In 2020, Earning No Bowl Was Bigger Than Bowl Bid

I find myself often reading and comparing older bowl seasons to the present day. The sheer volume of games is more than double that of earlier decades, but the postseason pageantry is always special to me. I love watching football teams represent their schools on neutral ground stadiums, and the weird uniform patches and unfamiliar, or strange, opponents gives me something new and fresh every season.

I often study the process around this time of year and try to determine how games and opponents match up based on factors, and the speculation is just as exciting as the actual placement. It's my favorite time of year because every game and result intertwines with some other, unrelated team, and the whole process fascinates me without fail.

Bowl season is my favorite time of year, which is why I spent this past weekend soul searching its greater meaning in 2020 after Boston College opted out of a postseason game with a formal announcement on Thursday afternoon.

"This decision is not made lightly," William V. Campbell Director of Athletics Pat Kraft said. "We're all competitors. We wanted to make sure we took the time and communicated, and it's all built on trust. We talk about family all the time, and I'm really proud of (the student-athletes) for doing something where others might not make the call."

The announcement shocked me after I spent the previous weeks trying to figure out the ACC's bowl structure for this season. Analysts bounced BC from bowl to bowl as dominoes fell to cancellation, but the predictions seemed to settle after the Virginia game. A potential Pinstripe Bowl berth evaporated when the game shut down, but almost everyone saw the Eagles as the perfect fit for the Sun Bowl.

It likewise shuttered, but I knew the lack of eligibility requirements opened the door for the Eagles. I knew the team's ability to handle COVID-19 with virtually zero positive test results made it an attractive invite even though figuring out who and where BC would play was all the more impossible. I just completely underestimated the individual sacrifices involved with that fight.

It was a source of pride stretching back to the summer because the one positive test result from June's return to campus was the only positive until Thanksgiving week. No BC-mandated schedule shuffle. No postponements. No shutdowns. Every week, the Eagles played under the same microscope without mentioning a jinx or even talking about the streak until we started asking about it, but the invisible mental toll grew louder as the year wore on.

"It's a roller coaster," Kraft said. "Everyone in our travel party took it on and said we were going to do this, but you wait every night (for test results). It's a lot to hold onto. These guys were getting tested three times per week. It's exhausting. It really is. It's an exhausting process."

"I went back to that Virginia week when the guys gave us everything they had," Hafley said, "but it just looked a little different. Spending time with them on the field and in practice, I felt like the mental strain and physical strain was wearing on them. Mental health is very important to me, and I think how we got to this point is just the truth. Since June 28, these guys went above and beyond what most of us could do, and I include myself in that. For them to stay healthy and away from COVID, with 9,000 tests and one positive, it took more out of them than anyone has any idea, including me. They're worn out."

The players sacrificed everything and lived a walled-off lifestyle in order to play the sport they love, and a normal bowl game under normal circumstances would have been the ultimate reward and an infusion of excitement and incredulity to the season. That footing just doesn't exist in 2020, especially in December as COVID-19 roars back into our conscience with an alarming spike in both cases and deaths.

"Their mental health of these kids is more important to me than anything," Hafley said. "I told (everyone) I wanted to reward these players. A bowl game, in my opinion, is a week away with your friends. You meet other teams, other coaches, hang out with each other and spend the holidays (at the game) with their families together. That's not the case this year. That's not going to happen.

"The biggest reward we could give them was to go home, finish finals, and spend time with their families," he said. "They've earned it, and they deserve it. This was an incredible year. We accomplished so much more than anyone thought we could and so much more than what most of college football wasn't able to do. They gave everything they had, and it's the right thing to do."

It was important to prove how a football team could play a season under the COVID-19 umbrella, and Boston College's success is worthy of every story. It enabled a bowl season in its own way, and the teams playing in postseason games deserve the shot at one more game for their teams and schools if they choose to compete.

This year, though, BC needed something altogether different after playing this season without a single stoppage. The players needed to celebrate the holidays at home with their families. In a year built around the preciousness of time, it's now their turn to embrace it and to return home as tired kids who accomplished something special.

"When Max (Richardson) told the team they were going home to see their families, there was an uproar of excitement," Hafley said. "It was emotional for me because, at that moment, I knew, 100 percent, it was the right decision."

"If we practiced three weeks," Kraft said, "they would miss Christmas with their families. If we got a call that our bowl is cancelled, I would have an issue with that. I love our athletes, but when we had fans at Clemson and Virginia Tech, we kept a barrier between athlete and parent or loved one. It's bigger than a game. They battled, and it was hard. To go through that, and that was out of our control, it's why I'm really proud of where they ended up."

In 2020, Earning No Bowl Was Bigger Than Bowl Bid

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