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.

Steve Addazio: Football Guy

Rock solid logic from the Head Dude. That's the alpha/leader of men stuff we need on the sidelines this year. Meanwhile Randy Edsall and Brian Kelly are probably out double-layering those nursing home cataract glasses. 10-2 in the bag.

Spring Game Recap - Part I

I just finished my third time rewatching BC’s spring game, so I think its safe to say I’m officially ready for football season to start. Fortunately, this year’s 17-17 game was a little more watchable than the 6-2 barnburner last year. Any time you have an opportunity to analyze the shit out of an 80%-speed, no-tackling, controlled scrimmage that took place 4 months ago and extrapolate it into your entire perception of the team's chances this season and each player’s ability you have to do it, right? Let’s break it down.

We open up the action with some fireworks, as Taj-Amir Torres takes it to the house without getting touched. Unfortunately, it was less a result of Torres’ explosiveness and more one of the worst kickoff return coverage defenses I have ever seen. Add in two separate fumbles on kickoff and punt returns later in the game, and it’s safe to say that there is room for improvement on special teams. Last year, Tyler Rouse quietly led the ACC in punt return yards. Good defense plus bad offense equals punts, so hopefully Al Washington’s departure doesn’t derail this unit. Trivia question: where did Ricky Brown, new Special Teams Coordinator, work prior to joining BC last year? That’s right, he was Coach of Defense Quality Control in 2014 for the USC Trojans. Oddly enough, quality and control seemed to be exactly what the USC defense was lacking in 2014 when BC hung 37 points on them.

The first drive of the game was the 1s (Wade, Hilliman, Baker, Sweeney) vs. the 1s (Landry, Allen, Strachan), and Wade’s first series was likely a pretty good representation of what we’ll see from the offense this year: Hilliman up the middle, Jeff Smith sweep, and a short pass to Sweeney over the middle right at the first-down sticks. Once Daz opened up the playbook a little bit, Wade led an impressive first drive, making accurate throws and the right decisions before stalling in the red zone. The OLine looked promising, as they got a great push off the ball and opened up some huge holes on a couple of Davon Jones’ runs. Wade appears to be equally as impressive on the bootlegs going to the left as much as he looks like Smalls from Sandlot (pre-paper route) on bootlegs to the right throwing across his body.

Call it first-game jitters, call it nerves from the 169 fans in attendance, call it having a terrible 2^nd team OLine, but Brown looked BAD on his first drive. Not getting rid of the ball fast enough, underthrows left and right. He did play a little bit better the next drive with the first team, including a nice play above where he had a sick juke/pump fake to get Zach Allen on his feet and threw an accurate TE slant on the run.

That drive ended in a 4^th down jailbreak blitz, with Ty Schwab and Noa Merritt getting the sack. Lindstrom (#75) got beat bad, with Leonard (#59) and Conte (#65) both missing their assignments/colluding to pull a Ray from Remember the Titans (the racist 5’8 right tackle that intentionally botched an audible to get Rev knocked out of the game). If that OLine shows up in Clemson, Christian Wilkins might break the single game sack record.

Overall, Wade looked like the clear number #1, going 16-27 for 194 yards and generating 31 of the 34 total points scored, compared to Brown’s 10-27 for 84 yards. Can he throw the deep ball? No. Exhibit A:

But do Alex Smith and the Chiefs make the playoffs every year? They sure do. If Wade can master the 10 yard post routes, utilize the slot, and rely on Sweeney as a safety outlet, that should be enough to keep opposing defenses from loading the box. Brown may be a bigger home run threat – he hit Elijah Robinson right in the hands on a forty yard fly pattern – but he also had two picks, and it probably could have been four or five. Brown probably has better wheels in the open field, but Wade showed perfectly adequate escapability and field vision to effectively scramble and run the ball when needed. Our ground game is going to win us football games, we just need our QB to not lose them. Brown may be the next Vince Young, but for this year, for this team, Wade is the guy.

Stay tuned for Part 2, where we dissect the RB’s, WR’s, and why the defense may not be as good as you think.

Beer at Alumni!

BIG TIME Friday morning news out of the Heights today. Beer sold in Alumni, something I think most of us thought we would never see, is finally here. What a way for Jarmond to bounce back from the negative PR of our Fraud Council Spotlight post. Knew I loved this guy.

This immediately does 3 huge things for the Alumni atmosphere:

A) Makes it much more appealing to get in early/on-time. We no longer need to squeeze every last possible second out of our Brighton Beers, and getting in early helps us beat the lines/grab a handful to carry us through the first few drives.

2) Should prevent the hordes of fans (specifically in our Young Alumni section) leaving around halftime to go to TITS or Cityside on account of not wanting to lose their buzz. Attendance in the second half, even in exciting/competitive games, has been pretty laughable over the past few years, and this should go a long way in addressing those issues.

