The Tailgate: Western Kentucky

College football entered a period of relative calm in the years following the Atlantic Coast Conference's expansion. The league pilfered the Big East in the early-2000s to meet a conference championship game's minimum requirement, and the 12 teams evenly split into two divisions ushered a smaller, less-well known era defined by calmness. Few other leagues sought to invade territorial rights bestowed upon Bowl Championship Series automatic bid leagues or the mid-major conferences, and even the Big East rebuilt its legacy around West Virginia, Cincinnati, South Florida and Rutgers after Miami and Virginia Tech left a power vacuum atop its football conference.

Further realignment was still five years beyond the horizon, and since no league backfilled its membership through the lower divisions or subdivisions, no team sought to reclassify to Division I-A. Yet in 2006, one school began a great experiment when Western Kentucky's board of regents voted to move the school away from its Division I-AA success after a three-year transition period.

"We're excited," then-athletics director Wood Selig was quoted as saying. "Now I guess is the time since the board has voted to just roll up [their] sleeves and get to work and make this transition a success."

Moving the Hilltoppers felt like an earthquake at the time because they were a I-AA powerhouse under head coach David Elson. Previous head coach Jack Harbaugh - the father of Baltimore Ravens head coach John and current Los Angeles Chargers head coach Jim - built the team into champions by his retirement in 2002, after which Elson advanced to two consecutive tournament at-large bids. Over the next two years, a team that rose to No. 1 in the championship subdivision polls sagged, but the shift into a transitory status ultimately forced the school into ineligibility for either an FCS tournament appearance or an FBS bowl berth.

Those interim years were lean, but the move to the Sun Belt Conference eventually led Western Kentucky to a carousel of successful coaches who each left a stamp on the Hilltoppers' success. A winless year in 2009 quickly moved to the program's first bowl berth by 2012 after Willie Taggart spent three years at the school, and one year under Bobby Petrino preceded three years under Jeff Brohm.

By 2017, Western Kentucky boasted certified success with three straight bowl games, and a move to Conference USA as part of realignment's next wave positioned the Hilltoppers for their first two conference championships since their I-AA days. Coming out of COVID-19 with a program relatively intact, current head coach Tyson Helton, himself a former offensive coordinator under Brohm, holds three bowl wins in the last four years.

"There should be no trap games at Boston College," remarked head coach Bill O'Brien about facing a Group of Six opponent on Saturday. "That term should never be used with BC. Every single game that we play at BC football is vital to the program. We only get 12 opportunities, [so] we've got to go out there and make sure that we're playing at a high level every single week."

Nobody will ever know if Western Kentucky's success paved the road for schools like Old Dominion, Charlotte, Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, UMass, and South Alabama, and it's hyperbolic to simply credit the Hilltoppers for the rash of schools who invested the necessary funds for scholarships, facilities and staff members to play top-level football. What's undoubted, though, is that this team and this program isn't a token team from a token league, and the team arriving on Saturday is hungry for an upset over a Power Four conference team that was once the only team playing in a league away from its original geographic footprint.

Here's what to watch for when Big Red invades Chestnut Hill on Saturday afternoon.

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Game Storylines (Jelly Roll Edition)

I've always been hyper-focused on the feeling of music.

Boston College entrenched its identity in the first four games by running through opponents behind its offensive line. One of the top-graded units in the country, the Eagles gave quarterback Thomas Castellanos enough time to operate within a cozy pocket before he either threw downfield or took off running. The only true mistakes occurred on interceptions thrown against Missouri, but this week's game against Western Kentucky offers a varied defensive strategy designed to confuse and fog an offensive strategy.

"They are a very multiple defense that lines up in different fronts," said O'Brien. "They bring a lot of pressure. You better be on high alert. They run to the ball and swarm the ball, and they have great communication. Their coaches are really good."

Varying defensive fronts enables different players to hit ball carriers and execute takedowns in space, and eleven different players enter Saturday with 10 or more tackles. Ten players - some of which have 10 tackles on the season - have tackles for loss, and six different players have at least one sack. That included one takedown against Alabama in the season-opening game in Tuscaloosa and 18 different tackles for lost yardage in the three weeks after losing to the Tide. In each of the last two games, wins over Middle Tennessee and Toledo produced multiple sacks, a fumble recovery, three interceptions, while the three wins included a 31-0 shutout over Eastern Kentucky ahead of the 49-21 win over MTSU.

I spent a lot of years destroying, I want to spend a lot of future years building.

Quarterback TJ Finley played electric football in the 31-0 win over Eastern Kentucky by throwing for 351 yards and a touchdown without an interception. He completed six passes to Alabama State transfer Kisean Johnson to the tune of 119 yards and followed it up by completing three of his first five throws on the opening drive against MTSU, but a leg injury suffered against the Blue Raiders forced him out of the lineup for last week's win over Toledo.

