W2WF: Florida State

The end of November is a unique time to live in New England. The foliage dotting October skies with vibrant colors is dying off, and biting winds replace the crispy breezes that once sailed through the tree branches. Those same leaves now blanket the ground, and Daylight Savings Time abruptly ushers pitch darkness into the early evening hours, resulting in conditions for the arrival of morning frost the next day. It's an annual rite of acclimation before the official start of winter, but the heartless way it dispatches with autumn is as abrupt as the way the holiday season now starts after Halloween.

Football season likewise undergoes a transformation as it winds down into the cold and frost. The players who ran out of the tunnel and into September sunshine are now huddled around portable sideline heaters, and arms once sunburned by the reflection of the rays hitting aluminum bleachers are now cloaked in cold gear as their breath hovers in front of their facemasks.

Snow isn't in the forecast for Boston College's game against Florida State, but the signs that fall is ending will be unmistakable when the Eagles and Seminoles play the penultimate game of the 2021 season at Alumni Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

"I'm hoping we just get a nice day for the fans to come out," BC head coach Jeff Hafley said, "and we can have another great atmosphere. It's powerful and helpful."

Playing Florida State always carries a certain amount of weight in the ACC, but this year's game checked an additional box after BC clinched bowl eligibility last week against Georgia Tech with a 41-30 win. It opened the gates to the all-important 13th game of the season and entered the Eagles into the postseason conversation while subsequently generating more water cooler talk about which game they would attend.

Winning remains the easiest way to dictate that discussion, and FSU knows all too well what's at stake after it remained on a razor's edge by avoiding its seventh loss of the season last week. And even though the win didn't clinch the Seminoles' bowl bid, it staved off elimination for one more week after the six-loss team danced past Miami in the two teams' annual meeting.

BC and FSU didn't play last year after the ACC removed its divisional alignment for the 2020 season, but the backdrop is strikingly similar to the situation that faced the game two years ago after the Seminoles fired head coach Willie Taggart. Games against Alabama State and Florida remained on the schedule, which meant FSU effectively had to beat BC in order to avoid attempting to clinch a bowl bid with an upset over a top-10 team.

The Seminoles won and cut a piece of the Alumni Stadium turf for their Sod Cemetery back home in Tallahassee, a memory that never sat well with BC followers. On Saturday, FSU returns to Boston in a similar situation and in need of a win in order to avoid bowl elimination. The Eagles, meanwhile, are guaranteed to play in a game, but the only way to force their way into the game of their choice is to continue their winning ways forged by a two-game streak.

The stakes are getting higher as the temperature drops. Welcome to football season in late November in New England.

"I love whenever it's a little bit cold," BC quarterback Phil Jurkovec, a Pittsburgh native said. "Some of the most fun games I've played have been in the cold, late in the year, when it means the most."

Here's what to watch when the Seminoles bring their program back to the North for their final conference game of the year:

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Weekly Storylines (Tombstone Edition)

Johnny Ringo: He was quoting the Bible. Revelations. "Behold the pale horse." The man who "sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."

It's no secret how Boston College struggled last year against dual threat quarterbacks, but the Eagles' defensive improvements largely kept running quarterbacks in check. There were exceptions, but Garrett Shrader's win didn't include 100 yards passing for Syracuse and Louisville's Malik Cunningham is one of the most electric, naturally-gifted players in the entire ACC.

Both were interesting case studies within the framework of their own offense, but neither will likely carry the same tune as Florida State's Jordan Travis, the dual threat transfer who was once Cunningham's understudy at Louisville.

"He's a really athletic, twitchy guy," Jeff Hafley said. "He threw a lot of interceptions early in the year, but I think he's thrown the ball better [as of late]. He's starting to make better decisions, and they're protecting him better. The offensive line does a nice job, and they have good backs [and] some really good wideouts. They're talented. They're a very athletic team."

Travis played sparingly for Louisville in both 2018 and 2019 before transferring to the Seminoles last season, but he found more success as a runner after arriving in head coach Mike Norvell's system. He wasn't consistent, but the flashes offered good glimpses at his capability during a weird season interrupted several times by COVID-19.

