The Tailgate: Wasabi Fenway Bowl vs. SMU - Boston College Athletics

Gil Dobie was already a coaching legend when he arrived at Boston College in 1936. A three-time national champion at Cornell, his Washington teams previously went undefeated over an eight-year span with a 40-game winning streak as part of a 58-0-3 overall record. His success brought him east to Navy before his exploits with the Big Red, and those three undefeated seasons in Ithaca perfectly complemented both his success out west and Cornell's unbeaten, 9-0 team in 1915. He coached in positions once held by some of the game's biggest icons, but one of those names - Pop Warner - was standing across Fenway Park when Dobie took the field for his second game as BC's head coach. Warner had three national championships at Pittsburgh and more recently won a Rose Bowl and a fourth national championship at Stanford, and his Temple team in 1934 won seven games and advanced to the Sugar Bowl before outsourcing opponents by a combined 100-plus points in 1935. A Dobie-Warner face-off was worthy of front page space in any newspaper, but playing at Fenway Park made it all the more notable because the oddly-shaped ballpark was barely 20 years old. It occupied a stretch of space in a neighborhood that belonged to the Boston Red Sox, but the era of Duffy Lewis or Babe Ruth was slowly leaking into a previous generation's memories. Renovations in 1934 removed Duffy's infamous incline cliff from the space in front of the Green Monster, and Ruth retired after an ill-fated return to Boston with the 1935 Braves. As for the Sox, they hadn't competed for an American League championship since selling Ruth to the Yankees. The Braves were rechristened the Bees after losing 115 games in Ruth's six-home run cameo appearance in 1935, but their stadium was nothing like Fenway Park. BC had played in both stadiums throughout its football history, but Fenway added a certain marquee to a program that electrified its neighborhood with games against Boston University and Holy Cross. "Warner and Dobie are two by-words in the talented, well-fitted coaching profession ever since that body became worthy of the name," screamed The Boston Daily Globe that morning. "Today will be the first time in their 77 combined years of teaching the Fall pastime that they've ever matched wits across the same gridiron. "For 42 years, the 65-year old Warner has been fashioning nationally recognized aggregations at Pittsburgh, Carlisle, Stanford, and, for the past four seasons, at Temple," the story continued. "Dobie, 57, lacks only seven years of that record at Washington, Navy, Cornell, and now his inaugural campaign here." "Gloomy Gil'' wouldn't beat Warner, but Boston College earned a measure of respect by limiting the stronger, faster Owls to a few explosive plays. Anthony Di Natale's 44-yard kick average prevented Temple from mustering more than a 71-yard scoring drive and a 51-yard pass between Augie Macali and Vic Lewis, but Warner's team utilized plays, including the new forward pass, in a way that the Eagles couldn't counter. "Temple has a big fast team and is without a double the best outfit BC will meet this season," Dobie said after the game. BC eventually moved into a more expansive on-campus after the Red Sox disallowed the Eagles from playing football games on its turf, and former captain and head coach Joe McKenney in turn drove the construction of a bigger stadium on land acquired from an inactive reservoir in Chestnut Hill. Football would eventually return to Fenway over the years, but BC wasn't the staple tenant or the featured attraction with its ability to play at home. The Shamrock Series changed that outlook in 2015 when Notre Dame hosted BC, and the success of that game drove several other notable matchups prior to the creation of the Fenway Bowl. Postponed two years by COVID-19, the game is now a piece of a larger Bowl Season, to which the Eagles are a logical fit to play a postseason game at their ancient home. In a home known to its fans for its ability to conjure ghosts of the past, it's only fitting that Dobie and McKenney will likely watch on Thursday with Warner and the other spirits when the Eagles battle Southern Methodist in the 2023 Wasabi Fenway Bowl. Here's what to watch for when the Eagles return home to Fenway: **** Game Storylines (Bill Belichick Edition) It's not all about talent. It's about dependability, consistency, and being able to improve. If you work hard and you're coachable, and you understand what you need to do, you can improve. Plenty of examples support the argument that getting to a bowl game is a critical accomplishment for any football team. The extra practices amount to a second spring session, which by itself is an immeasurable positive for teams built around development models. Throw in the fact that going .500 in the ACC guarantees those practices, and a chasm starts to grow between the bowl-eligible teams and the ones that don't go to a postseason game. That's a reward in a world built on a foundation of parity, but the extra game for a team can't be overlooked for players and coaches who spend months figuring out how to build teams at the ground level. "I really like the way the guys have practiced," said head coach Jeff Hafley about the previous two weeks. "We really haven't had a bad day. Their attitudes have been great, and the efforts have been outstanding. They're done with finals and moving into a hotel because school is closed. We celebrated finals being done with [our own] kickoff to a bowl game, and that was fun." BC unquestionably embraced the