W2WF: Louisville

The 2020 football season's unique structure forced the ACC to infuse creativity into its schedule. It added Notre Dame while eliminating divisions and aligned 15 teams into a 10-game, single-league format. It guaranteed teams wouldn't face every conference opponent but opened the door for new, exciting games against different programs not ordinarily seen on an annual schedule. It further invited chaos into the league championship race and forced new tiebreaker formats based on the total number of games played.

It hung on the pandemic's shadowy presence, but the overarching sentiment knew the end of the season would include a frenetic race to the finish line. Clinching championship positioning wouldn't rely on the same head-to-head wins in late October or early November, but the possibility of juicy games between both old and new rivals permeated the storylines when the schedule drew nearer to November.

The tension came to a head over the past two weeks when Miami endured a COVID-induced postponement following its 25-24 win over Virginia Tech. It was the Hurricanes' fourth consecutive win after its 42-17 loss to Clemson, but it thrust them back into the ACC championship race after Notre Dame's win over the Tigers dropped Clemson into a statistical tie for second.

North Carolina, meanwhile, continued to lurk despite its 44-41 loss to Virginia by scoring 115 points against Duke and Wake Forest. Its last two games were against Notre Dame and Miami, and it potentially opened the door both for the undefeated, first place Irish to crash while elevating either the Tar Heels, Hurricanes, or Tigers.

It thrust sixth-place Boston College into the mix because of the tiebreaker scenarios. The Eagles are one game behind NC State for fifth place in the league, and neither team holds a win over any of the top four teams. The Wolfpack, though, played the Hurricanes where BC played both Clemson and Notre Dame, and a tertiary tiebreaker scenario of winning percentage against common opponents and common opponents based upon order of finish potentially flips the scales for those two teams.

In other words, the rescheduled game between BC and Louisville, normally overlooked for its lack of first place championship appeal, likely has an impact on which team wins a tiebreaker scenario if the right teams finish in the right order.

"If you were to explain how our game was switched because of Miami, I would have no idea how to explain it," head coach Jeff Hafley said. "We were told our game would need to be moved, and I said we just wanted to play. One game changing and reshuffling shows how quickly things can change."

COVID-19 postponements are nothing new to the 2020 season, but their importance highlights a couple of facets at the end of the season. The ACC Championship is set for December 19, and the league is running out of available open dates. Tiebreakers are likely going to come into stronger focus, and teams will start side-eyeing the scoreboard for attention-grabbing results. The teams with the best internal focus will earn key victories. For well-rested BC, that's just fine because that's been the goal since the very beginning.

"Let's just be happy we're playing ball, and we're fortunate to play," Hafley said. "As far as our bye week went, I gave our older guys time to rest and a lot of time off. They needed rest. Truthfully, I looked around on Saturday, and I wasn't sure if any other team played nine straight (games). I saw a team with a 3-0 record and thought, 'Oh my gosh, we've played nine games and these guys are in week three.'"

Here's what to watch for when the Eagles meet the Cardinals on Saturday:

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Weekly Storylines (Back to the Future Edition)

Marty: Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Doc. Are you telling me that you built a time machine out of a DeLorean?
Doc Brown: The way I see it, if you're gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?

I still have recurring nightmares about the Louisville game in 2016 when Lamar Jackson ran 69 yards on the third play of the game for the first of his seven touchdowns. It brought me back to 2001's Virginia Tech game against Michael Vick, and it created the same kind of grudge I held against Vick for years.

The Lamar game is light years in the past, but current quarterback Malik Cunningham has similar dual threat speed and agility. He enters Saturday as an efficient passer, but he's the Cardinals' leading rusher after Javian Hawkins opted out of the 2020 season to enter the NFL Draft. Head coach Scott Satterfield reconfigured around that, and the obvious weaponry makes Louisville one of the fastest teams BC will see this season.

"They use jet motions because they have so many athletes," Jeff Hafley said. "They have all these fast wideouts, but (Tutu Atwell), I think, is a dynamic player on jet sweeps and jet motions to pull your eyes. The offensive line is very athletic, and they do a great job on the wide zone screen. They score a bunch of points. They're an underrated offense in my mind, but they're very talented and very fast."

Atwell has 41 catches, almost double the individual totals of Dez Fitzpatrick, Braden Smith and tight end Marshon Ford, and his six touchdowns lead the team. He is small, but his agility paced him to nearly 1,300 yards last season. He is explosive in his first step, but he's consistent and has at least one touchdown in five different games this season. Against Miami, he went for eight catches and 114 yards with two scores, but he decimated Florida State in October with 129 yards on three catches.

