The Tailgate: Maine

The 1915 Boston College football season allowed the program to enjoy one of the more watershed moments of its history. After years of wandering Massachusetts and the Northeast with schedules played exclusively on the road, the Maroon and Gold dedicated a new home at Alumni Field with a game against Holy Cross, their archrival, but despite the fanfare that made its way into The Boston Daily Globe the next day, BC lost its first game on home turf in Chestnut Hill while Harvard earned front page recognition for its packed house game against Penn State.

That month, the entire city had been at the forefront of the American conversation. Just two weeks before the dedication of Alumni Field and the penalty-infested matchup featuring the Crimson, Boston hosted record numbers for a crowd that marched through the streets in support of women's suffrage. The event had hosted notable activists such as Helen Keller, and the crowd size rivaled the number of people who attended the matchup at nearby Harvard Stadium between the Crimson and Virginia, the reigning champion of the South Atlantic Intercollegiate Athletic Association.

Ned Mahan kicked three field goals that day to lead Harvard, the 1913 national champion, past the Orange and Blue, and the next-day newspapers filled its pages with sketches and drawings of the city's hero. BC, even with its first home game on the horizon, was barely a mention, and the game note of the team's loss that day was buried in a column with a wire service report.

That's because BC had failed to score - again - in a loss to Maine, a school that was the flagship university of a state less than a century removed from its separation from Massachusetts. The team had failed to complete many forward passes, and outside of a 25-yard completion near the end of the game, the offense generated little to no traction against the stout Maine defense. There had been a long scoring pass for the hosts, but the second score came as the result of a fumble recovery by BC.

It was BC's second consecutive loss to start the season and was part of a subsequent four-game losing streak that ended Stephen Mahoney's bid for a second winning season. It was disappointing, but then again, the program had only managed three winning seasons since it began play in 1893, and the optimism from its successes in 1913 and 1914 would never dim its hope for the future, not after Alumni Field opened and produced two of the team's three wins.

Now over 100 years old, that last loss to Maine is a relic of a bygone era. BC and Maine didn't play again until 1967, but by then, the programs were heading in very different directions. In what became Jim Miller's last season as head coach, the Eagles demolished the Black Bears, 56-0, and by the time they met for their next meeting in 2006, college football's split had sent BC into a more national sphere with the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Thinking about that history and the intertwined links draws a connection between the two programs. There isn't much cause to connect them in recent years beyond a shared Hockey East rivalry, but two teams that were once foundational members of the New England college football scene built their own legacies of success. On Saturday, it's worth considering where this sport came from and how its roots somehow manage to bring the sport back to Alumni Field…or, in this case, Alumni Stadium.

Here's what to watch for on Saturday night:

****
Game Storylines (Chris Stapleton Edition)

Sun comes up and goes back down,
And falling feels like flying 'till you hit the ground.
Say the word, and I'll be there for you.
Baby, I will be your parachute.
-Parachute

Maine isn't showing up on Saturday with a token team full of undersized, underskilled athletes, and quarterback Joe Fagnano is an experienced player who was named to the All-CAA Second Team during the FCS season played during the spring of 2021. He was a two-time Player of the Week and finished his shortened season with 795 yards and eight touchdowns to one interception. In a year defined by a lack of snaps, he made the most of his opportunities in a strange season played under the shadow of COVID-19, and he clearly built on an 1,800-plus yard passing season that occurred during his first year in 2019 when he went 25-for-39 for 246 yards and a touchdown while rushing for a second score against Colgate last week.

"He's played a lot of football," said BC head coach Jeff Hafley. "He's got a good arm, and he's tough. He took some shots [last week], especially at the end, but he led them all the way down [the field]. They just came up short when they missed that long field goal, and I have a ton of respect for him."

Quarterbacks are usually the linchpins in FCS offenses, but pressuring Fagnano has to be a paramount area for BC's defensive effort on Saturday. He struggled in Maine's FBS matchup against New Mexico to start the season, and the lack of offensive traction is a big reason why the Lobos dominated the Black Bears in a 41-0 shutout. It's not going to be easy, not when his offensive line has a six-foot, seven-inch tackle playing both the left and right sides with a six-foot, four-inch graduate student at center, but picking spots against an undersized left guard or an inexperienced right guard could open holes for BC's defensive front.