He benefited greatly this year from a return to normalcy, and he summarily broke out against Syracuse when he rushed for 113 yards on 19 carries with 131 yards and two touchdowns passing on 22-of-32 attempts. He followed it up with five scores in a road win over North Carolina, and after playing limited snaps against UMass, a loss to Clemson handed him adversity prior to last week's game against Miami, where he promptly threw for 274 yards and ran for two touchdowns with 62 yards on the ground.

The 300-yard day is potentially problematic because of how Norvell's offense utilizes a centerpiece quarterback. Riley Ferguson threw for 4,200 yards and 38 touchdowns after Norvell left Arizona State to replace Justin Fuente at Memphis, and he added six touchdowns to push his cumulative total over 40 for the season. He was replaced the next year by Brady White, a former quarterback under Norvell at Arizona State, and he, too, threw for 4,000 yards within two years of operating in the offense.

"I think [FSU] does a really good job with its scheme," Hafley said. "He's got those guys playing better. They won a big game against Miami in a big rivalry game, and they had lost two in a row. You respect that they came back at the end of the game [when] they were down, and they made big plays on fourth down to score at the end. I'm sure they're feeling really good right now, and they should be."

Johnny Ringo: Eventus stultorum magister.
Doc Holliday: In pace requiescat.
Marshal Fred White: Come on boys. We don't want any trouble in here. Not in any language.
Doc Holliday: Evidently, Mr. Ringo's an educated man. Now I really hate him.

Stopping Travis is going to be very difficult, but the Florida State defense won't offer BC the same clear advantages as the previous games against Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech. The return of Phil Jurkovec helped in each of those games, but the Eagles were also particular in attacking the susceptibilities of both the Hokies and the Yellow Jackets, which is why the running game blew Virginia Tech off the point of attack and the passing game went downfield last week.

FSU, quite frankly, isn't either one of those two teams, and the Seminoles enter Saturday with a mid-tier defense capable of stopping any opponent. They have their soft spots, namely in their 30 points allowed in four of their first five games, but they rank ahead of BC in rushing defense and are sixth in the conference in pass defense efficiency.

"Florida State always has a very solid defensive line every year," offensive lineman Zion Johnson said. "Not too long ago, they had Marvin Wilson who was a pretty good player in the ACC. We're expecting to go into a tough, physical game, but we expect that every week and the ACC has a lot of good defensive linemen. We're just going to play physical and play our game."

It's a case of having a good staff capable of utilizing the right personnel in the right situations. Defensive coordinator Adam Fuller didn't put up the best numbers with Norvell when they were at Memphis, but his staff is loaded with solid coaches who come from various areas of success. Linebackers coach Chris Marve, for example, succeeded Tem Lukabu as the position coach at Mississippi State, while Marcus Woodson competed against him as the defensive backs coach at Auburn. Odell Haggins is still around, as well, and the defensive line coach is an old stalwart who bleeds FSU more than any other coach on the roster.

They are the nucleus of a defense tasked with rebuilding the aftermath of a short, downward swing. FSU finished last year ranked in the 60s in total defense, but it was a clear improvement after finishing 90th in Norvell's first year. The unit is behind that pace this year, but the No. 74 unit demolished UMass and just forced Miami quarterback Tyler Van Dyke into a two-interception game.

It's true that Norvell's teams never finished in the top third of college football at Memphis, but the Tigers produced the No. 57 unit in their last year in 2019 and routinely improved year-over-year. Given where FSU currently is located in the rankings, it stands to reason that the unit should break out before the season ends.

Doc Holliday: What did you ever want?
Wyatt Earp: Just to live a normal life.
Doc Holliday: There is no normal life, Wyatt, it's just life. Get on with it.

Florida State is the rare case of a team fighting to regain its elite level mojo after it ruled the college football world. The 2013 BCS National Champions won the final-ever Bowl Championship Series trophy before participating in the first-ever College Football Playoff, but the Seminoles' Rose Bowl loss to Oregon seemingly derailed their prospects at routinely competing for both the national championship and the conference title after Clemson ascended to the mantle.

