Boston College

 When Mikey was young, he knew that his house was strict. There was never any "getting away" with anything around his parents. The rules were clear, and so were the punishments. The calluses on his rear end were a proud war wound from elementary school. But, there was never a mystery in his home about right or wrong. It was only when he went away to his friends house was when all hell broke loose. When Mikey went to his buddy Tommy Beanpot's house, nothing made sense. Tommy could steal money from his momma's purse, hit his sister and swear in front of his Dad and nothing would happen. Meanwhile, if Mikey did not bring his dishes to the sink after lunch, Mrs. Beanpot would scream at him. He parked his bike in the wrong spot and Tommy's Dad threw his garnet Huffy across the lawn. Finally, one day after Tommy's sister spit on him, and his mother watched it all and just shook her head, young Mikey lost it. Years of frustration boiled over and he yelled at the Beanpots until there was no breath left in his body. It felt good, but he knew that his parents may not feel the same. 

The fact that Coach did not address the officials in his post game presser other than the innocuous reference to adversity is amazing. That was a travesty of officiating that deserved all the sideline rants we witnessed. The two consecutive illegal formation calls when the tackle was a half step off the line took a touchdown off the board. The "judgement" calls for one day only went all in one direction. All. BC only got 2 first downs in the first half that were not hand delivered by penalty.  The strip sack was amazingly overturned with no visible overturning evidence. The safety somehow took five minutes to figure out when even the morons in the stands looking at the 1980-esque video board showed clearly what happened. As BC was driving late, seconds were literally put on the clock on multiple occasions. Time does not stand still in BC, unless they need it to. The good news for me is that I feel so young and refreshed after losing days on my life in Alumni Stadium. In the 4th quarter and BC in desperation mode, their QB looked up at 1:52 on the clock. He went back to throw, and was in trouble immediately, he rolled one way then another and finally with nothing open limping backwards; he threw it high with a prayer attached. The prayer was unanswered as Akeem Dent took it out of the air and fell while attempting a return. At the end of all that, the time on the clock 1:47. It was a tremendous four seconds. 

With an evenly officiated game, this one would have been a blowout. That would have benefitted fans cardiologists and the subway employees of Boston who had a 200 yard line to get to the T after the game. Our defensive line again dominated the game. Kier and Jermaine called a dozen meetings in the backfield and on occasion had a line quorum with Coop and Lovett joining the coffee klatch staring at a roached quarterback. Deloach had his best game and the play that delivered two points was a result of filmwork and want to. We have to find a way to get Lundy off the field on passing downs. He is hitting the holes hard and with purpose, but he can not cover a speedo with a beach blanket. The young DB's again did a great job with their best dude beating Brownlee just twice. On the first one, The BC QB was on his back where it is somewhat tougher to throw even for him who seems able to do it while being tossed at will, and the second was a TD. But, this was a big time passing game for the Eagles that was mostly neutered. 

Jordan threw a bunch of balls that were dropped or he might have had 300, but huge credit to the staff for calling an incredibly diverse gameplan that allows JT to thrive. The zone reads to Cam make backers freeze, and his ability to effectively zone read on his runs are a nightmare for ends. But the emergence of Douglas to supplement Helton in the slot has given the offense some juice. I love the way we are continuing to use the backs in the passing game, with Toafili coming back to notch a score, Ward making a great wheel route grab and Corbin angling in front of Travis for big gains. The line is somehow functional with new bodies floating in every game. This week the right side decided to check out and listen to the game from the help-me tent. This team desperately needs an influx of big ugly talent to give us some quality depth. 

We may have to spend the entire offseason figuring out our chocolate mess on special teams. Our two kickers are solid (Alex was nuts this week!), but the coverage and return units are a disaster. If Coach P deserves credit for his work with the DE's, then we have to find someone else to head up this unit. We look completely uncoached. Short kicks are fair caught. We added the bingo bonus of letting a kickoff go uncaught for a down on the 14. Deep kicks are returned and our punt team, when not tackling, sprinkle in a penalty when they can. We might have the least amount of punt return yards in a season ever recorded by a college team with no punt blocks. We are indeed special. 

The trip to Boston is awesome because, well, Boston is awesome. BC is not. The fans don't really care about football and other than occasionally swearing at you in an indecipherable manner, a loss affects them like a hangnail. They lose by 1 or 50 and go right back to rooting for the Bruins. BC is the last of 28 stops on the green line and you always get the impression riding the T out there that it is a home game for the Noles as we dominate the tourist method of arrival. The 40,000 seat stadium is usually only 2/3 full and the band is the size of a barbershop reunion. They apparently only learned 2 songs, which given that we are at the end of the season, is somewhat surprising and probably tres annoying for the TV viewers. Listen, the warchant is melodious compared to The Song that they played literally every down. We understand that it costs around $80k a year for kids to attend BC, and that means that no hell-sending bars can be anywhere near campus. Three on campus chapels, but no taverns within a mile. So, if you want to celebrate, find an Ubah (in the accent please) and head back to town. But, again. if you can't have fun in the best historical and beer town this side of the Mississippi, then you can't have fun. 

As the other teams in our State implode, how fun is it to be a Nole? When we were oh and four, would you have bet money on the Lizard and Blowboys being coachless? No team since 1986 has started the season 0-4 and gone bowling. We have a chance to pull off this miracle with this team of average talent and extraordinary belief in their leaders. Jermaine, Kier and JT have taken on the personality of their coach and there is no quit in them. Crazy as it seems, with the talent disparity between the Lizard and Noles, we have a chance to close this season in a remarkable manner in the Swamp. Come and join us! Maybe we can petition the Lizard to please bring their own refs. Mikey may not be able to contain himself away from his house this time, and his Mom and Dad are too old to punish him any longer...