The Tailgate: Michigan State

Coughlin vs. Saban.
Ryan vs. Hoyer.
McNamara vs. Bachman?

April 26, 1928 was an innocuous day in Boston sports history. Baseball's Braves and Red Sox rode the proverbial pine within their leagues, but on April 26, John "Dinny" McNamara stepped to the plate during the Braves' rare shutout victory and scored his first career base hit with a fourth-inning single against Dazzy Vance, the 1924 National League Most Valuable Player and Triple Crown winner. Vance already held a no-hitter on the mound and was on his way to his seventh consecutive season as the NL's strikeout king, but the moribund Braves managed to defeat him with a 4-0 win that featured McNamara's first base hit and three heart-stopping catches in the outfield.

"His first spectacular stunt was a one-handed jumping catch of a fly ball hit by [Babe] Herman, which he misjudged, in the second inning" screamed The Boston Daily Globe in its morning edition. "In the sixth he made two splendid catches, going back to the center field fence, where he pulled down a ball hard hit by Vance, and a minute later came in fast and nipped what looked like a sure hit by [Ty] Tyson in short right center. All were hair-raising catches. After such a performance, a little thing like the 'flu' ought not to bother the kid anymore."

His own personal "Flu Game" offered the lone career highlight to the local kid who graduated Boston College one year earlier, and by the 1930s, McNamara was coaching Fordham's football program alongside Frank Cavanaugh before Boston College hired him to the head football coach position once occupied by his head coaching mentor. He was simultaneously hired as the associate director of physical education for the Boston Public School system, but his first four games at BC placed the Eagles on a national map during the 1935 season with a 3-1 start.

That lone loss came against, of all teams, Fordham, which had hired Jim Crowley away from Michigan State when Cavanaugh died ahead of the 1933 season. Having been the former BC coach, the connections between the institutions continued when McNamara led the Eagles to an 18-6 victory over the Spartans in a game contested at Alumni Field. One week later, McNamara again earned a victory when BC defeated New Hampshire, but his shocking resignation on October 30 paved the road for Harry Downes to finish the season before the university hired Gil Dobie for the 1936 season.

It's hard to judge the importance of winning that game when college football resembles nothing of its early-20th century faction, but the linkage between BC and Michigan State made the victory sweet. Head coach Charlie Bachman led Sparty to an 8-1 record after taking the reigns from Crowley for that 1933 season, and the 1934 team finished first among Midwestern independents because of its wins over Michigan, Carnegie Tech and Detroit. Later wins over Kansas and Texas A&M cemented Michigan State as a preeminent team bound for the 1937 Orange Bowl, but the loss to BC preceded a 13-13 tie at Fenway Park in Dobie's first season.

It is unquestionable that McNamara's presence is felt in the lineage of this matchup, and on Saturday night, the game that once featured a coaching matchup between Tom Coughlin and Nick Saban reignites when BC returns home to play Michigan State in its annual Red Bandanna Game.

Here's what to watch for:

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Game Storylines (Macho Man Randy Savage Edition)

This is unjustifiably a position I'd rather not be in.

Growing up in the 1990s in a house with three boys made the Rubin family a natural fit for the superhuman exploits within the old World Wrestling Federation. My mother, bless her heart, still knows how to "hulk up" as she pushes 70 years old, and my dad remembers taking my brothers to the old Boston Garden to watch Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage battle "The Million Dollar Man" Ted Dibiase, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, and any number of bad guys who imitated Andre the Giant.

I was a huge Hulk Hogan fan but retained a piece of my soul for the Macho Man's overall cool factor. Without question, there's a family movie of me yelling "Oooh yeahhh" and "DIG IT" into a camera before jumping off a couch, and I'm not even getting into the time my brother hulked up, hit me with a big boot, and dropped a leg on me while my mother hosted friends in our living room. That said, I still have no idea what this quote even means because I think it's a double-negative emphasizing the need to stand in a preferable position…I think.

Anyways, enough with the trip down memory lane. Let's talk about Michigan State, a team that's coming to Boston with a 3-0 record and Jonathan Smith, a head coach who rebuilt the Spartan identity after the program underwent a massive offseason overhaul.

"They're good," said head coach Bill O'Brien. "They're tough. They're very, very physically tough. They're a football team that's coached very well. They run the ball on offense. They can throw the ball down the field. Their quarterback's a really good player, and defensively, they're very physical and tough. It's a big time challenge on special teams with big guys on special teams and guys that are very physical. It's going to be a physical ballgame, no question about it, and we've got to be ready for that because they're a physical Big Ten team."