That invincibility might be gone, but it's easy to forget how FSU went 23-1 over a three-season span in the ACC, and that the Seminoles won 10 games in consecutive years before Jimbo Fisher left for Texas A&M. Their Peach Bowl loss to Houston wasn't the best possible outcome after they trailed the Cougars by as many as 14 in the fourth quarter, but the next year gave them a win over Michigan in the Orange Bowl.

FSU very much remains a formidable presence in the ACC even as the program transitioned out of the Fisher era and into the Norvell era. Last year's team didn't attend a game and the 2018 team missed a bowl, but the 2019 team rallied past both Boston College and an FCS team to qualify for a game before meeting nationally-ranked Florida in the last game of the season. Even last year's team, which only won three games, beat No. 5 North Carolina, and this year's team nearly beat Notre Dame in the first week of the season.

It's why every team, including BC, needs to retain wariness whenever it plays Florida State. This year's win over UNC wasn't a fluke after the Seminoles scored 21 points in the second quarter, and the opening day week against Notre Dame felt like FSU was back to form. The win over Miami was the case of a team coming into its own, and the demolition of UMass was an exhibition of the athletes' pure talent. All of that is why the Eagles have to pay good attention to what happens this week and why this one is anything but a walkthrough.

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Countdown to Kickoff

10...FSU is 10th in the conference in passing offense compared to BC entering Saturday, when it will face the No. 1 pass defense in the league.
9…Only two ACC teams have nine touchdown passes or fewer as an offense, with Duke and Syracuse holding nine and eight, respectively.
8…BC enters this weekend with an 8-8 record in games played in the last two weekends of November over the past decade.
7…Miami rushed for 43 yards last week, the seventh-lowest total by the Hurricanes in the FSU-Miami rivalry.
6…FSU is one of seven teams with a 100-yard rusher in six different games and with six games of at least 200 yards as a team.
5…BC holds five wins over FSU in 18 previous matchups, having beaten the Seminoles in 1957, 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2017.
4…Phil Jurkovec produced the fourth-most yards per completion by an ACC quarterback since 1996 with his 23.85 YPC average during last week's game against Georgia Tech.
3…Boston College is 3-7 against FSU in games played at BC in the matchup.
2…The 2021 BC defense moved into second overall for least passing yard allowed in the program's history since 1993. Dating back to the Tom Coughin era, BC's 159.5 ypg average is less than a half-yard more than the 1994 team coached by Dan Henning.
1…Both BC and FSU are tied for the fewest field goal attempts in the conference with 12. BC has kicked 11 successful tries while the Seminoles are 9-for-12 on the year.

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BC-Florida State X Factor

Home Cooking

Winning road games is difficult for any team in college football, but Florida State has built its legacy of success by traveling its fan base to any game at any location. Home games at Doak Campbell Stadium have a reputation as particularly hostile, but being able to make road games feel like home games is an advantage for any team, regardless of its conference affiliation or its overall record.

Understanding that dynamic is why BC has to utilize its strengths in Alumni Stadium. Over 35,000 fans turned out for the Red Bandana Game against Virginia Tech, and the sellout against Missouri preceded another 40,000-fan turnout for the NC State game. Both were the first time BC broke the 40,000 attendance number since the 2018 season when ESPN's College GameDay came to Chestnut Hill for the nationally-ranked Eagles.

"We get to get back in [our] stadium where I was grateful for the last game," Jeff Hafley said. "Everybody came out, and it was awesome. I'm hoping for the same thing. I know we have a new game, and this is going to be a fun one."

Welcoming FSU to town with that kind of attendance is a clear advantage for BC at a time of year when New Englanders venture outside with a heartiness unto themselves. In 2014, BC beat Syracuse two days before the end of the month, a similar situation to last year against Louisville, though fans were prevented from visiting Alumni Stadium throughout last season.

Playing in November echoes the crowds from the wins over UConn, the latter of which was at Fenway Park, and the snow game against the Orange from the 2000s. To its credit, Florida State is 3-0 in November games at BC, but the Seminoles have never played the Eagles this late into the calendar.

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Dan's Non-Sports Observation of the Week

All this talk about winter's first blast is the result of the two frigid nights this week when the temperature dipped into the 20s. The ensuing panic about the cold caused my wife and me to break out the flannel pants and pajama shirts out of their attic storage bins, and we fired up the heat and thermal layers for the first time since that random March blizzard and the even more random April snowstorm that hit when we were on the way to the pediatrician with our baby for the first time.

