FanPost

What Should BC Football Be: Part I - Expectations

Thankfully, games like Kansas 48 Boston College 24 don't happen very often. The Eagles may not be in the upper echelon of the college football stratosphere, but they also don't often lay the biggest of eggs against what is widely considered inferior competition.

For example (far more of these to come), BC hasn't lost a game to a current FCS team since 1980 and is 66-8 since the inception of the Big East in 1991 against current Group of Five teams. So whether it's Steve Addazio or his predecessors, these total bombs are few and far between.

That said, sitting there on Friday night I was stunned and tried to put it into perspective in terms of the worst performances I had ever seen the Eagles put out, in what is now 50 years of watching them play. This ranked #2, only behind the 1995 Army game, where a mediocre Black Knight team, completely destroyed Dan Henning's Eagles, 49-7 in a monsoon rain storm. That night, BC had looked like they had never seen, heard about and certainly not practiced against, the West Point Wishbone attack. It may not have been the single worst beating, but it still is the worst performance.

We are all Boston College fans and tend (for all the right reasons in general) to lose perspective, both good and bad. I wrote an article back in 2016 after Clemson beat BC 52-10, calling for Addazio to be fired. I thought about that long and hard before I published it and although there has been a modicum of success, Boston College has been a lower middle of the pack team in the ACC throughout his tenure.

I have though seen people calling for 8,9 and 10 win seasons over the past few years and then just the next week, wanting heads on spikes. That begs the question of our expectations.

I realize that BC played horribly on Friday night, although it would be wrong not to admit that despite their 48 game losing streak on the road vs power five programs and first two games, Kansas played very well and more than deserved to win the game, but part of the response we see here is based on our individual expectations of what Boston College should be as a program. That could be in terms of an individual game or in terms of season records, but we have a belief of what should be and when that isn't met...well check the boards.

We can debate when the modern era of Boston College football began. I can make the case for the mid 70s when the Eagles started playing a more national schedule, or maybe as late as 1984, which marked the first time that BC played eight games against now of what are the power five teams. The case could be made for the inception of the Big East in 1991 or even when the move was made to the ACC in 2005. Understanding that past though, needs to formulate our expectations for the present and the future.

You don't expect the same meal at McDonald's that you do from a 5 star Michelin restaurant and as former BC Athletic Director Bill Flynn said, it is hard to be Harvard Monday through Friday and then Alabama on Saturdays.

BC offers unique opportunities and far more unique challenges from a football and overall athletic department perspective. Yes, the program has experienced some close to great moments and some close to disastrous ones as well.

My belief is that this program is capable of more than Steve Addazio and then by extension, Martin Jarmond and Fr Leahy, are getting out of it at this time.

In part 2 of this, we will take a look at the data points that helped me to formulate my answer to what should BC football be. In part 3, I will give you my answer.

What are your thoughts...what should Boston College football be?