"If you have great cover guys but do not have that (pass) rush, it's very, very hard (to stop an offense)," Hafley said. "It's the same thing if you have a great pass rush but you're just okay in the back end. It's a combination of having a rush-plus-coverage that leads to having a top-ranked pass (defense)."

Marty: Doc, about the future…
Doc Brown: No! Marty! We've already agreed that having information about the future can be extremely dangerous. Even if your intentions are good, it can backfire drastically! Whatever you've got to tell me, I'll find out through the natural course of time.

Jeff Hafley's revelation of Phil Jurkovec's separated shoulder changed the context of BC's recent three-game stretch. He looked off at the end of the Clemson game after the first half's lightning-quick scoring drives, and he actively struggled downfield against Syracuse despite going 20-for-29 passing. He turned a corner against Notre Dame, but his accuracy wasn't quite there.

The perception of those three games tilted on its side after Hafley revealed Jurkovec's injury. The quarterback took shots in each of those three games but still threw two touchdowns and early willed BC back into the Notre Dame game after the Irish's defense drilled him. The entire dynamic transformed, and the conversation about what was wrong with Phil instead turned towards his toughness and willingness to ball out for the team.

"He needed the (bye) week," Hafley said. "He probably needed the week a little sooner. I appreciate toughness, but he's good (now). He didn't throw all week, and we just rested him. He was on point, and we're excited to have him back."

Jurkovec's first season under center has been nothing short of a return to old glories. His 17 touchdown passes are tied with four others for 10th all-time, a slot his 2,355 yards are on the verge of breaking into. He shattered Chase Rettig's sophomore class record for completed passes, and he has two to three games to throw three more scores in order to join Matt Ryan, Doug Flutie, Brian St. Pierre and Glenn Foley in the 20-touchdown club. He has a very good shot to break both Flutie and Foley's class records for passing yards and touchdowns.

"Everything he's accomplished this year in a COVID year says even more about the kid and his toughness," Hafley said. "He didn't have to go through those games, but he did."

Doc Brown: As long as you hit that wire with the connecting hook at precisely 88 miles per hour, the instant the lightning strikes the tower… everything will be fine.

The major storyline entering this week could have been about Louisville's ability to run the football, but Javian Hawkins opted out of the 2020 season after he ran for 129 yards and a touchdown against Virginia Tech. It was his second straight game and third in four games with 100 yards, and it was on the heels of a 174-yard, three-score performance against Florida State. His lasting memory was a 90-yard score against the Hokies, but he will likely create more images for some rabid fan base on Sundays after he's chosen in next year's NFL Draft.

Losing Hawkins created a potential void, but Louisville worked through it by employing Malik Cunningham as a runner more often against Virginia. It bought the backfield a week's worth of preparation, and the team gashed Syracuse in its last game with 134 yards and two scores.

"You want to look at the offense and just look at the athletes they have," Jeff Hafley said. "They had a running back opt out who is a dynamic player, but they have (options). They have a bunch of backs, and some are big, some are strong, and they're physical."

Jalen Mitchell is the big heavy in the group, and the 221-pound thunder back ripped Virginia for 76 yards on seven carries two weeks ago. He dialed back last week against Syracuse for 46 yards on 11 carries, but he flashed his hands out of the backfield for three receptions. His complement, Maurice Burkley, is equally big at six feet tall and over 200 pounds, and he gashed the Orange for nearly six years per carry.

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Countdown to Kickoff

10…scoring drives by the BC offense are between 3-5 plays this year.
9…Louisville's passing defense has allowed the ninth fewest yards in FBS.
8…seasons since BC last finished a season ranked in the top 50 in passing offense. The Eagles currently rank 42nd nationally with 262.1 yards per game.
7…field goals by Aaron Boumerhi between 30 and 39 yards this season are the most since Colton Lichtenberg kicked eight from the distance in 2017.
6…touchdown catches by Louisville's Tutu Atwell, an average of one every seven receptions.
5…different players have started every game on the BC defense, along with eight players on offense.
4…a BC win on Saturday would be the Eagles' fourth win all-time at home against the Cardinals.
3…BC alum Mark Herzlich will call his third Eagles' game of the season for ACC Network.
2...BC's 10 fumbles recovered are the second-most in the nation.
1…Boston College win at home since Louisville joined the conference in 2014.

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BC-Louisville X Factor

Malik Cunningham

I was very slow to adjust to a new brand of dual-threat quarterback. I grew up watching Tom Brady and Peyton Manning operate in the pocket cocoon, and I automatically assumed adjusting one or two steps was the only way to throw downfield. My only exposure to a mobile quarterback in the early 2000s was through Michael Vick, but he was an anomaly in comparison to Brady, Manning, Ben Roethlisburger, Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, Eli Manning and that weird year when Matt Schaub threw for almost 5,000 yards.