Fretting about the cold is a rarity after the first couple of weeks up here, and I calmly explained to my wife that 40 degree days will feel like summer by the time March rolls around. We will be completely wind burned by them, even though my grilling season never stops, and I reminded her that the worst days of the frozen tears and facial hairs are still to come.

Ironically enough, Thursday afternoon hit 70 degrees for possibly the final time this year, but the whacky New England weather will dip back to the mid-40s for kickoff on Saturday. As usual, the weather pattern up here makes no sense, though I'd be lying if I said I didn't hope for freezing temperatures to return in time for the second half. I always loved watching people from warmer climates, particularly Florida, experience their first New England snow when their regions aren't familiar with more than a couple of inches of snow or ice. Maybe in two years we can schedule a blizzard or something.

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Scoreboard Watching

With only two weeks remaining in the regular season, the number of games with bowl ramifications explodes exponentially as teams jockey for positioning within their conferences. The BC-FSU game is chief among that list since a win or loss would send shockwaves through the slotting procedure. An FSU loss, for example, eliminates the Seminoles from a bowl for the third time in the last four years after they last missed in 1981, while a BC loss potentially moves the Eagles into the secondary tier of ACC games.

The biggest game, though, is easily Wake Forest's division-deciding road trip to Death Valley at noon. The No. 10 Deacs are still undefeated in the conference because their loss to North Carolina was technically a non-conference game, and a win over the Tigers mathematically clinches their trip to the ACC Championship with a 10-win season regardless of what happens against Boston College. A loss to the Tigers opens the door for Clemson because NC State lost last week at home, 45-42, to Wake, but it would require a BC win over the Deacons while the Tigers play South Carolina.

It precedes a similar situation in the Coastal Division between Virginia and Pittsburgh, where the No. 18 Panthers hold a one-game lead over the Cavaliers with a 3:30 kickoff at Hines Field awaiting. As it stands tonight, Pittsburgh and Wake Forest would play for the conference championship, but between the next two weekends, it could easily shift to a Virginia-Clemson matchup if the cards break correctly.

Those are really the two games of interest, and no other ACC team can lose its bowl eligibility other than Florida State this weekend. Five teams are currently saddled with 5-5 overall records, including Syracuse, which is technically ahead of 6-4 BC in the division entering the weekend. The Orange draw NC State, which should wrap up a shot at one of the ACC's premier games with a win, while Louisville continually breathes down its neck.

All of those 5-5 teams have a stake in BC's bowl landing spot if the Eagles win, but the team to really watch strongly is Virginia Tech because of its loss at Alumni Stadium two weeks ago. The Hokies parted ways with head coach Justin Fuente during the week but now head to Miami to play another 5-5 team smarting from last week's loss to FSU.

Nationally, the College Football Playoff is as wide open as ever with an undefeated Cincinnati team lurking behind the one-loss programs at Alabama, Oregon and Ohio State. All three face stiff challenges this week, but the Buckeyes are arguably in the most danger against a very hungry, seventh-ranked Michigan State team. Oregon, meanwhile, is on the road at Utah in a potential Pac-12 championship preview, while Alabama hosts Arkansas. All three games are between ranked opponents, which adds another wrinkle to the conference championship races. Georgia is playing Charleston Southern and is already clinched into the SEC Championship, so there isn't much to write about there.

The story surrounding the Bearcats is intriguing because they've done everything humanly possible to own a part of the CFP conversation, but they also have to remain perfect moving forward. Power Conference teams usually receive one-loss forgiveness if they win out and win their championship, but a Group of Five team, especially one in a league without divisions, doesn't have that luxury. A loss would end the threat altogether, which is why the mid-afternoon start against Southern Methodist is such a huge game in Ohio.

It's hard to pick one game worth watching over the others in that slate, and the remainder of college football offers some juicy possibilities with some major rivalries. Here in New England, The Game between Harvard and Yale returns to the Yale Bowl after it missed last year for the first time since World War II. The series, which began in 1875, has only been interrupted two other times, once for World War I and once because the rivalry was so violent, the schools had to stop playing it in the early 1900s. The last time it was played, the game was delayed for 45 minutes after students from both universities staged a protest at midfield.

