Boston College Athletics
W2WF: Making A Rivalry
October 21, 2016 | Football, #ForBoston Files
It takes stories and characters, and this has both.
A good rivalry exemplifies the best things about college sports. It draws the right lines in a never-ending battle for supremacy, and it brings out the best in the fans who want to have the upper hand. A win feels supremely more satisfying and a loss feels that much worse.
So what makes a good rivalry?
It has to have stories. There has to be beautiful successes and crushing failures on both sides. This gives both sides a chance to brag. If the rivalry is one-sided, there isn't much to talk about. That's different when both sides' stories have a chapter that's supremely great, coming at the other side's expense. In turn, when it's at their expense, the dark chapters fuel the fire to create the bright memories.
As independents well before they became charter members of the old Big East, Syracuse and Boston College played annually between 1971 and 2004, when the Eagles left for the ACC. In 1983, the Orange beat a Doug Flutie BC team in New York, 21-10. Flutie got his revenge the next year, winning, 24-16, in Foxboro during a six-year stretch where the teams traded wins. In 1999, BC earned bowl eligibility for the first time under Tom O'Brien with a one-point win over the Orange, who were coming off an Orange Bowl berth the season prior. In 2004, Syracuse denied BC a trip to the Fiesta Bowl as Big East champions on the way out the door, winning in Chestnut Hill, 43-17.
It has to have characters. The people make the stories that much more worthwhile. Their names need to evoke emotion, both good and bad, from multiple perspectives. It weaves the fabric of a human element that sports so expertly captures. Nothing makes a story better than the deep layers of when a human is involved, even if they cloak themselves in a team uniform.
That '04 game is best remembered for Massachusetts product Diamond Ferri, who played triple duty on offense, defense and special teams. In 2010, Mark Herzlich's last regular-season play at BC was an interception to seal a win over the Orange. In 2013, Terrel Hunt led a last-minute drive to give Syracuse a win over the Andre Williams Eagles.
BC assistant coach Paul Pasqualoni was the head coach at Syracuse. In 1992, he led them to a Fiesta Bowl victory, and the Orange won three straight Big East titles from 1996-1998, including a win in the Liberty Bowl. Eagles head coach Steve Addazio was an assistant coach on that staff from 1995-1998. Current Eagle Tyler Rouse is from Syracuse going to BC, just as Ferri was an Everett product going to Syracuse.
Boston College-Syracuse is a rivalry. It has history, it has characters and it has tradition. This year, another page is written and another link is added to the chain. For both teams, it's a big game and it's a chance to write their story at their rival's expense.
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Weekly Storylines (Metallica Edition)
Until It Sleeps. People are calling this game "must win" in order to get the Eagles into a bowl game. That's not necessarily true by pure mathematics: If BC loses, the Eagles still have five games to pick up three wins. On a statistics standpoint, they could potentially still make a bowl game if they lost to the Orange.
But I understand the thinking behind it. After six games, it's still hard to categorize the Eagles as a team. They've beaten three teams that they were clearly better than. They lost to two teams that were better. They lost to a third, Georgia Tech, who is fast becoming "the bar" for ACC teams. They hung right in with them, but there were so many variables that it's hard to hit the bullseye as the exact reason why the loss happened.
A win would go a long way to shake off any doubts and cast aside the proverbial haters. In a game against a rival, one that's also fighting for bowl position, this game can organically grow into something bigger. That's what a rivalry is supposed to be about and for both teams, that story will be written.
Just for the record, I've never liked the phrase "must-win game." Every game is a must win, which is something Steve Addazio echoed this week.
"Nowadays, every game has got so much importance," he said. "I really look at it every week like you go everything you have every week."
For Whom The Bell Tolls. Syracuse runs a tempo offense predicated on one of the best passing attacks in the nation. Entering this week ninth in the country at 346 yards per game, the Orange take on a Boston College defense currently ranked fifth in the nation in passing yards allowed.
"Offensively, really impressed with Eric Dungey, their quarterback," Steve Addazio said this week. "I think he's a great player. I think he throws the ball well. He moves around. He's slippery. He operates the offense. Just really impressed with him."
With the exception of the losses to Louisville and Wake Forest, Dungey's hit for over 300 yards in every start this season. Last week, he was 28-for-53 for 311 yards and a touchdown in an upset win over Virginia Tech at home. He's assisted by one of the college game's best receivers - Amba Etta-Tawo, who has nearly half of Dungey's 2,197 yards on the season.