D) Alumni, normally an infamously quiet crowd (especially when the 3^rd quarter naps/pre-hangover start to set in), now gets a jolt of alcohol infused energy across the stadium. As beer tends to do, this should without a doubt make us a louder, more pumped-up fan base, which will directly lead to an increase in home field advantage.

On top of that, not having to stuff 3 ice cold natty lights into our waistbands on a 40 degree November game is one hell of an additional benefit here. Just a great job by Marty getting this through the city/permitting so quickly, when that was always the number 1 excuse cited by past administrations.

Obviously it’s just a 1^st year/pilot program, so there will DEFINITELY be some hiccups (huge lines, high price points, few/bad locations on the opposite side of the stadium as the student/young alum section probably), but make no mistake this is 1000% a home run for Jarmond and BC fans everywhere, and there is nothing for us to complain about. Great to be an Eagle indeed.

HARD-HITTING JOURNALISM ALERT: Fraud Council

The big news (in the very small BC Athletics world) yesterday was the official release of members selected for Marty J's Fan Council. One of his first acts as AD, I think as a collective fan base we were all excited when he made the initial announcement of putting this council together. Finally, we AS FANS - not just the big donors, as it's been for the last 2 administrations - would have a direct line to the AD's ear. However, upon yesterday's release of the names selected, it sure seems like this is not exactly the change in perspective we were all hoping for.

Because of our constant promise to you guys that we will always bring hard-hitting major league investigative journalism, I spent 20 minutes on LinkedIn yesterday compiling some basic info on the 21 knights of Marty's roundtable. The findings were disappointing to say the least - not just because I personally wasn't selected (though as we'll get into, I never really had a chance due to my sub $15 annual donation and the fact that my dad was not in My Cousin Vinny. Just wish we knew that up front so I could've saved the time I put into the app for more blog posts, trying to keep the lights on over here), but because it turns out the entire thing was a PR sham and safe space to give under-the-table-over-the-pants-HJs to Leahy's big money. Let's get into it.

Is Orange Season Back?

Let's play a little good news bad news to kick off Tuesday morning.

Good news: My office kitchen is always stocked with fresh fruit: Bananas, Apples, and Oranges.

Bad news: I'm mildly allergic to apples (and pears, peaches, cherries, etc.). I am a survivor. Thank you in advance for your thoughts.  Anyways, its the most common allergy on earth, read a fucking book for once, Seth.

Good news: I like bananas, and I LOVE oranages. 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

Bad News (here's where it starts to get really bad): Oranges, or at least our orange supplier, has a seemingly short good orange season. Basically since March we've been getting pathetic excuses for pieces of fruit. Tough to peel, yellowish orange color, sour, and worst of all, loaded with seeds. If I wanted to work for my food I would move to the frontiers of the Northwest Territory circa 1795. You're telling me we can keep Ted Williams alive but can't genetically engineer an orange that is actually good 12 months out of the year?

(Potentially) GREAT news: Don't want to speak to soon, but today's kitchen oranges were different. Back to the deep orange color, peeled like a dream, and most importantly, no seeds. Now we're not all the way there, still not as sweet as we see in the winter, but it sure as hell seems to me like the glory days are just around the corner.

Two reasons why I'm writing this. First, we literally don't have a single reader yet so if I feel like talking to myself at work about oranges that is my God given right as an American web blogger. Two, and more importantly, this was all just a subliminal reminder of how fucking amazing it's going to be when we #ShockTheWorld and make the Orange Bowl one of these years (this year? Stay tuned for our predictions. That's what we in the biz call a teaser). After all, as we all know, the peak of the Florida Citrus season is December/January. Sure doesn't sound like a coincidence to me.

Basketball Recruiting Heating Up

While our recruiting analyst has been preparing for our boots-on-the-ground coverage in Dekalb for the football opener in a few weeks, BC has quietly had a red hot few days on the recruiting trail. First, Wynston Tabbs, the #135 player in the 2018 class (that's a very good ranking, for what it's worth), shocked the northeast basketball world by committing to us last Friday. I made a promise to you guys to never do research, but if memory serves he's one of only 2 top 150 players we've had in the last like 6 years (I think AJ turner was the other, RIP).

Second, Deontae Hawkins, 5th year grad transfer from Illinos State who originally committed, then de-committed from us, has again re-committed and is now pretty much locked in for the upcoming year (as the team heads to the Bahamas next week - convenient timing but I'll take it). People who know more than me say he was one of the best players out of the mid-majors last year, and should make a sizable impact with how we line up against other ACC schools (who, you know, recruit actual ACC caliber athletes).

While I think most of us agree that Christian isn't the long-term guy, its nice to see the momentum and shows that despite how terrible we've been people still want to come to a great school in a great city, and play in the best conference in the world. While neither of these guys will take us to the top of the ACC next year, if we can work up to a consistent .500 ACC record, and get the right next coach in place, the recruiting should start to explode. We're just at the foundation now, but keeping this going should get us back to the Dudley days in no time.

