Lotta Dudes Bowl Preview - Iowa

The Dudes are back, and celebrating Christmas early with a supercharged Bowl Preview! We look ahead to everything Pinstripe and Iowa, touch on the CFP with some Dudeus Corpus, and cover the Eagles' incredible past few weeks on the hardwood. See you in the Bronx - Great Day To Be A Dude!

Lotta Dudes Week 14 - Regular Season Recap

After a convincing win in the Dome last Saturday, the Dudes are back to talk Orange, Bowl Season, and looking back at the year that was. In addition to the usual DOTW and Dude or Pooed, we go to the courtroom for some Dudeus Corpus and look ahead to our possible Bowl Destinations. Great Day To Be A Dude!

Lotta Dudes Week 13 - Syracuse, feat. My Dad

Fresh off a convincing win over the Huskies, the Dudes are Back for a very special Thanksgiving episode. We quickly break down the F-Fest at Fenway, talk turkey, and look ahead to tomorrow's big matchup in the Carrier Dome. Dude or Pooed is back, and a very special guest (my dad) joins us to run through the Syracuse notable alumni. Great Day To Be A Dude!

Lotta Dudes Week 12 - UConn

After a frustrating loss at the hands of the Wolfpack, the Dudes are back to break it all down. We're talking Darius Wade, Karma for Dave Doeren, Fenway Park, and even a little Hoops action. No one better than Uconn for a bounce back week, Great Day To Be A Dude!

Lotta Dudes Week 11 - NC State

After a restful Bye Weekend, the Dudes are back to talk noted Bad Guy Dave Doeren and the Wolfpack. Get caught up with a quick whip-around recap of the past weekend in the ACC (#DudeusCorpus), our Dudes of the Bye Week, and a deep dive into the shallow talent pool of NC State Alums. Time to keep the winning streak rolling - Great Day To Be A Dude!

Lotta Dudes Week 10 - Bye Week

After annihilating FSU on a Red Bandana night, the Dudes are driving the BC Hype Train straight through the Bye Week. We recap everything that went right Friday night against the Noles, Look ahead to our potential bowl destinations, and whip around the country with our thoughts on the first Playoff Rankings. History is made as the first ever Top 5 Plus 6th Man lineup of notable "Byes" is introduced, and of course, we do some Dudein' and some Pooin'. Great Day To Be A Dude!

Lotta Dudes Week 9 - Florida State

The Birds are on a winning streak, and the Dudes are back to break it all down. We recap the trip to Charlottesville and break-out performance for QB1 Anthony Brown, and discuss whether or not BC is actually the best team in the country. Also featuring plenty of FSU preview to get you ready for a Red Bandana Friday Night, and introducing our newest segment: Bryan's Bits. Great Day To Be A Dude!

Lotta Dudes Week 8 - UVA, feat. Patrick Towles

The Dudes are back, fresh off a huge upset win down in Louisville that none of us saw coming. We talk all about Future-Heisman-Winner AJ Dillon's coming out party, look ahead to the weekend in Charlottesville, and talk to last years QB1 Patrick Towles for our first ever Lotta Dudes interview. Great Day To Be A Dude!

Lotta Dudes Week 7 - Louisviille

After yet another loss, the Dudes are back to talk through our BC-induced depression. We look back at where it all went wrong Saturday night, and get ready for tomorrow's bird-onbird showdown in the 'Ville. We do some Dudin' and Pooin', whip around the ACC with Dudeus Corpus, and of course make plenty of sophomoric Rick Pitino jokes.

I wish I was dead.

I'll be honest. I don't even know who I'm mad at right now. Addazio sucked in 80% Of second half but was good in the first? Learning experience for AB despite some awful decisions? Deweys stopped the $13 pitcher deal and replaces it with a bucket for $24? All I know is we actually stink right now and I would not wanna be Marty J's inbox tonight (from me specifically, I will get more drunk and send all of my feelings in another well spelt email).

Late Night Emails to Marty J

As promised in the most recent pod, here is my 4AM email to our brand new Athletic Director Martin Jarmond. Drunk AD emails became a bit of a tradition in the Bates era, so I'm happy to report this one takes on a more positive note. Definitely not the best drunk habit to pick up, but I can think of many, many worse. And just to keep you all updated, he has yet to respond. Persistence will pay off!

Lotta Dudes Week 6 - Virginia Tech

The dudes are back for their first post-victory episode since Week 1! Quick recap of the win over the Chippewas, and we look ahead to a top 20 team coming to Alumni on Saturday night. We're talking #MACtion, Twitter Wars, Drunk Emails to AD's, and of course, plenty of Dude or Pooed. Great Day To Be A Dude!

Birds Win. We are Back.

Obviously this was a must win, and a game we all knew would win, but it still feels good to actually win after the last 3 weeks. Let's all hope Va Tech wins tonight so we can shock the world against a top 10 team next Saturday night. Birds are so fucking back.

PS Fuck @FireSteveAddazio

Lotta Dudes Week 5 - Central Michigan

After a hard-fought game in Death Valley, the Matts are back and much more civilized than last week's Addazio-fueled arguments. We look at what right and what went wrong for the Birds in their upset bid last Saturday, and look ahead to the always thrilling Central Michigan Chippewas. Segments include Dude or Pooed, Eagles in the Wild, Starting 5 Notable Alumni, and we take a look around the ACC with our newest segment, "Dudeus Corpus". Always a Great Day to Be A Dude.

Throwback Thursday - Manti Teo

Happy Five Year Anniversary to the tragic death of Manti Teo's imaginary girlfriend. RIP Lenny Kekua. Tell you what, this story has everything. You had catfishing before catfishing was a thing, Manti knowing it was a hoax and continuing to keep up the lie in interviews for months afterwards, Marques Tuiasosopo's cousin, the list goes on. Play like your fake girlfriend died today!