Those rivalries run deep, and the entire Ivy League finishes up with its major matchups. Dartmouth is at Brown, Cornell is hosting Columbia, and Princeton is at Penn in the renewal of those matchups, while Lafayette heads to Lehigh in the Patriot League. In FBS, the Cal-Stanford game returns to the Farm after it played to a one-point result in Berkeley last year.

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Around the Sports World

Every professional sports league faced unique challenges last year, but the National Hockey League had the quirkiest geographical hurdle to staging a season amidst the pandemic because of its Canadian integration. Unlike the NBA or Major League Baseball, which simply moved their only Canadian teams into the United States, the NHL had to deal with seven Canadian teams, all of which played in different divisions with more historic, entrenched rivalries with American franchises.

The resulting "North Division" offered a Canadian-only division that avoided any border control issues with travel restrictions around COVID-19. Travel issues didn't arise until the Stanley Cup semifinals, at which point Montreal became the first team to receive a travel exemption to have games on either side of the border after it won the Campbell Bowl, but the regular season prevented any international crossings during the height of the pandemic.

It meant the Boston Bruins never played the Montreal Canadiens, and for the first time, a rivalry uninterrupted since the earliest contraction of the Montreal Maroons, went dormant. Though it was temporary, it still hurt, especially since the juicy possibility of a Bruins-Canadiens Stanley Cup Final never materialized after Boston was eliminated.

Not playing the game last year heightened the anticipation for the first matchup between the two on Sunday, and the Bruins' 5-2 come-from-behind win was one of those moments where TD Garden returned to full form. A one-goal Montreal lead after the first turned into a 2-1 game after two before Boston creamed the Habs' defense with four third-period goals. The Garden positively rocked, and after both Charlie Coyle and Charlie McAvoy scored two goals against Montreal, it felt like all was right in the world again.

The Bruins received the rest of the week off after playing consecutive nights against the Devils and Canadiens, but the glow of the win on Sunday didn't change as the days wore on. Boston heads to Philadelphia on Saturday for the second time since the teams returned to their respective divisions but will continue its home barnstorm against Canada on Sunday when it plays Calgary for the first time. After hosting both Edmonton and Ottawa earlier in the month, only two Canadian teams remain unplayed for the Bruins, though they head to Vancouver in a couple of weeks and won't play Winnipeg until mid-January.

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Pregame Quote and Prediction

All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray. -The Mamas and the Papas, "California Dreamin'"

I readily admit I have no insight or intelligence on the ACC's bowl selection procedure, and I don't know if Boston College is angling for a particular game or opponent. Jeff Hafley continually insists and stresses focus on only the game ahead, and nobody seems to be willing to answer or look ahead to the bowl season, which is understandable since there are still two games left in the regular season.

That won't stop me from hoping and wishing for a particular game even though my opinion clearly has no impact and doesn't matter, and I know there are several games that I am hoping to see cross BC's possibilities. Getting into the bowl game of choice can't happen without more wins, though, and most of those games come right off the board if the Eagles lose their last two games. That runs back to what Hafley said about playing every game and focusing only on the opponent ahead. Florida State doesn't have the same record as its past years, but the Seminoles still have enough talent to haunt BC's nightmares, just as they did two years ago when Odell Haggins led FSU past the Eagles and the Seminoles grabbed a piece of turf for their efforts.

Watching the players take scissors to the Alumni Stadium turf never sat well with me, but the best way to stop a team from doing that again is to win. It won't be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is. The best way to build a rivalry is to win games, and on Saturday, a step in the right direction can be taken if the Eagles knock out the 'Noles.

Boston College and Florida State will kick off on Saturday at 12 p.m. from Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. The game can be seen on national television via the ACC Network with online streaming available on the ESPN platforms for cable subscribers with access to the channel. The game can also be heard via the Boston College Sports Network from Learfield, locally in Boston on WEEI 93.7 FM with satellite broadcast on Sirius channel 121, XM channel 194 and Online channel 956.

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Players Mentioned

Zion Johnson

Phil Jurkovec