minutiae of practice and preparation over the past week, but the Fenway Bowl's extra time branches the Eagles into their future by allowing them to continue building a scheme around returning players. It's a common practice, but the most recent example of BC's ability to expand its offense is actually the 2016 Quick Lane Bowl when head coach Steve Addazio replaced a run-heavy formation with a pistol, option-based tempo attack that presented early problems for Maryland. The real-time feedback prior to spring and fall practices ultimately then formed the bedrock of the 2017 and 2018 teams, to which the culture was spent building the team through extra practices during each of their bowl seasons and spring sessions. "I think there's both [approaches]," Hafley said. "You're going to see some stuff that we did well during the year, and then we've had time to add some new stuff. If we think we're ready to do it, we will because there's definitely been some new scheme to both sides, and we're going to try and see what it looks like. I wanted the coaches to have fun with it, and if I had time to think of new things in blitzes, coverages, pass game, run game, you'll see some new stuff that I want the players to be excited about." A lot of performance is based on confidence, knowing what you're doing, and being familiar, and not thinking too much and trying to play at confident game speed. Several intriguing questions present discussion points for the Fenway Bowl's overall matchup, but the most stinging questions center around Southern Methodist's trip north to Boston over a trip to Arizona and the Fiesta Bowl after the College Football Playoff committee ranked the Mustangs one spot behind Liberty. The surrounding controversy, coupled with Florida State's omission from the CFP after an undefeated season, somehow placed BC into the butterfly effect, but it also called to mind two examples from the Eagles' postseason history: the 1994 Aloha Bowl and the 2019 Birmingham Bowl. Both opponents - Kansas State in 1994 and Cincinnati in 2019 - had done enough to justify major bowl appearances, but the 9-2 Wildcats were sent to Honolulu because of their consecutive losses to Nebraska and Colorado, both of which were ranked No. 2 during their games against their then-Big Eight conference opponent. They would eventually finish the year ranked No. 11 after winning five straight games, but a third place finish in the conference wasn't enough to earn a trip to one of the coveted Bowl Coalition games. It instead sent them to a consolation prize at Aloha Stadium, but the overlooked Eagles, who were 6-4-1 with two straight losses to end the season, earned a 12-7 win by remaining true to the northeast roots forged through their fifth-place finish in the Big East. Cincinnati, meanwhile, was in a position to claim the Group of Five's autobid to the New Year's Six before consecutive losses to Memphis sent the Tigers to the Cotton Bowl as the American Athletic Conference champions. An otherwise-unblemished season, with its only loss to Ohio State in early September, was effectively erased, and a berth in the Birmingham Bowl sent Cincinnati into a matchup against the Eagles, who were 6-6 after winning their way into the game with a win over Pittsburgh in the final game of the regular season. Hardened by the snub, Luke Fickell's team shellacked the Eagles with a 38-6 win that featured a lightning delay. In both of those instances, the bowl game was considered a downgrade for a number of analysts who saw great things ahead, but the different results were the byproduct of one team's ability to put bad news behind it. Kansas State couldn't move past the thought of playing in a better bowl while Cincinnati laid the foundation for its Peach Bowl berth in 2020. That's the predicament facing SMU, which would have been the Group of Five recipient if Liberty didn't sweep through a conference perceived as inferior to the AAC. "They're very talented on offense, and the defense and special teams have good schemes and are well-coached," said Jeff Hafley. "I know the quarterback is out, but the backup is athletic and played well in their conference championship. They have a lot of seniors, a lot of experience, and it's going to be a great challenge." Every single player matters. Every single player can change the course of the game. Asking about SMU's approach is an honest conversation, but it's borderline disrespectful to a bowl team that should instead talk about entering the bowl game with an incredibly lopsided advantage over virtually every opponent. The Mustangs haven't lost since prior to a September 30 matchup against Charlotte, but even the reconfigured AAC offered enough of a tough, one-division football league to force them to separate themselves after the 2-2 start that included losses to Oklahoma and TCU. Nobody touched SMU, and Rice and Memphis were the only teams close enough to warrant mentioning. The Mustangs didn't score less than 30 points in any of their wins prior to the conference championship game, and the defense allowed a combined 50 points over the first six wins before limiting Navy and Tulane to 28 total points between a 59-14 win over the Midshipmen and a 26-14 win over the Green Wave, a situation that necessitated a changeover at quarterback after Preston Stone went down hurt and Kevin Jennings stepped into the void. "They do a lot of tempo," said linebacker Kam Arnold. "Their backup quarterback is pretty good, and he might be just as good [as the starter]. He's a runner and everything, so we know we need to contain him, and we have to play