Lotta Dudes Episode 3 - Notre Dame Week

It's Notre Dame week, and the boys are back to bring you a jam packed episode. Brief recap of the dumpster fire that was the Wake game, followed by a full slate of segments to get you fired up for Saturday. Hate Week train is rolling along, get on board! #BeatND

Update: We Actually Stink

Not much more to add to here. Yesterday was an abomination. Even if we "right the ship" and play like twice as good the rest of the way I only see 3 or 4 more wins on the schedule. We need to figure out some MAJOR overhauls asap, or else next week might end up being the most embarrassing loss we've had to ND in our long rivalry losing streak. The real shame is that we'll have to change our URL, twitter handle, and podcast name next season once the Dude is out (fingers crossed for the Moorhead jokes though). So much blame to go around, but just sucks to realize that for 3rd straight year the birds are most likely going to actually be really bad and tough to watch, just 2 weeks into what I (naively) thought was going to be a surprising/optimistic year. Road to 10-2 is officially postponed barring a different team wearing maroon and gold next week.

Dudes Choose - Week 2

Quick edition of Dudes Choose this week since I'm running out the door to Deweys - here are a couple of quick hitter thoughts:

• Good thing Wake/BC is not on the board this week, this game is unpickable. My official revised prediction is 26-25 BC in 3OT.
•  I hate to admit it, but I'm such a Kiffin guy. Upset alert in Madison - the Owls win straight up!
• Of course ND is fucking ranked already. That's what a big win over Temple after a 4-8 year will get you, I guess. As difficult as it is to root for them, I want them so badly to come to Chestnut Hill next week undefeated. If they knock off UGA (who by the way is playing their backup QB), they'll probably be top ten.

New Tailgating Restrictions: Not Actually A Big Deal

So I've seen a ton of backlash to the new Brighton tailgating regulations announced by the Flynn Fund this week - namely, that in order to get into the Brighton tailgate lot you now need a game ticket. From what I've seen in a few tweets/comments/posts people seem to be FURIOUS (to be fair this is not necessarily indicative of the full fan base but it was certainly enough to notice). Here at 4th And Dude we like to make our stances as clear as possible with no room to go back on if it turns out to be super wrong, so here is mine: if you are upset about these new rules then you are being a gigantic Pussy. Yes, capital P, deal with it.

Maybe it's because we fought alongside our brothers in the Great USC Wristband Battle at Shea Field, so we know how bad these things can actually get, but being angry about needing a single game ticket in order to tailgate is the biggest unnecessary outrage since the UGBC election scandal of 2012. First off, tickets to literally every game (except ND) cost less than $10 on StubHub right now. At worst, think of this as an incredibly cheap bar cover to allow you to drink for free outside for 3 hours. If literally any place in America offered that deal you would be there in a heartbeat, so why the anger here?

Second, look at this from BC's perspective - this is an absolute no brainer. If you have no interest in supporting the Eagles why do you believe they have to just give you the unalienable right to tailgate? Think about it this way: if you were throwing a Project X style BYOB house party for your birthday - you hired the band, security, cleaned the whole place up, spent literally months sweet talking your neighbors into not caring about the noise for 8 hours, dumped a ton of money into alcohol permitting - and some friend of a friend who you've never met walks in, starts eating your finger sandwiches, peeing on your toilet seat, waking the neighbors, doesn't bring a gift, and leaves before singing Happy Birthday? You'd say "Fuck that guy, who's friend was that? What an asshole". Kind of the same thing here. What on earth does BC get by allowing you to just do whatever the hell you want on campus for 6 hours with zero intention of supporting the birds in any capacity? I'll admit this metaphor went kind of off the rails but I like it.

Look, if you don't care about the Eagles then quite frankly you don't deserve Brighton. Yes that's a hot take but honestly, what makes Brighton so awesome (and college football tailgating in general) is that you're surrounded by other people who give a shit about your squad, the collective optimism/excitement you feel pregame, hoping for the payoff of a post-win post-tailgate, or praying that just once we'll have that big game energy leading up to a top 25 showdown later in the year. You can't only take the good, it's a package deal and that's what will always make football tailgates special.

At the end of the day, this is such a nothing controversy that has people getting upset because they have nothing else to get upset about. The wristbands were a bad policy - that said "hey you paid a bunch of money for the spot but only 6 people can come". This says "hey you spent a bunch of money for the spot and literally 44,500 people can come if they have any (even fake) intention of coming to the game afterwards". This is not the Brad Bates era anymore, thank God, so we need to stop assuming the worst. This is a win win for both BC and fans. I don't know about you, but I'm taking the trade of "you can drink and grill outside for 3 to 5 hours and play cornhole and shotgun etc, and in return you have to watch the school your tailgating at's football game afterwards" any day of the week, and twice on Saturday (literally, ha!).

And if this is the hill you choose to die on, pay a ton more (much more than season tickets, by the way) and go to the Mod lot next year. Unlike college, you don't need to know someone to get in there.

Go birds. It's tailgate season, and it'll be over before you know it. Just try to enjoy it.

Throwback Thursday – When BC/Wake Mattered

I know, I know, it’s Friday. In my defense, I had an electric Coach P blog yesterday, and I was a little busy dealing with the Pats’ meltdown last night. Plus I was late on 90% of school assignments at BC, so this was bound to happen eventually.

Today’s special edition #TBT throws us back to November 4, 2006. #22 Wake Forest hosting #16 Boston College. Take a look at that those bizarro-ACC standings up there, and let it sink in for a second. BC and Wake not only playing a meaningful football game, but playing in primetime Saturday night under the lights, with first place in the ACC on the line. BC is absolutely stacked on D with future NFLers like Raji, Brace, Toal, Herzlich, Albright and Jamie Silva. They have Brandon Robinson and Rich Gunnell at receiver. You have LV Whitworth and Callendar in the backfield. And oh yeah, you got Matty Ice slinging the rock.

(WARNING: DO NOT CLICK PLAY UNLESS YOU HAVE A HALF HOUR TO KILL, YOU WILL GET SUCKED IN)

Ryan outduels Riley Skinner, who I believe was in Year 1 of his 14-year collegiate career, going 40 for 57 and torching the Wake D for 402 yards. But turnovers kill the Eagles and the Deacs steal this one 21-14 on a couple of big plays. Wake would go on to win the conference that year, defeating GTech 6-9 in the ugliest/nicest ACC championship in history. The Eagles meanwhile, go 9-3, and head coach Tom O’Brien gets run out of town. Highly-regarded D-Coordinator Frank Spaziani gets the nod as interim head coach for the bowl game, and pulls off a last-second, comeback win in the Meineke Car Care Bowl against Navy. I remember jumping for joy as Aponavicius’ go-ahead FG sailed through the uprights as time expired. Little did I know, however, that that kick would plant the seeds that would doom all four of my football seasons as a Boston College student, as Spaz became head coach for good two years later.