Smith arrived in East Lansing after leading Oregon State to 18 wins over the past two years, but his reputation remained intact even after the Beavers found themselves left out of conference realignment. He's the first coach to start 3-0 in a season with Michigan State since Mark Dantonio won his first three games in 2007, but this year is actually his third straight three-game winning streak to start a season. More than anything, he's created belief in a program that hasn't qualified for a bowl game in three years and is one year removed from firing its head coach after the first two games of the season.

"This week in practice, we were emphasizing stopping them and just playing physical," said defensive tackle Cam Horsley. "We're going to have to match Michigan State's toughness and physicality, and it's just about us playing for 60 minutes. That's pretty much it, just going back to the basics."

I'm talking about the beat goes on, yeah. The beat goes on, yeah. And the beat goes on. And the videoscope, yeah, I'm looking right at you right now. Macho madness, right now. Sugar is sweet and so is honey. Macho madness is on a roll, and it can't be stopped.

Again, I have no idea what exactly he's getting at here, but my best guesstimate involves the fact that the beat goes on. And then it goes on again. And at some point, it keeps going, which inevitably means that he's unstoppable. It makes total sense if you break it down, right?

If that's the case, I'm pointing directly at the Missouri loss as a positive because Boston College didn't exactly lose any momentum from its own 2-0 start to the season. The Eagles are no longer ranked, sure, but I don't look at the loss as a missed opportunity to grab national recognition or a spot in the College Football Playoff. Instead, it's more about how BC stayed competitive against a top-ranked team, and to me, that means the Eagles are just as good as a national championship contender.

Responding to that loss was important, and BC put its collective head down with a blue collar mentality that felt virtually identical to the feeling after the Florida State win. The Eagles felt the emotion and processed their first loss of the season for 24 hours after leaving Columbia, but their return to work looked like a punched clock instead of this vengeful, angry catapult into the dark side.

"Kudos to Missouri," said tight end Kamari Morales. "They came out and had a plan to try and stop our run, but ultimately, we have to execute better. Whenever we play teams, nameless, faceless opponents, we have to go out there and win our box. The coaches always say to beat the man in front of us and execute, so we're not really too worried about Missouri anymore. That was in the past. We wished we had [the win], but it's over and it's time to move on. That's how we are, moving forward with this Michigan State game."

Focusing on Michigan State is imperative given the Spartans' ability to flip the field and beat teams with their own brand of complementary football. A defense sitting at No. 16 in the nation and No. 23 against the run entered this week with the 23rd-least points allowed in Division I while the offense averaged 30 minutes of possession and just under 28 points per game. Translating that to a two-touchdown average margin of victory is no accident, but beating Florida Atlantic and Maryland ensures that Michigan State possesses a confidence augmented by the win over Prairie View A&M.

I'm the tower of power, too sweet to be sour. I'm funky like a monkey. Sky's the limit and space is the place.

Looking back over old promos from the 1980s led me down the rabbit hole of my youth, but I was sure glad to find one line and one comment that made sense without having to replay it a few dozen times.

BC has every reason to enter this game with its confidence both intact and spiking to new heights after the Missouri game. The Eagles lost to the sixth-ranked Tigers, but the difference between the two teams boiled down to a three-minute span and a self-inflicted wound from quarterback Thomas Castellanos, who addressed the first interception in his postgame remarks as a "greedy" play.

I thought Castellanos battered himself pretty good at that moment, but I didn't hate the decision to go downfield. His 67-yard touchdown pass to Reed Harris on the "broken play that still somehow executed according to its design" installed confidence in the offense's ability to create momentum, and the decision to throw downfield illustrated Castellanos' belief in his own skill set. It's one of the things I've loved about him over the past year-plus because his gunslinger mentality makes him an exciting threat on every play.

"We've just got to continue to get ready for different opponents and what they're going to try to do," said O'Brien. "This week, it's Michigan State, and to the best of our ability, we're going to coach Tommy as to what we believe he needs to do to help us win games. Quite obviously, he's a dual threat. He can throw the ball, in my opinion, as well as he can run the ball. And we have to be balanced, so we strive for that. We coach him every day on what the game plan is and how we want to attack the defense that we're playing, and that's what we're going to continue to do."

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Question Box

Does Aidan Chiles find his groove on early downs?

Michigan State's sophomore quarterback stands six-feet, three-inches tall and averages well over 63 percent on all passes thrown on either second or third down, but his inability to consistently find receivers on first down made Michigan State predictable in its three wins. That said, running Kay'Ron Lynch-Adams averages well over seven yards per carry when running on first down, and Nate Carter is three yards over his 5.5 per-rush average when running on second down.

