The Ugly Truth: BC Far From Being A Contender

Not after Lamar Jackson just put up 416 total yards and 7 touchdowns on the Eagles in their own house. Not after losing by a combined 91 points to Clemson and Louisville in BC’s two games against ranked opponents so far this year.

The pounding that the Eagles took from Action Jackson on Saturday as well as Deshaun Watson and Clemson almost a month earlier shows how far Boston College is from being a contender in the ACC. Because of the coaching carousel we’ve endured, the inability to bring in top recruits, and a myriad of poor in-game decisions, our goals should be much, much smaller.

Look, this team does have some ACC level players on it. Harold Landry is one of the best defensive ends in the ACC this year. Jonathan Hilliman came in as a four star recruit and has panned out decently. Star defensive players like Connor Strachan, Matt Milano, and John Johnson would start on just about every other team in the conference. But our program just isn’t being built to be competitive in an increasingly tough ACC.

There are two reasons for this: coaching decisions have been poor and quarterback play has been even worse ever since Matty Ice had us as a top 5 team in the country (blocking out the Tyler Murphy year).

Look, Coach Addazio comes from a great football background in winning the national championships with Urban Meyer at Florida, and certainly has shown the ability to recruit under-the-radar-difference makers. But the inability to move the ball down the field these past two seasons have called into question his offensive mindset.

If he wants to blame the eagerness to run the ball rather than airing it out on a lack of quarterback skill, he can take a look in the mirror. He’s gone out and tried to get quarterbacks from high school, like Darius Wade, and from other schools, like Towles, but none (other than Murphy) have been able to put points on the board. You can’t just run the ball 40 times a game (unless you have Andre Williams, I guess). So being able to bring in a truly talented QB is the most important thing to do, and Addazio hasn’t delivered

BC’s best hope right now to resurrect the program is to merely strive for a bowl game. With a cakewalk of a non-conference schedule earlier in the year, there is no reason that goal can’t be reached.

But looking at the bigger picture, how is this team ever going to be a real contender in the ACC? Clemson, Louisville, and Florida State are clearly leaps and bounds above the rest, but BC hasn’t even been able to contend with Virginia Tech, Syracuse, NC State, or even Wake Forest last year. If they can’t do that, what are they even doing in the ACC?

These next three weeks will be huge for Boston College football to say the last. If we pencil in a loss to FSU next week, which we should be able to do after that shellacking by Louisville, they must beat both UConn and Wake Forest to make a bowl game. It’s doable. But even if that does happen, can we really be content with the state of the program? Does it really give us any hope in the ACC for the coming years?