Wake Predictions

I'll be honest I have a bad feeling about this weekend. Baker is out, which means we're plugging in a 260lb freshmen at Center into a line that looked weak against a MAC team last Friday night. The defense was underwhelming and never got any pressure in the backfield all game. Obviously both of these are especially concerning as I think we all agree this is going to come down to the trenches when both teams have the ball (as discussed on Lotta Dudes episode 2, listen now!). On offense, loved our tempo and AB showed some nice flashes, but we still only found the end zone two times despite 92 plays (shoutout to Colton Lichtenberg, my official Week 1 Dude Of The Week).

But with all of that said, this is a new era for the Birds. As mediocre as we looked on Friday I think we'd all agree that there is a TON of potential. Coming back to the Heights and a normal game week calendar should be all we need to keep that progression going. Beautiful day, ACC opener in front of a large (rowdy?), home crowd (reports are nearly 40k tickets purchased, hopefully beer helps with noise and retaining people throughout), and most importantly, the chance to go 2-0. Should be all the Maroon and Gold need to come out of the gates firing, build on last week, and get a huge early win to start the ACC slate.

Official predictions:
Matt: 17-16
Matt: 17-13

Road To 10-2 Rolls On!!

Film Room - Northern Illinois

This is Paul Pasqualoni, BC’s defensive line coach. Why is he so confused? Well, Coach P turns 69 next August. He’s seen a lot. He’s been coaching football since 1972. He was the head coach of Syracuse for 13 years. He had a brief stint as the D-Coordinator for the Miami Dolphins. Coach P even volunteered to coach an intramural team (UConn) between 2011 and 2013. Needless to say, he has seen his share of bad football. But Coach P has never seen a defensive breakdown like the one that BC put on display on national television last Friday night.

There’s not a heck of a lot to even analyze here. I don’t know if we have tapped into the youth football coach market yet, but all you have to do is show your team this and tell them to do the opposite. In fact, I retired from football in middle school (after leading the league in fumbles), but I can still tell you that the sole job of the defensive end, if you do nothing else, is to not lose contain on the outside. You CANNOT get duped by the play-action and wander inside here if you’re Zach Allen. But if you do, you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT allow yourself to get stiff-armed by Ryan Graham, one of the worst QBs in the MAC. This isn’t Jordan Lynch. This is a below-average, 5.2-40, ginger, Northern Illinois QB that is shoving your face into the Dekalb turf.

And I’m not just going to pick on Allen here. Take a look at the bottom left corner after the ball is snapped. What in the FUCK are these guys doing? You have Yiadom and Strachan who shifted over to press coverage on the twins-right formation, who are looking in the exact opposite direction of the ball as soon as it’s snapped. The NIU receivers look like they are legitimately confused as these guys are clearing out the entire left side of the field for their loser QB to run through.

My last bone to pick is with D-Coordinator Jim Reid (who actually coached with Pasqualoni in Miami back in the day, small world). In what universe does this play call make sense? Colt Lichtenberg just nailed a huge 42-yarder to tie the ballgame. This is the Huskies first play from scrimmage after the kickoff. There is 9 seconds to go in the first quarter. And we’re going to call an all-out blitz? Like the suicide blitz play call in NFL Blitz 1999 where you send the house and if you don’t get the sack it’s an automatic TD? Actually, you do have the safety 50 yards away, is this a punt block?

Bottom line, this cannot happen again. This play ended the first quarter, and on the very next play, NIU scored their first TD to go up by 7. Both of Wake’s QBs are dual-threats, so we’ll find out this weekend if the boys learned their lesson. If not, almost-69-year-old Coach P might run out there and form tackle the guy himself.

Bring Natty to Alumni

So 3 days from now Alumni will start selling beer and wine for the first time ever (outside of the luxury boxes). As someone who’s had the pleasure of knocking down a few suite colas a few years back, let me say there is something tremendously special about drinking in a place you’re not used to drinking in, especially while watching your college football team. Very exciting times ahead, and great job by the new AD right outta the gate. Anyways, there are a few things I’ll be pretty interested to hear about come Saturday’s beer rollout – prices, locations (definitely far away from student/young alumni is my guess, unfortunately), how long the lines are, and actual selection. No, I don’t even remotely care about what local craft or fall IPA they go with (there is another BC Blogger out there for that intel). Instead, I’ll be watching closely with my fingers crossed to see if Marty J respects the values of Boston College enough to include Natty Light on the menu.

Maybe I’m in the minority here (I’m definitely in the minority here), but I’m a firm believer in that a school’s consensus cheap cola is woven into the fabric of the institution. We are, without a doubt, a Natty school. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but it is what it is and I couldn’t be prouder. Busch and Keystone taste the same, cost the same, but the only way you’re carrying one of their 30’s out of the Res beer fridge (heaven on earth by the way, if Res was smart they would rent it out for birthday parties or something) is if they’re all out of the red silver and blue (or if you went to Umass, Uconn, Framingham State, Notre Dame, UNH, or about 1000 other Busch/Keystone schools. Gross. No Offense.). I like to think this has been passed down from many generations before us (maybe that Gordie Howe ad went viral in the mods?), and will continue on the Heights long after we’re gone. Natural Light is truly a Boston College institution, right alongside Lower Steak & Cheeses, Mary Anne’s, and freshmen guys never getting into Mod parties. So with all of that said, please, Martin, add Natty to the list this weekend. I’m sure the menu will have one of the big 3 lights*, probably something to make the beer snobs happy too, but I really don’t care about any of that; Just give us the sweet Natty nectar 6 Saturday’s each fall, and allow Eagle alumni from near and far to truly feel back home.

*Let me say loud and clear that I do not remotely care about which “big 3” light beer we go with, and if you say you do because of taste you are a liar/bad guy. Yes gun to my head I’d pick Bud Light, but that’s just cause they have the best ads of the 3, I like the color blue, and everyone knows I’m a follower when it comes to big brands. But if you say even for a second “damn, this place only has Coors?” or start talking about which one tastes the best then you go right to hell, because I’m here to chew bubblegum and tell liars to go to hell, and I’m all out of bubblegum. They are, quite literally, all the exact same thing in different cans, and saying they’re not is just a weak attempt to try to act like you’re smarter than the rest of us. I’m not buying it.