"[Virginia Tech] was as good as our defensive line has played," Hafley said. "When you look at the way that defensive line played, it's up there for one of the best performances by that unit. If you look at sacks and pressures and the effort and technique, and you really study the film, I can't say for sure that it was the best, but it was a really good day for those guys. They just need to continue to improve."

Seen my share of broken halos,
Folded wings that used to fly.
-Broken Halos

Maine already has one game against FBS competition this year, but that hasn't stopped the inevitable talk about scheduling FCS teams from bubbling its way to the surface. It's a forced conversation that occurs at various times during the year, and the controversy surrounding it is an admitted piece of the annual college football discussion.

Regardless of which side anyone falls on, every team deserves the best preparation from its opponent, and Maine comes into Chestnut Hill on Saturday with a history of success in a conference ranked among the elite levels of the championship subdivision. The Colonial Athletic Association that it belongs to routinely sends its champion into the national seeds of the FCS playoff, and several of its programs reclassified to FBS with serious success. Even this season, James Madison, the newest team in the Sun Belt Conference, is 2-0 with wins over Middle Tennessee and Norfolk State, and the Dukes are about five years removed from winning the FCS National Championship.

"The CAA is one of the best, if not the best, FCS leagues in the country," Jeff Hafley said. "I say that from past history when I coached at the FCS level, coaching against them. When I was at that level, they were very well-coached teams that made the playoffs every single year. And a lot of those teams had success in big games, which is what we've talked about. You see those games around the country, and you see some teams from those conferences [in FCS] step up to a higher level, which is what James Madison did. It's good football, and it's well coached. They have some really good players."

Even with the shifting tides of realignment, Maine's remained a constant presence in the CAA's build. The Black Bears own two league championships but can date the CAA's history back through the Atlantic-10 and into the old Yankee Conference. The league grew, expanded, and renamed, but Maine was right in the middle of the mixer with New Hampshire and Rhode Island, and even with the departures of UMass and JMU, the additions of Towson, Albany, Stony Brook and Elon have kept deep traditions with the programs centered in the Mid-Atlantic.

I'm just a traveller on this earth,
Sure as my heart's behind the pocket of my shirt.
-Traveller

Saturday night marks wide receiver Kobay White's return to Chestnut Hill after the graduate student transferred to Maine to continue his college football career. A clear influence over the current group of BC wide receivers, he maintains a presence in the Eagles' record book after catching just shy of 100 balls over his four-year career, and his legacy is intact as one of the leaders of a program despite suffering a knee injury that kept him off the field after Jeff Hafley's arrival.

"I've stayed in touch with Kobay after he transferred," Hafley said. "I love Kobay, and unfortunately with the knee injury, he felt it was best to transfer somewhere to try to be 'the guy.' But Kobay was the guy when I came in, and he and I got close. He was one of the first guys that I was around, and I stayed in touch with him. He played a lot in the first game and didn't play so much in the second game, and obviously, I didn't talk to him this week."

White's career numbers match up against Tommy Sweeney, Joel Hazard, Tony Gonzalez, Larry Lester and the historic career of Barry Gallup, the Ultimate Eagle, but his consistency made him one of the most trusted pass catchers in a run-heavy offense. When healthy, he produced three straight 30-catch seasons, and his yardage numbers never wavered off a range stretching between about 450-525 yards per season. He was good for two or three catches per game during a season in which AJ Dillon pounded the football over 300 times, and it's incredibly hard to center on his "best season" when he caught 33 balls for 526 yards in 2018 but scored five touchdowns one year later.

All this despite barely playing a game for Jeff Hafley. In four appearances during the 2021 season, he caught one ball, a 25-yard catch in the season opener against Colgate.

"He's a guy who did a lot of good things here," Hafley said, "and when he got injured, he struggled to come back to who he was. That's hard physically and mentally, but I'm a fan of Kobay. I wish him really well, other than this week, and I hope he has an incredible year. I will always be there for him, and he knows that."

*****
Question Box

Will BC's offense simplify?

The Eagles unquestionably struggled to gain traction against Virginia Tech last week, but whether or not they simplify their offensive scheme is part of a bigger conversation about if the playcalls just didn't work against the Hokies or if the coaches have to outright change their tune when it comes to calling offensive plays.

"You spend most of your day on Monday on first and second down," Hafley said, "and you look at your personnel and decide how you want to attack. Are you better off in man-to-man coverage or do you want to pressure with personnel groupings? If we go to 12-personnel, then we might have to go 10-personnel when we create our packages. You put them up [on the board] and then formulate your game plan. You have to trust what you've done all week."