More mobile quarterbacks started to permeate into the early 2010s, though, and both Cam Newton and Russell Wilson bulldozed the path originally laid by Vick. Quarterbacks operated outside the pocket, and the Run-Pass Option made its way into designed plays for faster passers.

That led to Lamar Jackson. Lamar scared the daylights out of me in 2016 because he had an elite arm, pinpoint accuracy, an explosive first step, top end speed and an uncanny toughness. He had a fast offense, and he ruined opposing defenses. I walked out of that BC game refusing to believe another player deserved the Heisman Trophy, and I think I told a friend they needed to rename it the Lamar Jackson Award.

I keep coming back to Lamar because I see the similarities in a maturing Malik Cunningham. He has almost 500 career passing attempts, but he has 300 career runs for more than 1,500 yards. He has as many rushing touchdowns as interceptions, and there are those games where he gains 300 yards by both running and throwing.

I'm not saying Cunningham is the next coming of Lamar Jackson because I don't think anyone is the next coming of Lamar Jackson; he's too unique. But that offense with that speed will always scare me. BC had its problems this year against Hendon Hooker and Ian Book, and Cunningham is right in line with that duo. How the Eagles adjust to that style coming out of their bye will go a long way to determine the fate of the score.

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Dan's Homegrown Tailgate Tip of the Week

I love Thanksgiving. A huge family dinner is an annual rite of passage at my brother's house, and I'm well-known for drowning my entire dinner in gravy. The meal is the Energizer bunny for me since it keeps going and going, and I usually don't stop eating until my wife gives me the disapproving look that says I crossed an imaginary line between appropriate gluttony and inappropriate awkwardness. That's before I fall asleep on a couch for the best turkey nap of the year, at least until my niece wakes me up by sneaking up to me.

That didn't happen this year for obvious reasons, but I still drowned my Thursday meal in gravy until I practically took a turkey nap at a dinner table. There is nothing anyone could do to prevent that good Turkey Day snooze, just like there isn't anyone preventing me from downing leftovers before the Boston College game on Saturday.

Leftovers are the best part of any holiday because they welcome you back to the table at a time when the formalities are out the window. The lack of traditional passing enables even less rules, and everything seems to go out the window when you're packing a plate. I usually fire a plate full of stuffing and potatoes into the microwave with a couple of extra turkey slices where I'd normally go heavy on the meat, and cranberry sauce makes more appearances than it does, for me anyways, on the actual date.

Putting together leftovers is an artform, and it's actually something my in-laws perfected around Christmas. They have a three-season porch that turns into an auxiliary refrigerator if days and nights are cold enough, and any leftover dinner is shoved outside onto a table. The generally cold weather means seltzers and sodas are left out there too, and it's always convenient how often I need to refill a glass when I'm over their house. It's pretty easy to eat a piece of turkey and ham while filling the cup before returning to the living room for television, and it's almost a personal, physical challenge to eat more and more every year in those intervals.

I know holidays are going to look very different this year, and I hope everyone celebrated safely without taking unnecessary risks associated with the ongoing pandemic. My giant Thanksgiving feast didn't happen in the traditional sense, and I hope we're all charging through these days with patience for the inevitable march towards whatever our new normal will become. We will be waiting for our meal, not necessarily on the day of the holiday but in the days after, when everything's made up and pumpkin pie is a side for a pound of mashed potatoes. Until then, I'll wait and remember the times I horrified people witnessing my gravy escapades for the first time.

One last note here, actually: I am a huge supporter of canned cranberry sauce. Both my mother and my brother have their own recipes, but I'm still a sucker for the slurping sound when it slides out of that can. Everyone knows those lines from the can are the informal guide to slicing that beautiful gelatinous mold. It's the antithesis of brown bread.

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Scoreboard Watching

The College Football Playoff rankings released on Tuesday arrived with fanfare and controversy after it unveiled its frontrunners for this year's championship semifinals. It placed Notre Dame, Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State in its top four spots, which shouldn't have surprised anyone after the Buckeyes answered the bell against Indiana and Alabama beat Kentucky, 63-3.

The rest of the rankings generated conversation, though, when Cincinnati slotted into the No. 7 spot and Brigham Young, ranked eighth in the Associated Press poll, landed at No. 14 with an undefeated, 9-0 record. Four SEC schools and three ACC schools ranked in the top 10, and Northwestern added a Big Ten sleeper at No. 8.

I don't necessarily agree with every ranking personally, but the committee usually gets its poll right over the long run of a college football season. The final poll rarely resembles its initial iteration, and this season's bowl chase is anything but normal.