Anyways, that was talking bro sodas and missing college. Thank you for your time.

Lotta Dudes, Week 2 (Wake Forest)

Fresh off a nail-biting season opening win over Northern Illinois, Lotta Dudes (presented by 4th And Dude and Bus Productions) is back to recap Friday night in Dekalb and look ahead to the ACC opener with Wake Forest. Segments include Dude of the Week (21:00), Starting 5 Opponent Alumni (27:40), Tailgateability Rankings (35:00), and everyone's favorite new game "Dude or Pooed" is back (24:00)! Everything's better when the Birds are undefeated, the Road to 10-2 rolls on!

Dudes Choose - Week 1

College football is back baby! Looking forward to 12 hours on the couch today after the emotional roller coaster last night. Turns out I am actually electric when it comes to gambling (132-115 last year), so I figured I would offer up my trade secrets:

·       Texas has a new sheriff in town and will be desperate for a W – unfortunately, they lost one of my all-time favorite players, Tyrone “18 Wheeler” Swoopes. Give me UMD and the points. MARYLAND

·       Even with DeShaun Watson, Clemson started slow last year, almost losing to Troy in Week 2. New QB Kelly Bryant may need a game to work out the kinks. KENT STATE

·       See Texas – Dantonio needs a good showing out of the gate, MSU by a million. MICHIGAN STATE

·       Cal apparently stinks? I don’t expect much from UNC this year, but when in doubt #goACC NORTH CAROLINA

·       NC State is historically pretty good against the spread (9-4 last year), but that’s mostly because they play the big dogs close. Gamecocks win outright, and everyone immediately changes their mind about NC State as their ACC dark horse for the tenth year in a row. SOUTH CAROLINA

·       I don’t think my bookie updated the line after the Gators suspended half the team over the past two weeks. MICHIGAN

·       The Sooners have a roadtrip to Columbus next week, so they’re get out to a quick lead and let the backups take over in the second half. The Miners gets the backdoor cover. UTEP

·       TEMPLE

·       The PJ Fleck-less Broncos not only lost their head coach, but also star QB Terell and WR Corey Davis. Not a big Darnold guy, but the Trojans take care of business. USC

·       This is a popular upset pick, seemingly because of a game that happened 10 years ago. You know how you get ahead in these pick’em pools? You take the favorite when everyone else takes the dog. GEORGIA

·       Lamar loves running up the score, he wants that Heisman again. LOUISVILLE

·       Saban is 10-0 against former assistants (average margin of victory of 30 points). The FSU OL can’t protect Francois, Derwin James is overrated and shouldn’t be mentioned in the same sentence as Harold Landry, and I don’t think this is as close as everyone thinks. ALABAMA

·       BYU already played last week, and barely escaped with a win against Portland State. Coach O ain’t losing to a bunch of Mormons. LSU

·       VT lost a ton from last year’s team – is Fuente the real deal, or was last year a fluke with Beamer’s top guys? This will be a close one, I’m taking the points. WEST VIRGINIA

·       Josh Rosen reminds me of my buddy Matt’s junior year drunk alter ego. TEXAS A&M

·       Everyone in the ACC Coastal is garbage this year, and GT is no different. They were in a rebuilding year to begin with and just dismissed top RB Dederick Mills – could be a long year for the Yellow Jackets. TENNESSEE

A Win is a Win

It was not pretty, but they don't have to be. A win is a win is a win. Definitely closer than we wanted/guessed, but a lot of positives to take out of Dekalb. AB looked pretty good for first career action (also disregard every one of our predictions since all of our eggs were in the Wade basket), and  more importantly, holy shit we can actually kick this year? Tons of reaction coming up in the blog and Lotta Dudes episode 2 (release Wednesday morning) so stay tuned. Road to 10 and 2 is still on!

Northern Illinois LIVE BLOG

Another season in the trenches. Time to get it started it on a high note. Reports are Brown is getting the nod so hold onto your butts (and also there goes my Dude of the Week). Let's go Birds! #DuedOrPooed

Northern Illinois Preview and Predictions

Little over 7 hours till Gametime, so let’s hit with you some previews and predictions. We’re both in agreement that this should (big time fingers crossed) be an easy road for the birds, so we’ll keep this short and sweet. We win handedly tonight for 3 reasons:

1) The Huskies sport a relatively weak/inexperienced defense (even by MAC standards), which should make for an easy introduction for our inexperienced QB. Additionally, our O-Line (which has made GAINS in the offseason) should get all the push they want and open up plenty of holes for our stable of running backs. I’m expecting us to virtually move the ball at will, barring overly conservative playcalling.

2) On the offensive side of the ball, their “strength” is their run game and O-line. I put strength in quotes because again this is all relative to the MAC. Our front 7 should be able to stop some of the better rushing attacks in the ACC this year, so I do not expect the Huskies ground game to be any match for Dirty Harry and the Boys.

3) The last time we played NIU was in the nightmare of a year that was 2015. Wade got hurt the previous game, so it was the start of the always exciting Flutie/Fadule/Smith experiment era. That was a pretty good NIU team by their standards (MAC division champions that year). We had Chase Herbstreit picking against us live on SportsCenter. And with all of that, we still managed to beat them 17-14, with both of their TD’s coming from defense/special teams. This is a much less experienced NIU team we play tonight, and I think we’d agree our offense should be much stronger. If we could beat them at our absolute worst, I just can’t see any scenario in which they hang with us tonight.

So there you have it. Should be a smooth start to the year for the Eagles tonight, this one is never in doubt from the kickoff. Official predictions are:

Matt (me): 31-13 BC

Matt (the other one): 20-3 BC

And we feel good about our squad going into ACC play next week. If you’re in NYC we’ll see you at Dewey’s pub tonight (the new BC gamewatch bar) – get there at 9 for a half hour of free Bud Light before kickoff. Great Day to be a Dude!

Eddie Odio - Off the Market

I know it's Gameday but just wanted to give a quick congrats to friend of the program and king of vowels Eddie Odio on his engagement yesterday. Despite our record over the past 8 years we've had no shortage of massive fan favorites, and I think El Nariz belongs right at the top of the list. The guy could flat out sky, and his alley oop against Duke was without a doubt the loudest Conte ever got in our years on the Heights. Plus anyone on the team that beat Cuse will always have a special place in my heart (looking at you KC Caudill). It also doesn't hurt that he accepted my Ice Bucket Challenge in 2014 (humble brag), so you can add "humanitarian" to his resume too. Anyways congrats to Eddie and his new fiancé!

