Just when you thought it was over, college football season comes roaring back—well, sort of.
On Thursday, the ACC released the football schedules for each of its teams for the 2015 season. And once again, to succeed in the fall, the Boston College football team will have to run through some tough opponents.
The Eagles will kick off the schedule this season with four consecutive home games in September. The first two Saturdays will be played against two FCS opponents: the University of Maine (Sept. 5) and Howard University (Sept. 12), which replaces New Mexico State as one of BC’s non-conference opponents. The Eagles will open their conference schedule on national television against the defending ACC-champions, Florida State, for their only non-Saturday game: Friday, Sept. 18. Eight days later, BC will wrap up its homestand against Northern Illinois.
The Eagles then play five consecutive games in October, first by hitting the road for the first time for a matchup against Duke (Oct. 3) in Durham, North Carolina, before coming home to play Wake Forest on Oct. 10. BC then has a tough back-to-back road game schedule at Clemson and at Louisville, two opponents which finished 2014 in the AP Top 25 Poll at 15th and 24th, respectively. The Eagles wrap up the month at home against longtime rival, Virginia Tech.
The Eagles play their final official home game on Nov. 7 against North Carolina State, before having their only bye week on Nov. 14. In perhaps the eagerly anticipated matchup of the season, BC will resume its rivalry with the University of Notre Dame at Fenway Park on Nov. 21. The regular season then wraps up on rivalry week at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse to take on the Orange on Nov. 28.
BC had a 5-3 record against these opponents last year, with new opponents coming in Duke, Notre Dame, Howard, and Northern Illinois. Although the Eagles should expect an easy win in the FCS opponent Howard, a team they will be facing for the first time in program history, the newly scheduled opponents are no pushovers: each of NIU, Notre Dame, and Duke is coming off a bowl game. NIU is the defending Mid-American Conference champions, after finishing 11-3 last season. Duke finished 9-4, second in the ACC’s Coastal Division behind Georgia Tech, earning a berth in the Sun Bowl. The Fighting Irish slumped towards the end of the season, yet still finished the season on a high note, with a thrilling victory over Louisiana State in the Music City Bowl.
The Eagles look to have an easier home set than last year—BC finished a disappointing 3-4 at home, while amassing a 4-1 record on the road. In 2015, however, the Eagles will play three of the four opponents they defeated on the road (Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, and NC State, with the exception being Massachusetts) at home. This spells trouble for the Eagles on the road, where they play a majority of their more difficult games.
The Eagles also will need at least one marquee victory, like their unlikely upset of No. 9 Southern California early last season, to offset at least one potential surprising loss, like Colorado State or Pittsburgh. One potential place for an upset comes from the Florida State game—although FSU will return many starters, especially on defense, the loss of 2013 Heisman winning quarterback Jameis Winston certainly lessens the Seminoles’ overall prowess. In addition, 10 straight games without any bye-week rest could pose problems for this BC team.
Although some opponents face a steep challenge for the Eagles this year, having two FCS opponents on the schedule means that BC will have a tougher time putting together a resume for a postseason berth. Those two games are absolute essential wins for the Eagles, who will then have to win no less than seven games total to even think about seeing football in December (or January).
And by no means is that a lock. The Eagles face considerable turnover from last season, notably losing the starting quarterback Tyler Murphy, offensive coordinator Ryan Day, and the entirety of the offensive line. Judging from the schedule, at least, the Eagles have a tough test.
Featured Image by Arthur Bailin / Heights Editor
Deja Vu all over again. ONCE AGAIN!!>>>> I have the perfect solution for my Alma Mater’s LAZY & incompetent Athletic Department!
ROAD TRIP!
Dear Brad ” HAIRDO” Bates Athletic Director,
Playing Uncle Howie Bisonberg is a major fail! Sad, pathetic & LAZY! You can’t blame GDF, our former incompetent loser? You have been there 2.5 years?
So once again:
I live in Fort Worth, Texas, the center of the known universe. TCU is the perfect Leadership and Athletics paradigm model for BC and it’s a similar private peer school.