our game." Losing Stone could have been a certified disaster after he threw for just under 3,200 yards and 28 touchdowns, but Jennings filled his role by throwing for 203 yards and a touchdown with 63 yards on the ground against Tulane. He did have two picks, but the defense collected his slack to hold the Green Wave to 14 points after they scored at least 20 points in 11 of their 12 prior games with five straight 30-point outputs. Those two interceptions weren't a problem, but it's worth noting that the performance was the first multi-pick game for an SMU quarterback since Stone struggled against TCU. He actually started the season with five interceptions over a four-game stretch, but an interception against North Texas represented the last team pick until Jennings threw those two in the AAC championship game. "We were pretty beat up in some positions," Hafley said, "so we tried to help with some scheme stuff by shifting some guys around. We moved some people around to different positions and used a bunch of the practices to get better. We've had some young kids that we decided to play. So they'll get their first go at it, which I'm excited for that." Game management, game decisions, adjustments, seeing things during games - it's all important. Figuring out how to balance SMU's record in conference games is difficult because Tulane, North Texas, Rice and Memphis are impressive league-clinching wins balanced against the four victories over Charlotte, East Carolina, Temple and Tulsa - teams with a combined six wins. None of those offenses ranked anywhere north of 70th in yards-per-game, but Charlotte's near-win over Memphis in overtime in mid-November also turns a page that requires some deep-rooted analysis between two sides of the scale. SMU very clearly deserved to win its conference championship, for example, but the Mustangs fell into a situation where they didn't have to play North Texas until the Mean Green lost to Tulane, Memphis and UTSA. The wins over Rice and Memphis weren't accidental, but the schedule avoided playing Tulane's de facto playoff game against UTSA. There weren't the early tests on the schedule, but Memphis nearly beat SMU with a 402-yard performance from quarterback Seth Henigan. Two of the Tigers' receivers each went for 100 yards in that game, but the defense was also tasked with a heavy-pass offense at a time when players were pressured into more of an output than those earlier games. Safety Isaiah Nwokobia would finish the year with four interceptions and two pick-sixes, for example, but he was one of the team-leading tacklers over the course of the year. Sack master Elijah Roberts was held off the board in that Memphis game, but leading tacklers Ahmad Walker, Charles Woods, Kobe Wilson and Jonathan McGill filled the gaps with more numbers than the majority of their games down the stretch. "These practices are so invaluable," Jeff Hafley said. "We just went through another spring football, and now we get to play a game, take a breath, start our winter workouts, and get into spring football. This is all going to help us further ahead because if you look at this team right now that's practicing, you can count on one hand the number of guys that won't be here. That's rare, and the guys that are going to play in this game, it's important to keep building." BC understands that it won't sleepwalk its way through a win, but identifying the defenses requires quarterback Thomas Castellanos to throw effortless and comfortable passes while simultaneously moving the rock via the ground. Forced throws are the kind of riverboat gambles that come with a unique quarterback like Castellanos, but avoiding the mental breakdowns are almost as critical to slicing that defense as much as an explosive play or two. "I feel really good," said quarterback Thomas Castellanos. "Around this time of year, you want to go home and settle down, but these last couple of practices that we have, everyone's had the energy. Everybody's happy and everything with our energy has been high." ***** Question Box How does Fenway's setup impact the teams? Fenway Park's dimensions are quirky enough for a baseball game, but adding a football field to the stadium's setup should drive purists and traditionalists to a certain degree of insanity. The layout of the stadium itself is going to be interesting, but the field box is moved into an area stretching from the third base dugout to the right field bleachers. The first base line is one sideline with the entire, empty left-centerfield operating as an open space (the Boston Patriots used to line that area with temporary stands), and the reduced area along the fence necessitates the sharing of one sideline among both teams. From a substitution standpoint, signals are going to get crossed, but a buffer zone between the teams should at least make it possible to send the right packages onto the field for a particular down and distance. "We've been trying to look at Fenway to see when we're on the same side [as SMU]," said Jeff Hafley, "and we're working on the signaling. The guys are excited [for it]. It's Christmastime. It's been nice, crisp, and cold, and guys are in good spirits." How much does the weather impact the field? Hafley's last part is the real wild card for this bowl game because last week's deep freeze is going to significantly thaw into a soggy, foggy, humid mess by the time Thursday rolls around. A natural grass field like Fenway (which, by the way, should never be converted to artificial turf) could find itself significantly chewed or destroyed throughout the game, but the raw, cold