Throwback Thursday – Herbstreit’s Kid

It’s the inaugural 4AD TBT, and we have a doozy. Back in September 2015, BC was coming off a hard-fought, 14-0 defeat to #9 Florida State. Our starting QB had just been diagnosed with a season-ending broken ankle. Times were tough in Chestnut Hill. Enter 8-year-old Chase Herbstreit.

Chase apparently was riding a 3-game upset prediction streak  (the week before he picked Ole Miss over Bama, which is actually pretty legit). He parlayed that into a SportCenter appearance – unclear why Chase wasn't in school learning PEMDAS that day, or why they wasted an interview with Lindsay Czarniak on someone that didn't like girls yet. Or why an 8-year-old is promoting illegal gambling. But Chase decided he would take the NIU Huskies over BC in Week 4. Now, it would be one thing if he had thought it through and said “You know what Lindsay, the Eagles currently have three healthy QBs on their roster, all of which are walk-ons or will be deemed to suck badly enough that they will be converted into wide receivers a year from now, I think NIU has a real shot here.” Instead, he very pompously concluded that because NIU didn’t get blown out by Ohio State (Kirk’s alma mater) the week before, NIU must be the real deal.

If there is one thing Daz excels at, it’s firing up his dudes. You can bet your ass that this little charade poked the bear, and awoke at least one side of the locker room. The #1 defense in the country put on a clinic, letting up a total of 81 passing yards and 72 rushing yards, to allow the #128 offense in the country to eke out a 3-point victory.

Tell you what, it would be great to blow these guys out tomorrow. To assert dominance on both sides of the ball, and for D-Wade and the offense to single-handedly cover the 52-point O/U (absurd by the way, bet the mortgage on the under). But just in case, Chase – if you have any bulletin board material for this year’s matchup, pass it along, pal.

If Chase did one thing to redeem himself, it was big-timing the shit out of his dad's high five attempt. Hey Kirk, why don't you go commit more tax fraud? People don't forget.

2017 Boston College Depth Chart

BC released its “official” depth chart earlier this week, official being in quotes because Daz dropped more “ORs” on it than a whitewater rafter whose hands are covered in Che-Chi's secret sauce. I remember the days when depth charts used to mean something. You had a starter, you had a backup, and you had a third string, not a bunch of participation trophies. That said, all of the pundits speculating that Daz is doing this because he can’t pick a starting QB or he is still experimenting with the OLine are out of their mind. Why give NIU any more additional information than you need to? Daz has had the real depth chart finalized for two weeks already, if not longer. Plus, you can pretty much throw 90% of this out the window anyway. Davon Jones wasn’t listed on half of the depth charts last year, and he got twice as many touches as the RBs ahead of him. And so while I don’t want to read too much into this, I do have a couple of observations:

·        Our DLine is a little thin depth-wise, but absolutely stacked as far as the starting unit goes. Obviously, Landry led the country last season with an absurd 16.5 sacks and is in line to be a top-10 pick in next year’s draft. But you also have Zach Allen on the other side who had a great summer. 305-pound Ray Smith came on very strong at the end of last season, and is my pick for Breakout Dude this season. And I’ve been as high as Sean Williams on Noa Merritt ever since this play in the bowl game last December:

·        Conor Strachan, who led the team in tackles last year, shifts to the strong-side this year, and sophomore Max Richardson takes over for him in the middle LB spot. It certainly won’t be easy replacing Matt Milano’s 59 tackles and 7 sacks (4^th most by LB in the ACC). Daz cited Strachan’s speed in coverage as the primary reason for the switch – we’ll see if that move pays off. Richardson has a lot to live up to, as the Eagles have started to become LB-U over the past 5 years. Obviously you have my Fitz 1 good friend and 2013 NFL Defensive Player of the Year, Luke Kuechly, who is in his own category. But you also have KPL, Daniels, Keyes, and Milano all playing on Sundays too.

·        If I am correct in assuming that X, A, and Z refer to WR positions, our starting wideouts are Callinan, Glines/Walker, and J. Smith. I don’t expect much out of this group outside of Smith, who will be called on primarily to stretch the field and also provide some end-around sweep and reverse entertainment. Michael Walker did prove himself as a reliable slot target last year as well, but there is no question that the passing game is going to revolve around TE Tommy Sweeney.

·        Wade is listed above Brown in the QB column. ORs aside, wouldn't that be a dick move to give Brown the nod after the coin toss (in this hypothetical fantasy land where both the QBs and the team don’t actually know who is calling plays in the huddle until they are on the field for the first series of the season) after putting Wade above him?

·        For our podcast audience, turns out I nailed the pronunciation of Max Schulze-Geisthövel. Missed the podcast? Check it out here.

"Starting 5" Notable Alumni - Northern Illinois

One of the ideas we came up with for our Lotta Dudes Podcast, Presented by 4^th and Dude (4thanddude.blogspot.com), was to name a “starting 5” notable alumni of the opponent we’re playing the coming week. Needless to say, Northern Illinois left us with slim pickings, but we were still able to find a few diamonds in the rough at the start of the lineup (and it fell off quickly from there). Let’s just say if this was an actual basketball team I think the 2016 BC squad would still be like 10 point favorites. Anyways with that tremendous sales pitch out of the way lets dive right in.

1) Wood Harris – Better known as Julius in Remember the Titans and Avon Barksdale in the wire. All I know is that if the real life Wood is even half the athlete he plays on screen, we better hope he has no eligibility left for Friday night.

2) Matt Walsh – Mitch’s coworker in Old School, the Doctor in the Hangover (“corner of get a map and fuck yourself”), and Mike from Veep. Hell of a resume for this proud Husky.

3) Dan Castellenata – The voice of Homer Simpson. Doesn’t even sniff the 12-man roster if he’s from anywhere else on our schedule.

4) Mike Disa – Director/animator of Tarzan, Pocohantas, and Atlantis: The Lost Empire. I’m aware we’re off the rails and this pick sucks. Blame Northern Illinois not us.

5) Jimmy Chamberlain – drummer of the Smashing Pumpkins. I have nothing more to say.