Doug Flutie: The Voice of Notre Dame Football

NBC announces Mike Tirico and Doug Flutie as play-by-play and color for Notre Dame football games.

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) August 14, 2017

Hey Doug, what in the fuckin' heck is going here? Go from being the weird BC message boards' number 1 choice for athletic director to the color man (not racist cause Mike Tirico is 100% Italian) for our biggest rival within the span of like 6 months? I know he's been working with the NBC broadcast for some time now, but there is a big difference between keeping warm next to Katherine Tappen on a cold South Bend night and being the guy paid by ND to audibly fellate their next wildly overrated quarterback on the way to a 5-7 season. Honestly, with Hesiman Winning Quarterback's like this who needs enemies? Think Dave Shinskie would ever dream of pulling this shit?

Also, Notre Dame, obsessed with BC Football much? First Mayock now Flutie? You got Montel Harris on speed dial yet (not for the alleged weed hookup though, nerds)? I'ts incredible that, for a school that definitely considers itself to be the smartest football program in America, they have to dig through the Chestnut Hill phone book just to find someone knowledgeable enough to discuss games on TV. I imagine that getting their own commentators is a virtually impossible task, seeing that Brady Quinn is as about as good as it gets when it comes to Notre Dame alumni charisma, but you could at least throw Clausen in the booth to lower your alumni unemployment numbers. Or, just stop being assholes, join a conference like literally everyone else and get rid of this incredibly outdated and narcissistic one-team national TV deal. Your call.

PS - Forgot just how much I hate these guys. Cannot WAIT for 9/16.

Are We Dumb Now?

The Heights - Boston College dropped 27 spots in this year’s Forbes ranking of America’s Top Colleges, to No. 49 in 2017 from No. 22 in 2016.

The drop comes a year after BC gained 15 spots in the rankings, from No. 37 in 2015 to No. 22.

Of the schools that made the top 25 colleges last year, BC’s 27-spot drop appears to be among the largest. Several other schools also had their rankings change dramatically, including one of BC’s biggest rivals for applicants: the University of Notre Dame, which fell to No. 26 from No. 13 Wesleyan University also suffered one of the biggest drops, going to No. 33 from No. 9. Fellow Jesuit school Georgetown University has been No. 21 each of the last two years. Commonwealth Ave. rival Boston University ranks No. 86, and Fordham University is No. 132.

Tough news for Eagles everywhere today as Forbes dropped us 27 spots (down to 49) in their annual college rankings. I know some of you are still undecided, but personally I strongly believe it is not good when your $240K investment is more than twice as bad (math major, sup) as the year before. Of course I still wouldn't trade my years on the Heights for anything, but it's a real kick in the dick when you think  how many of us, back in 2009, chose BC because they had both championship caliber ACC Atheltics and top tier academics. Talk about your all-time backfires.

In all seriousness it's actually hard to comprehend a drop of this magnitude. This is essentially the equivalent of the #22 ranked team getting shut out by Howard, and even then I think they still come in as "Receiving Votes" in the low 30s the following week (sidenote - would that be high 30's? I'm specifically referencing like 37-39. Sound off in the comments!). I guess the good news is it's now slightly harder for the lowest forms of human intelligence (read: FSU & BU fans) to play the nerd card against us? 

Anyways, the real question here is what this does to Leahy's argument. For years now he's been clamoring on about how athletics contribute zero to the overall university, while deliberately driving our programs into the ground. Unfortunately for Bill, the facts are in, and it turns out that 7 straight years of underperformance, 0 NCAA tournament appearances, at least 4 utter failures in his coaching/AD hires, bleeding fan support, record low attendance numbers, and complete lack of competitiveness does NOT make smart high school kids want to pay $60K to rock Maroon and Gold. Did that go the way you thought it was going to go?

Be A Dude

Welcome to 4th and dude - the first Boston College sports-blog for Dudes, by Dudes. While there are a few good BC sites already out there, here at 4aD we want to shed more light on the fan/young alumni side of things and that which we hold dear: Tailgates on Brighton, Cold Ones, Guys Being Dudes, Betting the Over, Gameday Polos, and the Eagles. We probably won't be your first stop for hard-hitting recruiting analysis or live-tweeting Women's hockey games (those markets are already covered elsewhere), but we will provide plenty of pre-season optimism, mid-season over reactions, sophomoric humor, 10-win predictions, drunk gameday tweets, tailgate music, and everything in between.

We are two (potentially three if our midwest correspondent ever learns how to use a computer) college roommates from the Class of 2013, and our time at the Heights coincided with one of the worst runs in BC football and basketball since the pre-Flutie days. But it's the start of a new era for BC athletics and championships (or at least some top 25 appearances) are on the horizon. We have big things planned for our inaugural blog season, and we hope you join us for what is sure to be a hell of a ride on the road to 10 and 2.

Thanks for reading, and as always, Go Eagles.

PS - Really this is just an excuse to get our opinions out there since we were all rejected from the Fan Council. Strike one for Marty J.