That leads to an incredibly fun slate of games for a long weekend starting on Friday. No. 13 Iowa State is at No. 17 Texas and No. 2 Notre Dame is at No. 19 North Carolina on Friday, and both Alabama and Clemson are in action at 3:30 on Saturday. The Crimson Tide were No. 1 in the CFP poll and will play No. 22 Auburn in the Iron Bowl, but head coach Nick Saban tested positive for the coronavirus and the Tigers are hosting Pittsburgh, which memorably ruined Miami's CFP bid a couple of years ago.

No. 5 Texas A&M is one of the other games of note on Saturday when it hosts LSU at 7 p.m., and Cincinnati's Group of Five spot will face a challenge from No. 20 Coastal Carolina's game at Texas State. The Bearcats were slated to face Temple before the game was canceled, and BYU is off with one game remaining in a couple of weeks against San Diego State.

On the local radar, UMass is at Liberty, which fell out of the national rankings after last week's loss at NC State.

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Around the Sports World

My best friends and I are a little feral about college basketball. We text about the sport constantly and watch any game televised on any network anywhere in the United States. We love the sport, especially at the collegiate level, and we track and follow teams to which we have no affiliation simply because we love the sport. I'm not even the basketball expert in my family (my wife sees the sport on the floor much better than I ever could), but there's something about watching the game that triggers our passion.

Losing March Madness really hit us hard because we didn't understand what we didn't know about the coronavirus or COVID-19. Our confusion compounded our collective sadness, frustration, anger and overall emotional state back then, although we learned later how cancelling the tournament was the right call. Most of all, we couldn't fathom the lack of the tournament's 12-hour basketball parade and its ability to sustain us with multiple televisions and hours of conversational flurries.

The return of different sports buoyed all of us, and I threw myself into the daily distractions provided by baseball, bubbles, college football and the NFL. I rediscovered my passion for Everton FC in England amidst the start of a new international soccer season, and I fully invested in the end of the NASCAR championship run. College hockey came back last week, and I always have a soft spot, professionally and personally, for the fastest game on ice.

Only one hole remained for college basketball, and I found it this week when the season kicked off on Wednesday at Mohegan Sun.

Bubbleville's start was understandably rocky as programs shifted with positive COVID-19 test results, but every coach and player understood the season and schedule is currently and will remain fluid until we approach a new normal. Wednesday's schedule even gave the start an air of March Madness with tip-offs lasting from noon until Boston College's late night game against Villanova.

I watched basketball all day. I started with BC's women's team at noon while I participated in Jeff Hafley's press conference, and I continued with games throughout the day. I loaded up on power conference, mid-afternoon starts, and I eased my way through dinner by preparing for the 2K Empire Classic.

It didn't erase COVID-19's second surge, and it certainly didn't make the pandemic's storm any easier to weather. It just helped me get through one day. We all hear about how Thanksgiving is different this year, that this year is the most trying winter any of us will likely endure. Thousands of people receive positive diagnoses per day in our local areas, and we all are touched by this pandemic in one way or another.

For one day, though, the personal sacrifices of the coaches, players and staff made basketball possible and enabled all of us to stay home and watch a sport. It made us smile because they played the games, a statement summed up perfectly by the building excitement of five guys who just love watching the sport.

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Pregame Quote and Prediction

Tomorrow hopes we learned something from yesterday. -John Wayne

It's hard to believe how fast Boston College's football season flew through nine games. The marathon sprint, as I referred to it, started during the late summer heat and continued through the changing of the seasons. It started with daylight drifting into late hours and ended with the stark darkness of 4 p.m. sunsets, though it began and ended during both basketball and hockey seasons.

Nobody had bye week blues when Boston College had its first week off since September, but the Eagles returned this week with a physical vengeance at practice. They refreshed and attacked their last two weeks' preparation, and they embraced the opportunity to finish strong with wins against Louisville and Virginia. This week, it starts with the Cardinals, an Atlantic Division rival.

For the past few years, BC lived with the .500 team moniker. On Saturday, it has an opportunity to take a step forward and clinch a winning record. It can shake the memories of 6-6 by winning a game in an odd-numbered season, and it can give itself an opportunity to win an all-important seventh game in a year where 7-4 feels a lot different than 7-5.

Boston College and Louisville will kick off at 4 p.m. on Saturday from Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. The game can be seen on the ACC Network with radio broadcast available on the BC Learfield IMG Sports Network, locally in Boston on WEEI 93.7 FM. Satellite simulcast is also available via Sirius channel 135, XM channel 193 and Online channel 955.

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Players Mentioned

Aaron Boumerhi

Phil Jurkovec

Colton Lichtenberg

W2WF: Louisville

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Next Event

Players Mentioned

Aaron Boumerhi

Phil Jurkovec

Colton Lichtenberg

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