Monday, November 24, 2008

Bowl speculation and other links

Monday means new bowl projections. The experts have us going to the Orange or the Peach. Orange can happen as it is in our hands. The Peach/ChickFilA will not happen. I am not trying to be a wet blanket. There is no one who would be more excited to see BC play in Atlanta. I just know it won't happen. They will take other teams before us and even with a win this Saturday, enough other ACC teams will be close enough in record that they can freely bypass us. Sorry folks. It's Orange or bust.


HD has us as the second best team in the ACC.


Is Matt Ryan having the best rookie QB season ever? (Thanks to Andres for the link.)

24 comments:

chicagofire1871 said...

ATL,

What about this every 4 year rule regarding the ACCCG loser and the Peach Bowl. Can you confirm this?

BCMike said...

I would be more excited to see the Eagles play in Atlanta.

Big Jack Krack said...

Go BC - beat Maryland!

ATL_eagle said...

First I think they restarted the clocks on the bowl rules when they instituted the "BC rule" after Boise. That would make this year 3. Not sure though. Either way, I bet the Peach would pass on us with the hope they get a better ACCCG loser in 2009.

Matt said...

Although beating LSU in the Peach Bowl would probably earn BC more national respect than beating Cincinnati in the Orange Bowl, BC should prefer an Orange Bowl big for at least two reasons:

(1) Recruiting. Making the Orange Bowl means we finally overcame the hurdle of winning a conference championship (2004 co-champs doesn't count) and making a BCS bowl. Not only should be attractive to recruits; let's be real here: A student being recruited by Boston College and LSU is going to go to LSU. But a student being recruited by Boston College and Cincinnati might give Boston College another look after this game. Given that Ohio and the "mid-east" is our biggest recruiting footprint, an Orange Bowl win could do quite a bit of good for us.

2) Money: The Orange Bowl has a $17MM payout. The Peach Bowl has a $3MM payout. BC is still not a self-sufficient athletics department, and we need every penny we can get.

(For purposes of this post, assume that BC has a snowball's chance in hell of being invited to the Peach Bowl. Also, let's all agree to call it the Peach Bowl. Chick-fil-a might be a good company and a tasty sandwich, but this corporate nonsense must stop.)

Unknown said...

Saturday's game just got scheduled for 3:30 and will be on ABC/ESPN2 so should be national coverage..

Unknown said...

http://bceagles.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/sched/bc-m-footbl-sched.html

theres the link..

SectionKK said...

I've been burned too many times (e.g., 2004, 2007) to start dreaming of a trip to Miami over New Years. I prefer to assume we're going to Boise and be pleasantly surprised when we land anywhere else. Let's beat Maryland and then worry about the next game before we get too crazy about bowls. Did I mention 2004?

Unknown said...

The ACC shares bowl rev equally so the payout of the Orange vs. Peach vs. Nut Bowls doesn't really matter. I believe all teams also get a travel stipend from the league, too.

At any rate, an Orange Bowl is most definitely the ideal place for BC to go...it means they won the league. Period.

Eagle in Brighton said...

Great article by Bradley on Ryan: really makes you feel proud of the BC program.

Need to focus purely on Maryland, everything else is irrelevant. Students hopefully will be back (but don't count on the usual volume w/ most flights booked months ago).

If you have tickets: go or get them to anyone who will go and raise some hell. Anyone on the blog is already accounted for: put pressure on alums and casual fans in the area to get out for the game.

BeantownBC85 said...

Give me the Orange for no reason other than its a BCS bowl and it means we're among the top x schools in the country. Demand excellence, Eagles! Man up! I don't know how this is even a question.

eagle1331 said...

When LSU started to lose it became great for whomever loses the ACCCG (hopefully not us). They are guaranteed to bring a huge crowd which more than makes up for the Wakes, NC's, GTs, BC's of the ACC. Plus, it would give the Peach a little leeway next year, not forcing them to take the loser of the ACCCG in case a weaker traveling SEC team lands there. Either way, lets just beat maryland and show up big to the ACCCG.

Sr.Atlanta said...

I agree it is Orange Bowl or bust. I have it from reliable Atlanta sources that hell will freeze over before the Peach Bowl picks BC.

First things first, let's win this weekend!!

I am going to send an email now to make sure my fellow Alums go to the game on Sat!

GO EAGLES!

Eagle in Brighton said...

Sr. Atlanta: exactly.

Not to be that guy (because recruiting rankings- as Bill has often said- are nothing more than a crap shoot), but according to Rivals/Scout, BC just got a commitment from OT Oday Aboushi.

For what it's worth:
Rivals: 4 Star OT, 22nd in Nation
Scout: 3 Star OT, 75th in Nation
ESPN: 78, 27th in Nation.

Aboushi + Mike Goodman + perhaps Brennan Williams = pretty legitimate OLine potential for the future.

JP from Dorchester said...

http://www.boston.com/sports/colleges/extras/colleges_blog/

Peach Bowl does not have to take the ACCCG loser every 4 years, only the Gator, Champs, and Music City do. So, Music City has to take the loser, the others already have the past few years.

Of course, this comes from the Globe, so.....

WI_Eagle said...

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but Dominique Davis is the brother of Desmond Clark, current Bears TE who starred at.....Wake Forest. Nothing sweeter than leading a heroic 4th quarter comeback to beat the older brother's alma mater. Maybe a different brother played at Maryland......?

Andrew said...

Vanilla Vick

eagle1331 said...

i love how they interview Jessie Tuggle, father of Justin Tuggle, currently a red-shirted QB at BC, in that article, and make no mention of it (given, I didn't get past the first page)

Big Jack Krack said...

Let's go BC - Beat Maryland and get us to the "Tampa" Bowl.

BCNorCal07 said...

According to ESPN, BC just picked up a big OL out of of Brooklyn:

http://insider.espn.go.com/ncf/recruiting/tracker/school?schoolId=103&season=2009

eagleboston said...

I am not even concerned about bowls right now. Our main concern has to be finding some way to score enough points to beat Maryland. And do not underestimate how difficult this challenge will be. Maryland is playing for bowl positioning. They have a lot to gain by an upset victory over BC. Further, no player is more important on a football team than the QB. They touch the ball nearly 50% of the time. We are putting, not just a back-up, but a freshman back-up into a high-pressure game. It is very difficult for a team to overcome this challenge. I believe BC is going to have to find some way to score at least 10 points to beat Maryland. I'm hopeful we will prevail, but it is pre-mature to even worry about bowls until Monday.

Keep in mind, this is really a two-game tourney now. Winning on Saturday merely gives us the opportunity to play for the Orange Bowl. And the competition should we get by Maryland, will be much, much tougher.

Matt said...

Just a thought:

Why does the "conventional wisdom" have Utah going to the Sugar Bowl? Granted, the Sugar Bowl gets to pick before the Orange Bowl. But if you were the head of an organization whose primary purpose is to generate tourism dollars for New Orleans---a city whose main attraction is alcohol-infused sex and debauchery---would you expect to recoup your investment by inviting a large group of Utahns?

Not that Cincinnati is known as the latest coming of Amsterdam (just ask Larry Flynt). But still...

downtown_resident said...

The University of Utah is about 50% Mormon. Granted, that's probably 49% more than just about any other school, but many of their fans drink and tailgate. I saw them doing so in good numbers outside the 2004 Fiesta Bowl (which, to bring this back to BC, is the BCS game the Eagles would have played in had we beaten Syracuse on 11/27/2004).

@timstwrt said...

K- Good point about the bowl money being divided up by the conference, but there's still a difference there. $14m more in the pool means more than a million extra per school. Not a program-changing sum, but still significant.