I'd bet dollars to dimes that most of you are college football fans. The pageantry, the generic filled-to-the-brim stadiums, the bands, the colors, the innocence of the players. Well, scratch that last one. But all of it captures your interest. You would spend whole Saturdays scouting the SEC if you could, but that just wouldn't be socially acceptable. We live in one of the top sports fandom regions in the entire world, we have more colleges than any region in the entire world, but our allegiance to our biggest college football team could be better.
Boston College beat West Virginia 36-17 on Saturday, a win that propelled the Eagles to their highest ranking since 1994 (19th in the Coaches Poll). With a 7-2 record overall, a 3-1 in conference record and a win against their toughest competition tucked in their pocket, the Big East is in their hands, as is their fate.
But the skeptical, knowledgeable bunch in New England say "They don't have Miami and Virginia Tech on the schedule this year." And they would be correct, for those teams are now in the ACC, which the Eagles will join next year. But what is troubling is that there are more who would say "Who cares?"
Many of us grew up supporting BC because there was no other team to root for that was on TV every Saturday. But the ties often end there.
BC is kind of a fraternal place, where pulling for the Eagles often requires having family members who have attended THE Jesuit school in the region. BC and Holy Cross, the other Jesuit used-to-be power until it joined the Patriot League, which is mostly scholarship free, had quite the rivalry as recently as the mid-'80s.
There are even stories of a helicopter landing right beside Fitton Field in Worcester to airlift Doug Flutie to the Heisman Trophy ceremony after his Eagles had defeated the Crusaders in the final game of the regular season. But those days are long over as far as that rivalry goes.
Since Flutie's Heisman run, there have been flashes of region-wide interest in Chestnut Hill's team. Remember David Gordon's kick to beat No. 1 Notre Dame 41-39 in 1993? Besides that fateful kick, there has been a steady stream of 8-4 or 7-5 seasons supplemented with trips to bowls that some legitimate BC backers don't even watch.
But the Eagles have accomplished a great deal, enough that they deserve more recognition than they have gotten. Or at least they deserve to be as adored as, say, South Carolina, a school that has had nothing more than a couple of seasons of moderate success but still fills their monstrosity of a stadium.
By comparison, I can't remember the last time I saw Alumni Stadium without empty aluminum showing. There are certainly reasons college football fans in the area aren't as ga-ga over their Div. 1A team as those at, say, Nebraska.
1. There are so many schools in our area, our football Saturday's are occupied in other ways.
In Texas, folks will watch their high school teams on Friday night, then hitch up their trailer and head to Austin to go see the Longhorns the next afternoon. That's just the drill. But we simply have a wider range of viewing options for our Saturdays. Bates-Colby, Bentley-Stonehill, UNH-Northeastern. Not only that, but the talent in the region is distributed to all of these schools. Granted, the amount of high school talent in New England can't hold a candle to that of basically anywhere else in the country, but we like to convince ourselves otherwise.
2. Not only are some in the region indifferent about BC, but there are many who loathe them.
BC is the big brother, the bully of Boston. It stands in the way of recruiting for every other school in the area. Most importantly, because this is where most hatred stems from, schools may be a little jealous of the Eagles. They are prominent athletically on a national scale, and what school would not want the "Nationally prominent" label? Thus, those associated with Holy Cross, Northeastern, Harvard, Boston University, UNH, UMass, Providence and others distance themselves from BC-dom.
The prominence of hockey, with the main rivals being among the schools listed above, also breeds a legitimate dislike between schools who, in some Midwestern or southern state, would probably merge to form a superpower state school. Or at least that's the dream.
3. We have the Red Sox
Let's face it: Fenway Park at playoff time is the closest thing to a "real" college football atmosphere this town has ever had. Yahoo fans, undying supports through thick and thin, these are the qualities that characterize Sox fans and big-time college football fans alike. When we talk about the free agent period, writers exhaust their lungs and their typewriters with their attentions turned to Signing Day.
And I don't buy the Patriots having that same grip over the region. Maybe now they do, but remember, as recently as 1992, their games were blacked out on local television because they couldn't even come close to selling out the smallest stadium in all of football (Foxboro Stadium).
With the landscape changing oh so much more with the move to the ACC next season, and teams such as Florida State and Virginia making the trip here, the tired BC routine will be getting another boost- if it hasn't already, with their recent surge. They have athletes I've never seen them have (last year's tenth ranked national recruit, Brian Toal, is playing linebacker for them as a true freshman. Since when does BC get those guys?) Things are on the up and up.
Now the public must buy what the Eagles are selling.<$>
