Against Elements, Fenway Thrived

Thomas Castellanos was having dinner last Wednesday night when his head coach sat down at the quarterbacks table. They chatted for a little while before Jeff Hafley more directly addressed his starter with the upcoming weather report. Hafley carried a little bit of a smirk, but he turned to Castellanos and casually pointed out that Thursday's forecast for the Wasabi Fenway Bowl was basically one giant rain cloud.

Castellanos knew what Hafley was implying, so he smiled and laughed. "God," he said, "that means I'm going to carry the ball 35 times."

Hafley laughed back at him. "Whether it's sunny or rainy," he replied, "you're going to carry the ball 35 times."

Forecasts showed a chance of rain as early as last week, but the predicted precipitation stayed confined to Wednesday afternoon. That changed as early as Christmas morning, and a Thursday morning that initially looked overcast turned into a deluge as New England's whacky and weird climate left a pile of downpours under the trees of both Boston College and Southern Methodist.

Normal days at Fenway Park would've meant a postponement after rolling the large, familiar tarp out over the infield, but instead of waiting for a future day-night doubleheader, Castellanos and BC took the field and created a unique atmosphere with their 23-14 win over the Mustangs that was unlike any other afternoon played under the stadium's bright lights.

"The weather made it hard to throw and catch," Hafley said, "and that one side where the infield would have been was kind of muddy. There were divots, but I told the guys in the morning that it was going to rain and it was going to be wet. It was going to be cold, and it wasn't going to feel good, so [we needed to] embrace it."

Rainy conditions are normally bad news for a baseball stadium, but Thursday joined a club normally reserved for some of football's most unique memories. The irony of playing under pouring rain unearthed the memories of 2018's canceled First Responder Bowl and the lightning-delayed Birmingham Bowl one year later, but the fact that it was moved into Fenway moved the past into areas normally reserved for 2017's ice cold Pinstripe Bowl appearance at Yankee Stadium.

Those games hold spots within BC's program history, but bad weather football games are a crossroads to the star-cross cosmos of the sport's regional tradition. A 1969 matchup during the final season prior to the AFL-NFL merger, for example, saw 10,000 hearty souls witness the Boston Patriots' one-point loss to Miami on a flooded Alumni Stadium after Clive Rush ordered an ill-fated two-point conversion with 35 seconds on the clock, and it came five years after Buffalo Bills running back Cookie Gilchrist bulldozed Patriots defensive back Chuck Shonta into the middle of the Mass Pike during a 24-14 snow-covered win over Boston on a snow-covered Fenway field.

"Back in my youth days, I played in weather like this," said BC linebacker Kam Arnold, who won the game's defensive MVP award after a six-tackle day. "I'm from Michigan, so I embraced it. Like Coach Hafley said, it is what it is, and you've got to go out there [to play ball]."

Conditions invariably change from game-to-game, but Thursday drew comparisons to BC's win at Army earlier this season because of the wind and rain. It likewise told stories about BC's long-forgotten Big East-era games against Virginia Tech and Army, as well as the 2007 loss at home to Florida State that included pre-game galoshes and wet or slick conditions.

Few games, though, carried comparisons to Thursday afternoon, and the outright bone-chilling cold that eventually sunk SMU. Like the Army game from earlier this season, the ground attack created a cumulative effect against the Mustangs' defensive front by consistently battering their aggressive pass rushers, and the players clearly couldn't get their mojo back under their feet after they retreated to the clubhouse for the halftime break.

"Both teams played in the elements," said SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee, "and whether because of that or because we didn't play in 26 days, none of it matters. We didn't get it done. So there are no excuses. The accomplishments of this team, this year aren't diminished. It's a really good football team that did a lot of really good things. We didn't play very well, and Boston College played better than us, so they deserve to win."

The field itself held up as well as anyone expected, and neither team truly felt the effects of the puddling grounds by the Fenway infield. Each team amassed 300-plus yards on natural grass during an era where both teams played home games on artificial turf, and neither team felt the impact of sharing a sideline. BC averaged 6.4 yards per play on the ground while both teams went over eight yards per completed pass, and Liam Connor connected a 45-yard field goal off a more difficult playing surface than the more familiar FieldTurf.

"I feel like we practiced [calling signals and substituting] with Coach Hafley calling signals from about 100 yards away," said Castellanos, who took home offensive MVP honors, "and then it actually wasn't that bad. Based on the way we practiced it, it was actually pretty simple and it felt normal [to play at Fenway]."

"Practice was a lot tougher than the game," Arnold agreed, "and it was easy [to play at Fenway]. We were prepared for all of it."

Players Mentioned

Kam Arnold

Thomas Castellanos

Liam Connor

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