There you have it. I’m embarrassed for them. If this is any indication of how Friday will go I anticipate 50-0 by halftime. Make sure to tune in to the podcast next week for our Wake lineup (legitimate ACC school so I’m fully expecting it to go much better than this).

Lotta Dudes Episode 1

Brand New Podcast Alert! Fresh off the presses out of our Manhattan Recording Studio, we present Episode 1 of the Lotta Dudes Podcast, Presented by 4th and Dude (4thanddude.blogspot.com). Our plan is to do these once a week, reviewing the previous game and looking forward to next Saturday. For our first episode, we did a quick retrospective on the offseason/camp and some season storylines and predictions before diving headfirst into NIU coverage. Highlights include everyone's favorite new game Dude or Pooed, Starting 5 of Opponent's Notable Alumni, Road Game Travelability Score, and much more!

We had a ton of fun recording this, and are excited to get better as the year goes on while continuing to provide a unique angle into BC Football fandom. As always any and all feedback is welcome in the comments, all we ask is to not judge us on the first 15 minutes or so - needed to get some reps in aka cold ones to get loose and conversational before we really hit our stride down the stretch. Great day to be a dude!

**Official 2017 Season Prediction**

With the depth chart released this morning and kickoff only 3 days away, it’s officially season prediction time. We’ll get into this in more detail on our first ever podcast (*eye emoji* released tomorrow morning), but I am feeling very optimistic about this year’s squad for two reasons: first, we finally have some experience across the board, and the chickens are coming home to roost (including QB, while Wade has had little time he’s been in the system for 4 years and knows what it takes to run an ACC offense). Second, because I’m a sadist and like to have my hopes shattered into a million pieces every year in early October, only to rebuild them and come back stronger the following August. People forget that I talked myself into an outside shot at the CFP a week before the 2015 season. I think I just accidentally switched the number of wins and losses in my head.

Either way, it’s a new year, and I love what’s in front of us. While statically we have one of the hardest schedules in the country, I like the way it breaks for us and think it definitely sets up a nice opportunity. I look at it as 3 different groups of games:

The Must Wins – NIU, CMU, Wake, UVa, Uconn. Based on what we’ve seen over the past few years these are certainly not “locks” by any stretch of the imagination, but unequivocally need all 5 for a truly successful year to even be a possibility.

The Toss-Ups – Notre Dame, NC State, Syracuse. Yes Notre Dame is in this group. Let’s face it, they are the single most overrated team in CFB every year (NC State is the only other one even close), Daz played them tremendously close when they were top 5 and we were the worst team in the country, and they’ll be coming off an emotionally draining Georgia game for an early kickoff on the Heights. We have not beaten them since we were seniors in High School, but I think this is our best chance to break through since the Monteezy fumble on the 2 yard line. We seem to always have NC State’s number, and they are also highly overrated, and Syracuse is a team we should beat every year but seem to have a damn hard time with.

The Uphill Battles – Clemson, VaTech, Louisville, Florida State. Put simply these will not be easy games to win. Clemson and FSU speak for themselves (though FSU on a red bandana night means anything can happen), and both Va Tech and Louisville torched us last year and are not much worse this year. While I certainly think we’ve gotten much better, there was a pretty huge performance disparity that will be tough to overcome one year later. If we can somehow grab 1 or 2 of these though, we can start talking about Daz’s statue.

So without further ado, here is my official game by game breakdown.

Week 1 – @UNI – WIN. Vegas has us at an INSULTING 3 point favorite right now, but this shouldn’t be close. They couldn’t beat us when they were MAC champs and we had John Fadule under center, and they’ve gotten considerably worse since then. Think we cruise by a few touchdowns.

Week 2 – Wake – WIN. If we can beat teams when we were as bad as we were last year (and don’t let our end of season run fool you, we stunk), I can’t possibly predict a loss.

Week 3 – Notre Dame – WIN. For all of the reasons I mentioned earlier. This has been a long-time coming, could be the end for Brian Kelly.

Week 4 - @Clemson – Loss. Think we play them pretty well, but we’re just not there yet.

Week 5 – CMU – WIN. Easy money.

Week 6 – VT – WIN. I know this will be a major uphill battle, but I just have to imagine our defense will not possibly get torched like last year with how our DB’s have looked in camp. Plus with our revamped O-line (buncha dudes), RB’s and hopefully QB play, I think this turns into a massive, season changing upset win.

Week 7 – @Louisville – Loss. Back down to earth after a huge win the week before. No answer for Lamar.

Week 8 - @UVA – WIN. Get back to our winning ways against a perennial ACC bottomfeeder (counterpoint, this is our official road trip game of the year, and other than Umass I’ve never seen BC win on the road in person. Just an FYI).

Week 9 –FSU – WIN. What the hell. Red Bandana, cold October Friday Night, the boys are riding a 6-2 record with tons of confidence and a packed house? Biggest win in the Addazio era, feels good to storm the field again.

Week 10 – Bye. Love our chances this week against a winless opponent. And comes at a good time for us to collect ourselves after the huge win 7 days before and prep for the back stretch.

Week 11 – NC State – WIN. Over-rated.

Week 12 – Uconn (Fenway) – WIN. Not close, just like last year. Fenway Franks on deck.

Week 13 - @Cuse – WIN. This one scares me, but if we come in as hot as I think we will be I don’t see the Dome stopping us.

There you have it. 10-2. Optimistic? You bet your ass. Crazy? Potentially. Will it happen? Only time will tell. What I do know is that there is no fun in predicting something like a 6 win schedule. Go back to your daytime television naps, ole’ boring ass gramma. And as if you need one more reason, “The Road to 10-2” sounds much better than 9-3, 8-4, 7-5, etc. Yes 11-1/12-0 are cooler but baby steps. Don’t let me down, Eags. 

The German Three

CHESTNUT HILL, MA – Turns out they breed dudes in sports other than football.

Boston College head coach Steve Addazio revealed Monday that Max Schulze-Geisthovel (not pictured) will handle kickoff duties for the Eagles this fall. Schulze-Geisthovel is no ordinary new addition; he is a German native that currently plays for BC’s men’s soccer team.

