Does Anybody Really Miss Boston College?

Talk about your all-time backfires.

Poor, poor Boston College. They had such high hopes. Moving from the Big EAST to ACC was going to be a move to the big time. Finally, they could use their Boston leverage to tap the biggest markets in collegiate sports, like Clemson, SC or Charlottesville, VA. How could this go wrong?

Well, apparently, a lot of ways.

One, Boston is not as close to Miami, Atlanta, Clemson, or well, the entire South, as one may have thought. It turns out it's in Massachusetts, which is in the North. New England, to be more precise. Who knew? Boston College sure didn't. They went gung-ho into a conference where the closest school is outside of Washington, DC. Whoops.

Two, the move was supposed to open up the fertile recruiting ground of Florida. Boy did it ever. Last year, they signed THREE players from the Sunshine State. 3! What a coup. Unfortunately, their new-found dominance of Florida recruiting (remember, they signed 3 players) has cost them their "stronghold" in Northeast recruiting. These shrewd moves resulted in the 50th best recruiting class in the nation. Better than average, yay!

And third, and probably the most-telling of all, their coach made one of the biggest lateral moves in the history of college football. Or at least it seemed like a lateral move. Tom O'Brien left the football mecca of Boston College for the football mecca of NC State. Why? At first I thought he might be getting better health benefits in Raleigh. But then I thought about it. BC is a sinking ship. What seems like a lateral move now will in a few years look like an upward leap. Not good for BC.

Lastly, and this has nothing to do with the ACC, Boston College fans can't tailgate. This is true for two reasons: 1) as their hoity toity wine and cheese alumni base would suggest, their genetics simply won't allow themselves the disrespect of tailgating; and 2) they're actually not allowed to. You see, Boston College has restricted tailgating in most of its parking lots. Two unfortunate, less than drunken trips to WVU-BC games have taught me this. I was sober and bitter (which usually go together).

All in all, BC is screwed. Even if they win, no one seems to care in Boston. Their coach is gone. Eventually, the money will start to dry up from boosters and they'll be forced to fix their own games to pay for recruiting those 3 players in Florida. Luckily, the 30,000 fans that show up will be too busy sitting on their hands to notice.