BC Leaders, Coaches, Deans and Professors need pay at least
week or more visit to my hometown TCU and bring your new Apple IPad Air 2’s and
take detailed notes and learn and be mentored by TCU’s spectacular leadership
in President Victor J. Boschini, Jr., TCU’s their brilliant Athletic Director Chris Del Conte and the Nation’s finest Coach of the Year’s Football Staff, led by Gary Patterson.
Many schools pay huge consultants fees for sage advice all
the time and much of that advice is worthless. BC is a part of the Power 5
conferences , a high ACC revenue, richly endowed $2.7B+ University with 55
acres of the best real estate on earth in Brighton and maybe for a high six
figure consultant fee or more,
BC needs to “Come on down to TCU, and see how it’s done and LEARN!”
TCU didn’t have the huge endowment or land that BC
possesses, but their stellar leadership and brilliant strategic plan has led to
a state-of-the-art new stadium, a new basketball arena opening, an indoor
practice facility and a NFL envy nation’s best training facility.
This has helped tremendously with recruiting, performance
and something BC and all colleges’ desire, donations!
I would even include our BC Strategic Plan “experts” in Dean
of the SOM Andy Boynton and Warren Zola, even though the SP is 14 months late,
they could also learn how to get big projects accomplished a learning tool for
our business school students.
You two also need to bring Steve Addazio and maybe some other Football staff members. Our staff can also get on-the-job training and guidance from the best offense and option QB in America and Heisman candidate!
This can help Addazio’s goal of being a balanced offense by
spending quality time with two savvy nationally recognized offensive
coordinators in Doug Meachum and Sonny Cumbie, can serve Day and BC very well.
Football Coaches do this all the time over the summer for
decades with special teams and every football unit. Who couldn’t learn some new
passing schemes or plays when you have a glaring deficiency in your passing
attack and career cellar dweller NCAA Passing rankings?
The overall brilliant Leadership of TCU, or maybe even Notre Dame, can help BC tremendously.
Ever to Excel, not ever to EMBARRASS ALUMS!
Well seeing this has made me incredibly excited for next year as far as our Boston college football program goes. After a crazy and exciting season with some extreme highs and lows it is very refreshing to look forward to next year. Firstly, this season was a truly amazing one to experience as a college freshman. To kick of the season at foxboro, the home of the New England Patriots was mind boggling. And to top this experience off with a victory was so exciting. Following an upsetting loss, the University of Southern California game came. I specifically remember going with my friends and planning on leaving at half time because we expected it to be a complete blow out. But there was something special in the air that night and I feel like every student felt it that night. We hung in the game the entire time and by the end took the lead. Although it was a huge upset, I do not think many of us were surprised that night because like I said, something about that night felt different. For the seniors it was a great memory in their last year here at Boston college and for the freshman it was an amazingly warm welcome to a new home. The season had its other ups and some downs too but it was amazing after that night to get together with friends and make your way to alumni stadium on the weekends because we all knew that we are BC
We are going to have a tough schedule next year by the looks
of it. With a majority of our schedule
against well-ranked teams and several that are in the top twenty five, our team
will be tested. We are going to need to
use the first couple of games against Maine and Howard as warm up games and get
our new offense taken care of. This will
hopefully be a good time for the offensive line to adjust and start clicking to
protect our new quarterback. I can see
our offense being an extremely exciting part of our team next year. Defensively, it will be hard to repeat our
past year’s performance. The defense
played super well and held up extremely well against some serious contenders
this past season. If we can manage our
offense and have a good defensive outing even close to last years we will have
solid team that we can build upon game by game.
I am not as worried about how we start the season as how we end it. With our Notre Dame game the second to last
regular season game at Fenway, this will be an extremely competitive game that
we need to win. I would argue this is
the most important game of the year. If
we can beat Notre Dame, our confidence and swagger will be off the charts and
hopefully translate into even better play.
I wish the team luck as spring practice begins and good luck next year.