One week removed from handing Syracuse a 42-14 defeat in its regular season finale, Boston College football learned that it’ll be heading back to New York—only this time, the Eagles will be in the Big Apple.
On Sunday afternoon, the ACC announced that BC (7-5, 4-4 Atlantic Coast) has officially accepted its invitation to play Iowa (7-5, 4-5 Big Ten) in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl on Dec. 27, marking the school’s 26th bowl appearance, and its 16th in the last 19 years. After last year’s 36-30 win over Maryland in the Quick Lane Bowl—BC’s first postseason victory since 2007—the Eagles moved to 14-11 all-time in bowl games.
BC will be heading back to Yankee Stadium for the second time in four years. In 2014, the Eagles went toe-to-toe with Penn State in the Bronx, before losing on a missed extra point in overtime.
Head coach Steve Addazio couldn’t be any happier. After all, he and his players have had their eyes on the Pinstripe Bowl since August.
“If you asked our kids to tell you where they’d want to be, they’d say, ‘We want to be in New York, playing in the Pinstripe Bowl,” Addazio told reporters during Sunday’s bowl announcement press conference.
New York serves as the hub of holiday festivities, but, more importantly, it’s essentially home for the Eagles—one of the few bowl-eligible Power Five teams in the Northeast. According to Director of Athletics Martin Jarmond, 120,000 alumni and fans live within driving distance of the city, including over 25,000 New York natives.
While the play of running back A.J. Dillon, the ACC Rookie of the Year, and Jarmond’s Big Ten connections definitely played a role in the Eagles’ selection, the first-year AD emphasized that it was BC’s second-half resurgence that got them the bid.
“We’re an exciting team right now,” Jarmond said. “We’re a team that people don’t want to play right now. And bowl games like that—they like that energy.”
Despite losing seven starters to season-ending injuries, BC capped off the year with a 5-1 record, averaging 36 points per game in the process. To put that in perspective, if the Eagles’ offense had put up those kinds of numbers from the start of the season, it would have finished the regular season as one of the 20-highest scoring units in the nation. With a win over the Hawkeyes, BC will not only record its second-consecutive bowl victory, but it will also have won six of its past seven games—a feat that the program hasn’t accomplished in 25 years.
Featured Image by Amelie Trieu / Heights Editor