“Guy is going to really help us on kickoffs,” said Addazio. “He’s got a strong, live leg. He’s working on his field goals. But I know right now he’s going to help us on kickoff. He puts it high and deep and pretty consistently. He’s as strong a leg as I’ve seen here.  So that’s a good thing. We’ll see how he does on the field goal part. Every once in a while, you get a little something. We don’t have a huge walk-on population, nature of the place. A lot of state schools have things like that pop up a little easier. But this is great. Nice little gift there.”

A 6-foot-2, 190-pound midfielder from Drensteinfurt, Germany, Schulze-Geisthovel appeared in 19 games as a senior last fall and led the club with seven goals.

Mike Knoll handled kickoffs and place-kicking duties for the Eagles last fall, averaging 61 yards on 55 kickoffs while hitting 12-of-14 field goals. As a team, Boston College ranked 69th nationally in kickoff average.

First things first - that's an electric opening line of the article. When I first heard BC had invited a soccer player into the kicking competition, I was skeptical. I mean, you have Mike Knoll, who ranked 2^nd in the ACC in field goal percentage and was very reliable within 35 yards. After having an extremely tumultuous kicking situation the previous three years, why mess with the positive momentum Knoll has going into his senior year? But as a soccer guy, I was also intrigued. Back in high school, without any practice, I could nail 40 yarders no problem. Granted, I wasn’t kicking in front of 50k fans with an all-out blitz coming at me, but how different can it be? In fact, if my four years didn’t coincide exactly with Nate Freese, the best kicker in BC history, I 100% would have gone out for the team. And I hate to nitpick since Freese was so good otherwise, but I guarantee I could have made that 23-yarder in the final minute vs. Duke junior year that he plunked off the upright.

History is on our side here. Flashback to October 7, 2006. Starting kicker Ryan Ohliger is grabbing a couple of Busch Lights at Mary Ann’s, when an overserved fellow Eagle tells him he sucks (which, to be fair, he kind of did). Ohliger punches the guy in the face, the cops come, and he gets suspended from the team. Superfan Steve Aponavicius, who played soccer in high school but had never played organized football before, gets spotted by an assistant coach horsing around with his buddies kicking field goals at Alumni. He walks on as an emergency kicker, and all of a sudden gets thrown into the fire in a primetime game versus Virginia Tech under the lights. He goes 2-2 on field goals, 4-4 on extra points, and handled kickoff duty. He becomes a folk hero, and the rest is history.

From a technical standpoint, there is hardly any difference between kicking a football and a soccer ball. Obviously, with field goals, the key difference is that you are trying to get the ball over the crossbar rather than under it. But the kickoffs in particular are essentially the same thing as a goal kick in soccer. If it was me, I would have Knoll focus on knocking in the short FGs and extra points, and have Max handle anything beyond 35 yards. I love that this Max character is German. Give me a German any day of the week that doesn’t understand the magnitude of what he is doing versus this new generation of snowflake mental midget millennials. You think they give a shit about college football in Germany? Good luck trying to ice the German, Dabo!

Game Week.

We've been waiting 245 days since the Eagles carried the Quick Lane trophy out of Detroit, but Gameweek is finally here again. Only 4 days till BC hits the field on a Dekalb Friday Night, and the road to 10-2 officially gets underway. Nothing quite like the excitement of the first week of the season, so we'll have plenty of buildup content to get you all to Friday at 9:30. Eagles are officially on the Warpath, stay tuned.

Spring Game Recap – Part II

Less than a week away from NIU, and we’re talking about fedoras. Unreal. Let’s get back to football. You all asked for it, so here it is – Spring Game Recap Part II. See Part I here.

RB

Which Jon Hilliman do we get this year? If he wants to see the field, based on the reviews that true freshman AJ Dillon is getting, it better be the 2014 version. Davon Jones was solid last year, and has big play potential. Richard Wilson continues to get touches for reasons that I cannot begin to comprehend, as his career Yards After Contact is 0. Meanwhile, Travis Levy, any true freshman, is getting zero hype, and he might be the best of the whole group.

That’s a couple of grown man cuts right there. Based on my very, very limited review of his film, Levy has Leveon’s Bell’s patient field vision combined with Barry Sanders' elusiveness. This group is only as good as the OL and play-calling, but a ton of potential here.

WR

Newsflash: our WRs stink. The fact that we’re still trotting out the Elijah Robinson and Troy Flutie experiment shows you everything you need to know about the lack of playmakers behind Jeff Smith. Tell you what though, that’s okay. If there is one position BC has struggled to recruit historically, it’s ACC-quality receivers that can separate from ACC-level DBs.

That's why the emergence of Sweeney is huge. When the BC offense was clicking during the TOB/Jags era, TEs (shout out to Ryan Purvis and Lars Anderson) were getting 5-10 targets a game. Chris Pantale, who is playing on Sundays now, was criminally underutilized in the Spaz era. It sounds like Daz/Loeffler are starting to understand our offensive identity needs to match our personnel, so my guess is we’ll see an uptick in jumbo TE/FB sets (love Colton Cardinal to break out this year, see above) as well as passes out of the backfield to Jones and Levy. Sweeney may break the single season TD record.

Defense

There is a foregone conclusion coming into this season that BC will have one of the top defenses in the ACC, if not the country. After all, they were 8^th in the nation in yards allowed per game last year. But were they actually that good when you take out UMass, Wagner, Buffalo and UConn? BC allowed 34.3 points per game in conference last year. And while you can blame the 31.3% third-down conversion percentage to some degree for keeping the defense on the field all game, you can’t tell me that we had any more offensive ineptitude than in 2015. That year, under Don Brown, we only allowed 18.4 points in conference play, with an average margin of loss of less than 9 points (versus 22 in 2016). None of this is groundbreaking sabermetrics. But with the losses of Milano, Kavalec, and Johnson, compounded with a real OOC schedule, I don’t expect to be anywhere near the top this year. I do like the potential of the front seven, and I think the DBs are as good as they’ve ever been, but I think the offense is going to have to do its part for the first time since the Tyler Murphy era.