The path leading to the conversation runs deeper than just one busted play or a bad performance against Virginia Tech. The scheme that didn't work against the Hokies worked near the end of the first half and saw success one week earlier against Rutgers, though the connections weren't there against the Scarlet Knights. Reinventing the wheel might not be in the cards, but the players have to execute what's given to them by coaches who are stressing improvements throughout the entire week.

What does Saturday show about BC's overall character?

Any game would be an opportunity to showcase how the Eagles are getting back on track, but Saturday feels urgent to a team that struggled with situational football at various points in its first two games. Any kickoff is about winning, but marked improvement is still a priority within Jeff Hafley's look at the Black Bears.

"I want to see us execute at a high level on first and second down and be very efficient," he said. "I want the ball going forward. I don't want to come back to seeing 3rd-and-12 or 3rd-and-15. First down, 2nd-and-7, 3rd-and-4, I want to keep the ball moving forward, so we put ourselves in manageable situations. It's 100 percent about the win, and it's about getting better."

Is it officially smoker and deep fryer weather?

I know, in some areas of the world, it's never NOT smoker weather, but I eyeballed the ribs in my freezer harder than normal this week. I almost defrosted them and started dressing them up for a day spent with the smoker out on my patio. I'm starting to think it's getting closer, but maybe I'll hold off for another couple of weeks.

*****
Meteorology 101

Waking up to colder temperatures made for a delightful midweek surprise after the mercury dipped into the low-50s on both Wednesday and Thursday night. The crisp air was perfect for sleeping, and I conked out harder than I have since the baby was born (which was a catch-22, given what's going to happen in a couple of weeks or sooner).

Saturday night won't quite drop that low, but a 65-degree night is nothing to complain about. The weather is actually going to get warmer during the late afternoon than the morning, and the mid-level humidity likely means the evening is going to get stickier than the afternoon. There is a very limited chance of rain - very, very limited - before the forecast switches to showers on Sunday, but hopefully the late night breeze helps stave off humidity that is probably going to outnumber the temperature on the night.

For the locals around here, think of the weather this way: if you wear shorts, you're probably going to be cold until you're moving around. If you wear pants, you'll just keep sweating. I'm not sure which one is better, but I do know I'm looking forward to it.

*****
BC-Maine X Factor

Alumni Stadium

I love night games. I don't know why, but playing under the lights offers a unique brand of electricity that makes a game feel like an event. When I used to attend games in the stands at BC, the walk from St. John's Seminary through the More Hall parking lot felt like an approach to the Colosseum, and the helmets and uniforms on the players were somehow crisper once I filed through the dimly-lit turnstiles. Even the turf looked ready for primetime, even though nothing fundamentally changed other than the artificial lights pouring down from behind me.

Everyone had more juice during a night game, and I distinctly remember games and moments that occurred specifically under the lights. The USC game aside, I remember when Mark Herzlich broke the banner for the Notre Dame game in 2010 with his head shaved back into his trademark mohawk, and his eye black menacingly offered an Ultimate Warrior appearance as the team walked out, arm-in-arm, staring down the Irish on the opposite sideline.

"Every time a game gets announced for the night, some of [the guys] seem to get excited," said head coach Jeff Hafley. "I think they get excited to play at night, and having a night game at home is a great opportunity. We're looking forward to that atmosphere. Last week at Virginia Tech, it was LOUD."

It's hard to justify why it brings out the best in a home field advantage, but waiting around all day for kickoff does enough to reenergize the creatures of the night. Weekend tailgating - the kind that doesn't happen in a parking lot - can start early, and it doesn't stop until fans are ushered into their seats for kickoff. There's plenty of opportunity to sit around and watch college football all day, but it still builds to a crescendo produced by the big game feelings.

"Our student section, I'll put it up with anybody," Hafley said. "I'm grateful for the students, and I'm hoping that they continue to support the players [and] support our team. Despite being 0-2, we need them, and I have a good feeling they'll be out there, supporting our players and our team. I appreciate them. We need them [out] loud, so I'm excited about that. I know that it's a big faculty day [as well], so a lot of faculty will be there, and I'm grateful that they will come out for the game."

