree -- is calling for them to be bowl eligible.

So where, outside of it being the beginning of the season, does this optimism come from? Is it Doug Martin as the offensive coordinator, is it Chase Rettig as a junior QB with some experience? What I see is still a team with a lot of questions, new offensive schemes that will take some time to adapt to, some key losses from last year, early injuries in fall camp and a pretty weak recruiting class...and Spaz is still your head coach.

So what gives? Has "football love" bloomed...or can this team really bounce back and be a plus .500 team.

ADDENDUM: After I wrote this yesterday, I received my copy of the 2012 GamePlan Magazine, traditionally delivered in August and the latest one to market.

Here is an excerpt from the mag on BC. Once again just another point of view, but certainly makes it look like there is a bit too much excitement. GamePlan picks BC #67 in the country, 4th in the Atlantic, ahead of Wake and Maryland.

The Boston College program has been in free fall over the past few seasons and BC supporters are certainly hoping that the Eagles hit rock bottom with last year's 4-8 record. It doesn't seem all that long ago that current NFL standout Matt Ryan was leading the Eagles to a Top Ten national ranking, but thing have really gone in the wrong direction at Boston College over the past few seasons. The 2011 squad won just four games and was dominated on a statistical level like no BC team has been in over 30 years. All of this turmoil has lead to enormous pressure on Head Coach Frank Spaziani, who quite frankly is likely to be fired if the Eagles don't get to a bowl game in 2012. The good news for Coach Spaziani is that 16 total starters are back from last year's club, but the unfortunate truth here is that the overall talent level at Boston College has not been this bad in a long, long time.

CONCLUSION: The Eagles were one of the weaker teams in the ACC last season and unfortunately for Boston College fans, that trend may continue into 2012. There are plenty of familiar faces back on offense, which is good news, but the bad news is that these guys are the same not-all-that-talented bunch which went 4-8 in 2011. Unless the offensive line gets a LOT better overnight, the BC attack will again be below average at best. On defense, there's decent talent at linebacker and the secondary isn't too bad, but the defensive line is simply not ACC-caliber under any circumstances and that makes it hard to beat quality opponents. We feel Boston College is headed for a second consecutive losing record.