Finley's absence created a void filled by Caden Veltkamp, a third year player who last saw extended action in the team's Famous Toastery Bowl win over Old Dominion. Handed the reins to the engine, he promptly went 27-for-30 for 398 yards and five touchdowns, a feat he nearly duplicated one week later when he went 20-for-30 for 242 yards and a touchdown against Toledo.

"They're another team that does a lot," O'Brien said. "They're very multiple in what they do. They have a good, normal running game, and they have a quarterback running game. They have a good downfield passing game and a good quick game."

Veltkamp is a very capable quarterback, but understanding the differences between him and Finley offers a glimpse into how the Hilltoppers had to cycle plays around their signal caller. Both possess towering presences in the pocket, but Veltkamp is a six-foot, six-inch local kid playing in his hometown of Bowling Green where the six-foot, seven-inch Finley stopped at Texas State, Auburn and LSU before transferring to WKU. Both have multiple years of eligibility remaining, but Veltkamp won Offensive MVP honors in the bowl win while Finley previously started for both Auburn and LSU before leading Texas State to a top-15 offense with a win over Baylor and a First Responder Bowl win over Rice.

Both have the added benefit of throwing to Johnson, a six-foot target who earned FCS All-America honors after leading the SWAC in receiving yards, receiving yards per game, receptions per game and receiving touchdowns.

"This is a good football team," said Kam Arnold. "We have to go 1-0 every day, and then in the game, we just have to execute our job at the highest level and do whatever we can for each other and for the team."

This is for the underdogs. This is for the losers and the have-nots.

Focusing on daily nuance during the preparative days ahead of a game minimizes conversation of the success from previous weeks. By design, BC doesn't look back or forward over checking out its present for the majority of its practices, but that mentality truly ends conversation about previous games almost as soon as they're over. Simply put, nobody's talked much about Florida State, Duquesne, Missouri or even Michigan State since their respective postgame press conferences.

The process of building those wins is now producing season-long results, though, and BC enters Saturday with the fewest penalties among ACC teams, the fewest penalty yards among ACC teams, the fourth-best third down conversion rate among ACC teams, the fourth-fewest first downs on defense, the fourth-best scoring defense and the fifth-best overall defensive unit.

The passing defense, meanwhile, rates out with a coverage rate of 79.3, according to Pro Football Focus, while the offensive line ranks ninth in the entire bowl subdivision with an 83.6 pass block rating. All conversation concerning the left side of the line in particular is officially dead, and guard Logan Taylor and tackle Jude Bowry both grade higher than an 85, according to the analytics site.

"Our interceptions [occurred] at times when we had to have them," said O'Brien. "Moving forward, we have to do a better job of playing complementary football. We've got to do a better job of turning those turnovers into touchdowns. We're doing a good job of taking the ball away, but we have to turn those things into points and play better complementary football."

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Question Box

How does Western Kentucky attempt to establish the run?

Establishing the ground game is a requirement for most college offenses, but BC's success against passing teams adds extra spice to a team that failed to crack 100 yards in last week's win over Toledo. The Hilltoppers are numerically a pass-happy team, but running backs Elijah Young and LT Sanders need to do more than their combined 226 yards against opposing defenses.

Does Big Red eat someone's hat, jacket or raincoat?

I'm irrationally excited to see the Western Kentucky mascot in person.

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Meteorology 101

Before we mention anything about the weather pattern in New England, it's worth sending thoughts and prayers to the folks impacted by Hurricane Helene's landfall on Thursday night. Storms of this magnitude transcend rivalries within the sports corridor or arena, and I know my brother speaks lovingly of vacationing in the Florida Panhandle. I worked with several people impacted by the storm's arrival in the Big Bend region, and my heart truly aches for how this massive force of nature uprooted and devastated their lives.

We've been dealing with some rain in Massachusetts this week, but it looks like conditions are clearing for Saturday's midday kickoff. The soaking downpours from last week that lingered through our own Thursday showers - nothing near what the Southeast faced - are leaving sunny skies in their wake, and it looks like perfect fall weather is approaching for the weekend. I saw something that said high temperatures wouldn't reach 70 degrees, so count me among the folks ready for hooded sweatshirts and apple picking.

I'm also pretty sure I mentioned apple picking last week, too. Let's just say I'm taking my kids to an orchard in the next couple of weeks.

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BC-Western Kentucky X Factor

Big guys don't shrink. -Marv Harshman

Big quarterbacks used to carry the stereotype of an immobile pocket passer. The old school mentality around standing a statue behind five blocks of granite for his downfield rocket arm ensured quarterbacks like Derek Anderson, Nick Foles, Josh Freeman, Joe Flacco, Ryan Mallett, both Manning brothers, Ben Roehtlisberger and Cam Newton received starting looks ahead of Doug Flutie and Sonny Jurgensen.