conditions will likely make the surface slicker for the accelerating wind. It's important to understand how two types of cold exist in New England. The first is the one that makes the news most frequently, but the sub-zero wind chills of mid-January actually aren't that bad. It's cold, but layers prevent the situation from truly settling into a person's bones. It's cold, but it's easy to defrost in a car or house. The other type of cold hangs around for a little while longer. It's significantly harder to remove, and the added wind tends to dig below the layers of soggy clothing. I'd take sub-zero wind chills over wet and raw conditions every time, but that doesn't really help anyone for Thursday's conditions. Who creates their own Fenway legacy? Boston College has longstanding tradition at Fenway Park, but attending the game on Thursday echoes memories created in virtually every calling or every sport over the past 10 years. It especially calls to mind the highlight of the late Pete Frates homering into the bullpen during the Beanpot, after which he hoisted the trophy and created a picture that's become one of his greatest on-field legacies. It's hard to walk into Fenway and not think of Pete taking the Ice Bucket Challenge in left field, and it's incredibly difficult to also not think of John West, who started the last BC event at Fenway and threw seven sterling innings during the season finale's 11th annual ALS Awareness Game. The back half of the day-night doubleheader against Notre Dame broke perfectly for him to start at Fenway, but watching him pitch for his father, an ALS warrior in his own right, was an emotional moment born from an opportunity to throw at Fenway Park. This stadium does things like that, and the memories last forever for anyone who gets to touch, see, smell and hear Fenway's senses. Jeff Smith and AJ Dillon broke away from opposing defenses on makeshift gridirons, and hockey fans remember beating Boston University before a sold-out crowd. Heck, even watching Irish hurlers hug fans and celebrate their own sport before the Fenway crowd stuck with me forever. Someone will create a memory on Thursday morning. ***** Meteorology 101 I leaned pretty heavily on the forecast last week, but I kind of figured there'd be bad weather bearing down on Massachusetts by the time this game rolled around. It's almost fate after the 2018 First Responder Bowl and 2019 Birmingham Bowl endured lightning delays, lest we forget about the two-hour delay against Holy Cross back in September. The cloud icon from Wednesday seemed to trickle ever more into Thursday as the days marched forward, but the last check before writing threw raindrops all over the timing of the Fenway Bowl's kickoff. I'm not saying that bad words were used, but I'm absolutely saying that if you're going to the game, it's best to pack a poncho or extra sweatshirt. ***** BC-SMU X Factor Fenway Park I've talked extensively this week about how Fenway Park is my favorite place on the planet, and it's true that my heart flutters a bit whenever I walk through a turnstile. Seeing the field for the first time during any visit does something to a kid who grew up in Boston, and it reminds me of riding the train with my dad and brothers during the years when we did things like that. Fenway is like that for me, and I'll never forget stepping on the sacred turf when I visited Frozen Fenway's ice rink for some pregame skating. I Facetime'd my dad from center ice of an empty stadium, and it was one of my favorite memories. It's hard to avoid romanticism like that, but I also know that every athlete and coach feels that way about a stadium or place where they grew up or visited during their lives. "I've coached in every NFL stadium except for the new ones," Jeff Hafley said. "SoFi Stadium [in Los Angeles] opened up, and the Raiders opened their new stadium [in Vegas]. Atlanta opened up a new stadium, but I coached in all of those other stadiums, and Lambeau was a big one for me. I thought that was pretty cool. I was there on a Monday night, and being in the NFL, I thought Seattle was always something [special]." "I'll probably say going back to Detroit," said Michigan native Kam Arnold. "It's in the dome and everything where it's nice and warm. That's definitely where I'd want to go." "I really want to play at the Bounce House [in Central Florida]," said the Golden Knights' transfer quarterback Castellanos. "I didn't get opportunities to play there in that atmosphere." Everyone has their own dream, but mine's always been Fenway Park. My dad went to Boston Patriots games back when random guys jumped out of the stands to tackle a receiver before disappearing into the crowd, and it's where I watched Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz launch home runs into the Boston night. I remember the rock concert feel whenever Roger Clemens or Pedro Martinez pitched, and I was at Fenway with a number of visiting Japanese fans when Daisuke Matsuzaka debuted for that first season. I was also there in the days after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and my wife and I attended the Monday game against Oakland that happened right after Daniel Nava homered to help beat Kansas City. I walked into the Red Sox clubhouse that winter and felt myself overcome with the images. I'll close my eyes when I walk into the press box on Thursday morning. Fenway is special. It's a living, breathing piece of our childhoods and histories. I can't wait to watch my first football game there. ***** Football-Type Stuff To Watch I'll admit that I was skeptical about a full weekend