*****
Around College Football

The first two weeks of college football usually weed out contenders and pretenders from their preseason rankings, but the weirdness of the results over the start of the 2022 season felt especially weird last week after both Notre Dame and Texas A&M lost. Both were ranked inside the top-5, but the results against Marshall and Appalachian State headlined a center stage that featured Alabama Houdini'ing out of its first loss in September since 2015.

The impacts reverberated through the polls, and we enter this week with the Crimson Tide outside of the No. 1 ranking despite beating Texas. Kentucky and Arkansas jumped into the top-10 alongside Oklahoma and Southern California, and Brigham Young elevated to the No. 12 ranking after beating Baylor in double-overtime.

In the ACC, No. 5 Clemson is the highest-ranked team, but the early season rise of No. 13 Miami, No. 16 NC State and No. 19 Wake Forest is establishing a clear-cut challenge to the Tigers within the league's ranks. No. 23 Pitt is also lurking despite the loss to Tennessee.

Addressing the schedule for this week then reflects those changes by placing an emphasis on several games with national implications. Newly-installed No. 1 Georgia is at South Carolina at 12 p.m. in a game with significant ramifications within both the SEC and the early College Football Playoff rankings, and No. 6 Oklahoma is at Nebraska, which underwent a recent coaching change.

Those games precede BYU's game at No. 25 Oregon at 3:30, which itself is opposite No. 20 Ole Miss' game at Georgia Tech. Later on, a 5 p.m. start offers Wake Forest a sneaky-tough game at home against Liberty.

All of it leads into the night slate and the games pitting No. 11 Michigan State at Washington and unranked South Florida at No. 18 Florida. Pitt visits Western Michigan, and Clemson and Texas, which entered the rankings at No. 21 despite losing to Alabama, are hosting non-conference opponents.

Those of us who stay up late have an opportunity to watch the Miami-Texas A&M game at 9 p.m. before Utah and USC host San Diego State and Fresno State, respectively, after 10. Insomniacs, meanwhile, get games at Arizona, Arizona State and Hawaii, all of which kick off after 11 p.m.

On the local radar, Connecticut heads to No. 4 Michigan, while Maine's CAA rivals at New Hampshire host North Carolina Central. In Massachusetts-based action, UMass hosts Stony Brook, and the Ivy League kicks off on Friday night with Harvard's game against Merrimack.

*****
Dan's Non-Sports Observation of the Week

For me, apple season traditionally starts in the middle of September, but I broke down a couple of weeks ago when I bought my first seasonal half gallon of apple cider. It was like one of those bug zapper lights hanging in a backyard; I saw it on the shelf in the grocery store and immediately walked right over and grabbed one before I knew what was happening, and I didn't even realize I bought it until I got home and unpacked it into the fridge.

I can't lie, though, because I'm pretty happy that I picked it up, especially since we're hitting that portion of the year where it's gorgeous out at night. We still get hot during the day, but because those nights are getting crisper and colder, we're getting closer and closer to hoodie weather. Those of us who grew up here know what that means: where the rest of the world revolves around pumpkin spice everything, New Englanders are gearing up for caramel apples, apple spice drinks, and the greatest invention of all - a warm apple cider.

I know Saturday night probably isn't conducive to warm drink weather, but I'm coming out of the gates this week with a key autumn staple. If you're tailgating this week, pour yourself a glass of cider, and stir or shake it well enough to make sure the silt that deposits at the bottom of the drink sifts back through the rest of it. You'll be doing yourself a real favor, New England style.

*****
Pregame Quote and Prediction

He's not a machine. He's like a piece of iron. -Ivan Drago, "Rocky IV"

The first two weeks of the season galvanized Boston College as preseason believers and prognosticators jumped ship following the Eagles' first two losses. As they left, they delivered punches, but BC, to its credit, took its punches and turned the conversation inward. It oxidized its outer layer and now returns home as a different team than the one that started the season.

That battle-hardening is necessary for any team, and when Maine visits Chestnut Hill, it will find a team ready to bring out its best for a night game in its home stadium. The creatures of the night, the ones who truly hunt when its most dangerous, are awaiting, but the readiness of what exists in Boston is only the start of the rest of the season.

Boston College and Maine kick off at 7:30 p.m. from Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. The game can be seen via the ACC's Regional Sports Network coverage, and a list of affiliates can be found by visiting TheACC.com. In Boston, the game can be seen in its entirety on NESN+ with coverage on NESN joining in progress after the conclusion of the Boston Red Sox.

Related News

Players Mentioned

Kobay White

Related Videos