"The coaches have been emphasizing toughness," said Horsley. "We're just going to have to out-physical them for 60 minutes and really play our technique gaps by making tacklers tackle the running backs."

Do I fall asleep at a kid's birthday party on Sunday afternoon?

Mid-20s Dan loved night games more than any other type of college football game. He'd spend all day tailgating and cooking while watching every available matchup before gearing up the grill for a second dinner ahead of BC's kickoff. Steaks, sausages, chicken and burgers would all find their way to a platter lined with cookies, pasta salads and desserts, and the aftermath wouldn't end until Hawaii football ended in the wee morning hours before the sun finally rose. At some point, late night takeout would absolutely happen.

Late-30s Dan has a birthday party on Sunday afternoon and is genuinely worried about falling asleep in the press box during the second half. He went to sleep before halftime of Thursday night's Patriots game - an unfathomable thought in his pre-kids era - while praying for a good night of sleep. He definitely woke up on Tuesday with a sore neck after "sleeping wrong," and the later dinner on Wednesday gave him heartburn that kept him up for far too many wee hours ahead of Thursday's sunrise.

My knees also creaked and cracked while I wrote that paragraph.

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Meteorology 101

Sunday marks the official start of the fall season, and with it come the spoils of the greatest season to live in New England. I'm talking apple cider, cider donuts, changing leaves, cold and chilly nights, hooded sweatshirts, fire pits. It's awesome, at least until I have to rake leaves.

Local weather hasn't been great this week, but the spitting rainstorms from Thursday and Friday shouldn't impact Saturday's game too badly. Boston has a better-than-zero chance of experiencing rain in the hours after the 8 p.m. kickoff, but I'm more concerned about gusting winds impacting conditions when it's otherwise just breezy.

Having a sold out crowd won't dampen the game's weather forecast by any stretch, but I know one thing about living in Massachusetts at this time of year: when it rains in September, it's warm enough that I'll sweat clear through my sweatshirt in 60 degree weather when I'm moving, but I'll freeze when I'm sitting stationary.

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BC-Michigan State X Factor

For Welles

September 11, 2001 is one of those days that never really ended. The events from New York City, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania remain etched in America's psyche with a vivid picture that's every bit as real as when they happened. I know I still remember exactly where I sat in Mr. Kaufman's home room period at Malden Catholic High School when Brother Robert Green, CFX quieted the entire school for an announcement nobody truly understood. My wife was in Spanish class in Waltham. My middle brother played beach volleyball on the UMass-Dartmouth residential quad for seven hours because he wanted to avoid the television. My oldest brother, a teacher, rented a movie from Blockbuster Video.

As much as I remember watching the nonstop news from New York, I remember the stories of heroism and altruism. I remember how a new, more-melancholy friendliness gripped my city when we walked around, and the eerie lack of planes overhead stamped our willingness to let pedestrians cross streets while not cutting off another car in traffic.

More than 20 years have now passed. The events from 9/11 aren't fresh for college students who either weren't alive or are too young to remember what happened, but that's why the Red Bandana Game is so necessary. It's a special piece of Boston College's history, but it's probably more important for all of us to remember how Welles Crowther made the ultimate sacrifice for total strangers.

This game represents the best in Boston College.

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Dan's Non-Football Observation of the Week

This week is all about a short and sweet observation from Thursday afternoon. A truck accident on the Mass Pike backed up traffic for the entire evening commute after a hazmat spill forced lane closures on the I-90 highway heading westbound towards Westborough. Cars stopped on the highway and couldn't move, and given the distance between exits on the Pike, more than a few people sat in their cars for an extended period of time.

I don't remember the news agency, but a picture surfaced with a gentleman sitting next to his car in a lawn chair. Nobody was moving, so he plopped in a chair and relaxed while traffic remained idle.

I had no comment. Well played, sir.

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Pregame Quote and Prediction

They didn't know his name. They didn't know where he came from. But they knew their lives had been saved because of 'The Man in the Red Bandanna'. -Barack Obama

For Welles.

Boston College is hosting its Week Four matchup against Michigan State on Saturday night from a sold-out Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Kick-off is scheduled for 8 p.m with tickets only available through the SeatGeek resale marketplace. Television coverage is slotted for ACC Network's national channel with online streaming available through the ESPN family of Internet and mobile device apps with broadcast coverage featuring legendary ACC personality Wes Durham on play-by-play with Tom Luginbill on color commentary and former All-ACC lacrosse player Dana Boyle on sidelines.

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Players Mentioned

Reed Harris

Cam Horsley

Kamari Morales