The advent of the run-pass option and more athletic big men at the quarterback position changed that ideal as offenses evolved, so the idea that a short quarterback like the five-foot, 11-inch Russell Wilson has to throw a pocket pass was replaced by the notion that a six-foot, seven-inch quarterback needs to run.

Enter Caden Veltkamp and a quarterback skill set built to look for downfield runs, and combine it with a coach who spent years building systems around taller quarterbacks like Jarrett Guarantano and Sam Darnold. Each of those quarterbacks had signature games under WKU head coach Tyson Helton, who was the passing game coordinator for the latter's 4,000-yard season. Guarantano threw for 328 yards and two touchdowns against Auburn while Helton was his offensive coordinator at Tennessee in 2018, and Stanford transfer Keller Chryst successfully completed 9-of-15 passes for 164 yards against Alabama during that same season.

Western Kentucky needs its running game to gain a measure of success against BC, but establishing the run needs the passing game to first gain a few first downs. Complementary football, as Bill O'Brien likes to describe, goes both ways.

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Dan's Non-Football Observation of the Week

I love golf. I'm horrible at it, but I love being outside for four to five hours with nothing but my clubs and a group of people also bent on enjoying the weather. I'm the golfer who believes the best member of the foursome is the one who carries cigars in their bag, and the speaker always needs a good dose of Bruce Springsteen, Morgan Wallen, Thomas Rhett, U2, Tom Petty or any other music star on the spectrum ranging from modern country to rock to some classic stuff that sets a light conversational mood while I lug the sticks or drive the cart for 18 holes.

Golf passes time for me, and my wife totally understands the love affair because her dad was a single handicap for a number of years. She bought me a chipping game for my birthday during COVID with the intention of sending me into the backyard when I annoyed her around the house, but life with kids sent it into the garage because I didn't have the time to stand in my yard and chip 50 balls at a board with a hole and two "hazards."

I pulled the game out of the garage last week when the weather looked reasonably clearer than usual and set it up while my kids ran around the yard. Without prompting, my older daughter looked at me and asked if she could take a swing or two with my club. My wife gave me the look that it would create a cute Instagram moment, but my anxiety ratcheted north of the Spinal Tap subwoofer speakers because I didn't want to watch a three year old break my beloved pitching wedge.

I eventually acquiesced, after which she held the club backwards while standing behind the ball. I corrected her stance as much as humanly possible, then stood back and cringed as she attempted to swing. Sure enough, the club hit the ground and chunked a giant gopher hole out of the lawn, after which she laughed and handed me a stick that I assumed would now have a dent or scratch or something.

First off, the club was fine, but my daughter somehow managed to get under the ball with that chunk. I thought the ball was buried, but after spending two minutes looking around her spot, my wife walked over to the game board and looked in the hole.

My daughter mangled the lawn and stuffed my club into the ground, but she'd nailed the shot.

I suppose the look on my face illustrated my pride in the situation, but the next day, when I asked her to golf with me in the yard, she said no because she wanted to play soccer or basketball instead.

I was fine with that since it's not about me. ...Ok it's a little bit about me, since my wife spent the next two days telling me that my three year old is a better golfer.

(...she's not wrong...)

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Pregame Quote and Prediction

Humble enough to prepare, confident enough to perform. -Tom Coughlin

Tom Coughlin occupies the hardest spot in my football-watching life. Without him, my dad wouldn't have gotten into BC football and wouldn't have bought season tickets, and I probably wouldn't have grown up with childhood trips to college football games at Alumni Stadium. Yet with him, my football fandom suffered two debilitating losses in the Super Bowl and one that I still have trouble comprehending or even talking about.

I've grown to respect how his taskmaster approach to football built elite teams at Boston College, Jacksonville and the New York Giants because it lacks a certain softness in its appeal, but approaching things with this tough detail-oriented mentality produced historic years at each of his three head coaching stops.

This week feels like it reinforced BC's no-nonsense approach to football after the Eagles defeated Michigan State. The Red Bandanna Game was last week but felt like a month ago with the team's approach to Western Kentucky on Tuesday and Wednesday. Nobody spoke about the win, and everyone focused on their current tasks.

I think I love that about BC, and I think I'm starting to realize how that approach is helping this particular team succeed. Now if only I could go back in time and do something about that Super Bowl XLII final score…

Boston College takes on Western Kentucky on Saturday afternoon at Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Kick-off is scheduled for noon with tickets available through BCEagles.com or by calling 617-552-GoBC with television coverage set for the ACC Network, where ESPN regular contributor Jorge Sedano will handle play-by-play duties with former Miami guard Orlando Franklin on color commentary and Morgan Uber on the sidelines.

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Players Mentioned

Kam Arnold

Jude Bowry

Logan Taylor