of football surrounding the Christmas holiday, but the weekend brought the NFL playoff races directly into my living room with some unmatched thrills. I had to admit that I cared a little bit about the playoff race despite the decided absence of my beloved New England Patriots, and I furthered the discussion when I half-celebrated Baltimore's Christmas night win over San Francisco - and Zay Flowers' Grinch celebration that I didn't understand at the time. Miami is still nipping at the Ravens with a head coach who routinely makes me smile, and Kansas City is lurking despite a dormancy that we're all going to blame on Taylor Swift. Even the upstart Jacksonville Jaguars are a great story, and they're holding a playoff spot ahead of Joe Flacco's return from nowhere and the mad dash of a crazed Buffalo Bills team that doesn't quite feel as dysfunctional as I sometimes think. If that weren't enough, the Niners' loss pushed three teams to 11-4 records, and Philadelphia's race with Dallas in the NFC East means that someone is going to swap home field advantage as the No. 1 seed for a road game in Wild Card Weekend. The home team for that game is going to be the NFC South champion, but Tampa Bay - the incumbent in that race with Baker Mayfield, who was supposed to save the Browns - could conceivably get eliminated by an Atlanta team that's benching and moving between quarterbacks. Throw in Seattle, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Green Bay, and New Orleans being in the race somehow, and I'd even agree that Chicago could really mess something up. I initially hated the 17th game and the addition of a seventh team to the playoffs, but I'm currently hard-pressed to find negatives with the race. Criticize the quality of several football teams all you want, but the old playoff race would have already eliminated the Raiders and Broncos, which would have given me some good laughs about the Patriots' win on Sunday night. Instead, the Patriots might beat Buffalo this week and throw a wrench into a Bills team that would have been on the outside of an older race. The season would be ending, and instead I'm still somehow thinking about how Bill Belichick could be back next year because New England sure did look like a team gelling a bit over the last couple of weeks. Plus I'm not ready to say goodbye to Bill yet. Nobody meant more to my formative sports years than the Belichick/Brady combination, and I'm not ready to wake up to a football world without either one of them causing headaches and nightmares for opponents. ***** Dan's Non-Football Observation of the Week I grew up in a Jewish household, so I didn't totally dive into the meaning of Christmas until I met my wife. Even then, we didn't truly get all of the holiday down pat until we had children, and we entered the first year of our Santa experience this year with a daughter who is just old enough to understand the man in the red suit while still being sufficiently petrified of his appearance. This was a big year for us in that respect, but it meant "some assembly required" for Daddy Dan on Sunday night after Child No. 1 went to sleep. A play kitchen was due to arrive from Santa for us, but said play kitchen required Dad to sift through 54 different 4-mm screws with another 36 screws of indeterminate size. The next morning, our daughter woke up and had a bright shining face when she saw the eaten cookies and empty milk glass, and her face lit up even more when she saw her kitchen. My back was killing me, my legs were sore, and I had a weird pain shooting through my hips because I slept wrong. I was physically and emotionally exhausted, and my language choice while assembling the kitchen resembled words that would have originally made my mouth reach for the pump soap at the sink. It was all worth it. ***** Pregame Quote and Prediction If you're afraid to fail, then you're probably going to fail. -Kobe Bryant A game between SMU and BC feels like a throwback to an earlier era when hard-shell helmets and giant shoulder pads filled mesh uniforms, but the game itself is between two teams seeking better days for their programs. Both teams are carrying a yeoman's attitude into kickoff, and the pure football standpoint makes this an interesting game for fans seeking an early morning cup of pigskin coffee. Its location is the true star, but anyone arriving in Boston for this one understands that this game, maybe more than any other bowl, is about pride. SMU is a proud program looking to prove something after the College Football Playoff committee stole its trip to the Fiesta Bowl. BC is a proud program looking to rejuvenate its bowl history after 2019's letdown somehow segmented the weird cancellations and opt-outs from 2018, 2020 and 2021. Both teams are trying to show their league that they're better than advertised. The only way through the conversation is to barrel into the collision course between the two teams. For a place like Fenway Park, that's good enough for a darn good football game. The 2023 Wasabi Technologies Fenway Bowl between Boston College and Southern Methodist University kicks off on Thursday at 11 a.m. from Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. Television coverage is available via ESPN with online streaming through the network's family of online and mobile apps. Radio coverage is also available through the BC Learfield IMG Sports Network, locally in Boston on WEEI 93.7 FM, with satellite radio coverage on SiriusXM channel 371 and app streaming through The Varsity Network. <div></div>

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