Counterpoint: Fedorahamas

 Wanted to get in a quick counterpoint in against Matty T’s recap of the Bahamas trip. I have two main takeaways:

1) While I agree it’s a bad look to barely squeak by the Atlantis Resort Workers intramural team (especially letting them crawl back into it after dominating the first half), I think there is severe overreaction going on here, on many sides…on many sides. The “Christian has committed war atrocities against my family” crowd (has to be the reason behind Matty T’s hate for this guy), this is the end of the world, more embarrassing than 2-34 in the ACC, and we should’ve marooned Coach C in the Bahamas for good (little pirate humor, on account of the whole Caribbean thing). For the optimists, the fact that we were 2-0, Ky looked healthy and Chatman got hot, is all the proof they need that we’re going .500 in the ACC and will be playing a first four game in Dayton next March. The reality is this doesn’t tell us much at all. Yes, these games are important, the players are busting their ass, and Christian isn’t experimenting line-ups and pausing for fundamentals lessons like an 8-year old CYO game. And yes, it is concerning that we let this competition hang with us. But this is also the first time the freshmen have really played with this group competitively, we’re still missing Hawkins, and these games were spliced in between catamaran excursions and trips to the swim up bar. My point is that not only will this team look very different come the season (personnel, fitness, gameplan, etc.), but the focus and mindset will be slightly different preparing for Duke on a February night than the Little Sisters of the Poor on an 80 degree Nassau afternoon.

2) More importantly, this trip gave us the beauty that is Head Coach Fedora Christian. Since we lost Skinner, I’ve always said our biggest issue was not having a coach wearing a full suit and tie on the sidelines (seriously, in our lifetime every single NCAA champion has been coached by a suit and tie). Christian will bust out the suit/no-tie client-lunch look for big games, but for the most part it’s been business casual on the Heights for 7 years. Well that might have all changed last week. Maybe formal is not what we should be going for. While my records indicate that no one has ever won a championship whilst wearing a fedora on the sidelines, someone has to be the first. Christian absolutely needs to be bring this back to the mainland – I’m giddy at the thought of “Fedora Giveaway Night” at Conte after rattling off 19 straight wins to start the year. Make it happen coach. And of course if all else fails, this would at least guarantee us a strong recruiting pipeline into Miami-Dade county. Dalé.

Bummerhamas

NASSAU, Bahamas – The Boston College men's basketball team polished off its exhibition action with a 93-86 triumph over the NPBA All-Stars on Monday evening at the Kendal G.L. Isaacs National Gymnasium.

Junior forward Jordan Chatman led the Eagles with 28 points, including going 75 percent (6-of-8) from downtown and added five rebounds. The BC backcourt of sophomores Ky Bowman and Jerome Robinson dropped 19 and 17 points, respectively, and logged other significant figures. Bowman hauled in eight boards and doled out five assists with three blocks while Robinson collected six rebounds and dished out as many dimes, along with two swipes.

Freshman Steffon Mitchell gathered nine rebounds in back-to-back outings in the Bahamas while junior forward Johncarlos Reyes came away with nine boards himself in the victory.

All is well in the Bahamas. The BC basketball squad went down there and took care of business. They beat an entire country's All-Star team. Sounds like we have a real shot to compete in the ACC this year, right?

Unfortunately, when you take a closer look, you realize that it took Chatman lighting it up from three point land at a 75% clip to just barely edge out a team from the Bahamas that URI beat by 23 and NICHOLLS STATE beat by 9 earlier this summer. That's right, the same Nicholls State that finished 8th in the Southland Conference last year. And yes, the same Nicholls State team that beat us in the season opener last year.

There is an unbelievable amount of irrational optimism with Coach Christian and the team this year, but I think people are forgetting that BC is 2-34 in ACC play the last two years. That is a winning percentage of .056. We win ACC games 5.6% of the time. For every 10 ACC games we play, we win just over half of one game. It is legitimately difficult to be as bad as we have been. Christian has shown absolutely nothing to this point to earn the benefit of the doubt, and I think anyone pontificating that BC will go .500 in the toughest conference in the nation or will be a tourney bubble team is in for a rude awakening, 'mon.

If You Have Two Quarterbacks You Have None

10 Days from Kickoff (thank God), the QB battle between Brown and Wade continues to rage on, After practice this morning, Addazio went on record that he still has not decided who’ll be under center in Dekalb. While there is a strange comfort to a QB controversy returning to the Heights (Shinskie-Tuggle, Shinskie-Rettig, Rettig-Shinskie-Suntrup-Bordner (lol JK), Flutie-Smith-Fadule, Towles-Wade, and now this), the time has come to go get your mans. And as mentioned in our Spring Game recap, the official position of Dudes on First is that the man should definitely be Darius Wade.

While I have zero CFB experience outside of multiple NCAA ’10 championships, here is what I do know: 18 and 19 year olds shouldn’t be trusted with anything of importance. This is true with money, Twitter Accounts, going to class on time, not peeing the bed after drinking, and it’s especially true with running a college football offense in the best conference in the country. With our defense and stable of RB’s, we just need a game manager who will get the most out of the tools he’s given, play responsibly, and minimize mistakes against some of the strongest and most complex defenses in the league. From what we’ve seen/read so far that seems to be exactly what we have with Darius. We know (again based on spring game/previous season cameos) he’s good with his feet, accurate inside 15 yards, and generally doesn’t try to force too much. This will be his 4^th year in this program – he knows the speed, skills, and preparation needed to succeed at the ACC level. All he’s missing now is the vote of confidence from Daz to grab the reigns and officially lead us until battle next week.

Our offense has been our downfall the past 2 years, and much of that can be attributed to youth – from the QB debacle in 2015 to the unwatchable line struggles last year. Let’s not make that mistake again. While Anthony is a very, VERY bright spot for our future, the reality here is that we’re not recruiting the Jameis Winstons and Deshaun Watsons who are better than 33% of NFL QB’s by the time they step on campus and can lead high power offenses before moving off of Upper. I’m assuming that Daz/the coaches know who the guy will be, and hoping he’s tipped his hand to both QB’s (and the rest of the 1s) and this is all a media ploy to try to throw Northern Illinois off its game prep. Gotta give the Huskies coaching staff as little time as possible to analyze the tape of the < 60 pass attempts for whoever is ultimately named QB1.  

PS – I reserve the right to be completely 100% wrong here, and honestly I don’t care – all I want is a competent QB who will make some plays when needed, but most importantly won’t give these games away. With what we’ve seen I think Wade gives us the best chance for that, but I’ll be just as happy (if not more so due to having him for 4 more years) if its Brown. All I know is I’m tired of watching unwatchable offenses and hearing the Youth excuse in the postgame pressers.