"He's an eraser guy," Addazio said. "When the ball is up in the air, he's up vertical getting the ball. I mean, throwing the ball vertically down the field is throwing the ball vertically down the field. You got a quarterback that can make that throw and a receiver that can go up and take that ball out of the sky."
That's going to put pressure on the BC defense. Syracuse is a tempo team that averages less than 30 minutes per game of offense. Having already seen that this year, that's going to allow the Eagles to prepare for when to mix up their coverage packages.
"They play to their scheme, and they're a tempo team," said Addazio. "If you play too much coverage, then they're going to run the ball, and if you're soft in the coverage, they're going to throw quick routes. I think they do it very efficiently and very well so that on fourth down or in the goal line, in the red zone, they're not afraid to throw the ball."
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Enter Sandman. I'm a diehard Red Sox fan, but I respect the Yankees. I genuinely liked a couple of them, but no single player commanded more than Mariano Rivera. I went to a game at Yankee Stadium once and the whole atmosphere changed when the first strains of guitar came over the loudspeaker. He was a closer's closer and it was nothing I'd ever seen before.
Luke Kuechly was that kind of player for BC. When he was on the field, you always noticed where he was. He was a one-of-a-kind athlete, the type of player you hope to see more than once in your lifetime. He had it all: speed, quickness, intelligence, vision, anticipation, agility, power and tackle ability. He knew exactly what to do, where to be and how to do it.
When he left BC for the NFL, one of my friends who lives in Charlotte called me asking what I could tell him about Kuechly. I told him he would have his world rocked and he would be the happiest fan possible. He had a chance to meet Kuechly a couple of years ago in Carolina, ending the meeting with a jabbering phone conversation to me about how smart and friendly #59 was.
Kuechly will receive the game's highest honor this weekend when his jersey is revealed to overlook Alumni Stadium forever. He joins the list of the immortals on Saturday. One day, when I take my future kid and grandkids to BC for a football game, I'll point to it and tell them that he was one of the best I ever saw and I'll say it with such conviction that they'll believe every unbelievable fact about him.
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Meteorology 101
Showers are in the forecast on Saturday with increasing winds in the afternoon. After the temperature peaks in the 60s during the morning, it's going to drop steadily over the course of the day before settling into the 50s range.
Those wind gusts are going to be strong, up to about 40 miles per hour. With the wind and the rain, both teams are going to have to grind it out on a soggy Alumni Stadium turf. The kicking games could be impacted, so points will be at a premium.
It's ironic because on Wednesday's ACC media call, Steve Addazio said he hoped for some wind and rain.
"I wouldn't mind (it) coming in here," he said. "but I don't control that, so that's a little out of my reach. If I could, I'd call it in."
Hey Coach - I'm going on vacation in about three weeks. Think you can make a call for sunny, clear skies in the Caribbean?
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Scoreboard Watching
There's a light slate of games scheduled for Saturday with BC-Syracuse as one of only three ACC games scheduled for the day (Virginia Tech-Miami was on Thursday).
The Eagles' next opponent NC State is on the road this week against Louisville. The Wolfpack played Clemson tremendously tough but lost in overtime last weekend with their consolation prize being a road trip to Papa John's Cardinal Stadium.
Between NC State and Syracuse beating Virginia Tech, there's one thing abundantly clear: everyone knows everyone in the ACC incredibly well.
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Bottom Line
I love a good rivalry and Syracuse-BC is just that. Steve Addazio talked about regional rivalries this week multiple times and it's a big deal to want to beat those teams. But that's tempered against the need to win a single game in a 12-game schedule. Yes, you want to beat your rivals just a little bit more, but at the same time you just want to approach it like any other game and pick up a win against a good team.
The duplicity of the human spirit is complexing and confounding, isn't it?
I used to think about football games in the framework of an entire schedule but I realized that did me no good. There's too much that can happen between one week to another and the storyline can change almost immediately. So I've stopped thinking about how one game impacts the rest of the season.
Right now, one game impacts one game. It's a big game, for sure, but it's the same 60 minute game played every week in stadiums across the country. I don't think anyone needs any other reason to get up for it, but a rivalry game doesn't exactly hurt.
Boston College and Syracuse. The rivalry returns to Chestnut Hill on Saturday.
