:: Notre Dame Football ::
Fighting Irish look to break Eagles' quiet streak
The Irish have huge institutional memory issues to address with a Boston College program that has quietly assembled a six-game winning streak against Notre Dame, mostly close wins over Bob Davie and Tyrone Willingham, but with additional wins over Charlie Weis during two rebuilding years after a two-year hiatus.
For Boston College, there has been a streak almost as long as the Southern Cal streak that had been deemed a yardstick for Notre Dame's progress turning the corner as an elite program.
Had the series not been interrupted, would Notre Dame have beaten Boston College either, or both, of Weis's first two seasons, when the Irish went to BCS Bowls and Brady Quinn was a Heisman candidate, and Notre Dame had multiple All-Americans?
Probably ... but we will never know.
Adding arguably undeserved poignancy to the streak is the fact that, while Boston College is a solid program through and through, especially since the Doug Flutie days a few decades ago, somehow Boston College has managed to keep billing itself as The Little Engine that Could when going up against the Irish.
To the contrary, Boston College Eagles has managed to back themselves into position to stage timely upsets over top-5 Notre Dame teams.
After Notre Dame won a #1 vs. #2 game against Florida State in 1993, to secure its last de facto national championship, the following week Notre Dame played a respectable Boston College team. Boston College held a three-touchdown lead in the fourth quarter, Notre Dame stormed back with three touchdowns and a two-point conversion in about seven minutes to take the lead, only to see Boston College pull out the upset, 41-39 with a field goal.
In Tyrone Willingham's first season, part of the current streak, Notre Dame beat a still-good Florida State on the road, and was undefeated and in the top-5, only to face Boston College at home in the next game. With Notre Dame forced to play a former walk-on at quarterback, the result was a low-scoring stalemate. The game was decided by Notre Dame suffering a freakish turnover run back by Boston College for the deciding score.
But to understand how things unfolded, one needs to go back even further.
The first time the teams played was in 1975, a 17-13 Notre Dame win over a Boston College team reportedly proud just to be scheduling the Irish and staying in the game with them.
About a decade later, in 1983 when Boston College was building up a stronger footing for their modern program around Doug Flutie, but before Flutie won a Heisman, Notre Dame beat Boston College in the Liberty Bowl, Gerry Faust's only bowl win.
The field was frozen and treacherous, both teams scored three touchdowns, and Notre Dame won because their kicker made a single extra point early on. After that, at least one kicker wiped out on the slippery field while trying to make a kick, neither team tried any more kicks on extra points, and none of the resulting two-point conversion attempts got in. So Notre Dame won by a point over a Doug Flutie-led Boston College in a bowl game.
Much more significantly with respect to bad blood, after a Notre Dame win in 1987, the teams met in 1992 with both Notre Dame and Boston College in the top-10. Boston College apparently was feeling as if they had worked their way into the upper tier of respectability with this top-10 ranking.
Notre Dame absolutely humiliated Boston College, 54-10.
In addition to tough defense, the Irish brought a high-powered offense featuring Rick Mirer, Jerome Bettis, and Heisman contender Reggie Brooks. Brooks, a stocky, powerful back with deceptive speed and subtle agility, had a penchant for ripping off huge open-field runs and long, jaw-dropping touchdowns.
Boston College apparently took the experience personally, and marked Notre Dame for a grudge match.
It was in the next season, 1993, that Boston College, full of righteous indignation, staged the huge upset over the then-#1 Irish wearied from their Game of the Century victory over the Seminoles the previous week.
Those two games marked the beginning of an annual match-up between Notre Dame and Boston College, broken only by a hiatus during Notre Dame's best two years in recent memory, Charlie Weis's first two seasons.
Boston College did follow up the 1993 upset with another win over Notre Dame in 1994, 30-11. But 1994 was a rebuilding year, Notre Dame went 6-5-1. Now, that year Notre Dame was losing reasonably competitive games against good opponents (and also actually went to the Fiesta Bowl, under then-existing Bowl Coalition rules, with a 6-4-1 record after tying Southern Cal; the Irish then lost the Fiesta Bowl by 17 points to a top-5 Colorado).
Overall in 1990's, however, Notre Dame was 5-3 against Boston College, and then won again in 2000, to be 6-3 in the series from 1992 to 2000.
Then "The Quiet Streak" began.
It sort of snuck up on the Irish.
First, in 2001, Bob Davie lost to BC, just by four points, 21-17. It was his final year before getting let go.
Then, there was Willingham's first year, mentioned above. The Irish, in the top-5, had no depth at quarterback and were playing a former walk-on, and ended up losing 14-7 on a freakish turnover run back for the deciding score in 2002.
Then Willingham, in one of Notre Dame's worst seasons for blow-out seasons in school history, 2003, lost to Boston College by two points, 27-25.
Then, in his final season, when Notre Dame struggled to stay above .500 and Willingham was let go for not rebuilding a Notre Dame program now with its weakest foundations in more than a century, Willingham lost to Boston College by one point, 24-23. The Irish had actually backed themselves into a top-25 ranking at the time, despite the program's weak footings, before the one-point loss to Boston College.
So, at this point, Boston College had a four-game winning streak over Notre Dame, almost by a combination of happenstance and narrow losses.
But, as with Michigan State and its various types of streaks, Boston College won the games.
The next time the two teams played was Charlie Weis's third season, the big downturn when Notre Dame made the balloon payment for the big Davie-Willingham downturn that had left the roster in a shambles.
Ironically, the Notre Dame team that went 3-9 actually did not lose big to Boston College, even though the Eagles were ranked #4 in the country at the time. The final score was 27-13. But by now the streak was at 5 games.
Last year, with Notre Dame still rebuilding somewhat, Clausen also had the flu and Notre Dame apparently did not want to burn a year of eligibility for Dayne Crist. Boston College beat Notre Dame 17-0 in one of the few decisive wins by Boston College in the series. To be fair, the Notre Dame defense acquitted itself well, only giving up 10 points. It seems the Irish defense might already have considered itself rebuilt at the time.
So the streak has quietly become six games.
Will this be Notre Dame's year to reassert itself in the series with Boston College? Will the effort required be as strenuous as with another big institutional memory game, against Michigan State?
(Of course, had Navy pulled it out last year against the Irish, that series would have turned into an absolute dogfight, and the Middies would have been frothing at the mouth to keep a streak going, not that they don't play tough all-day-ball every time regardless.)
Notre Dame will have to play its best against a Boston College team that feels as an institution it can beat Notre Dame and should, and still feels it has something to prove. But coming off the loss to Southern Cal, Notre Dame should be motivated.
Even with Michael Floyd out, and Robby Parris banged up, Notre Dame's offense is still one of the best in the country, led by rightful Heisman front-runner Jimmy Clausen. And if it plays hard, with attention to good execution, the Irish offense should be able to produce and then some.
The Irish defense, growing more every week, has work to do but is under-rated, and might be developing into one of the stronger defenses against the run. Boston College, with a largely young offense and two freshmen in the two-deep at quarterback, and adjusting to new offensive coaching, needs the run and has relied on power running in their biggest wins. The up-and-down Eagles offense probably cannot do that against Notre Dame nearly as effectively.
In such a game as this, with all the emotional and other factors involved, the fact that Notre Dame is one of the top teams in the country for avoiding turnovers should add to Irish momentum, especially if Notre Dame can also avoid drive-changing penalties. Intensity, smart football, and appropriate determination to regain the upper hand and restore proper institutional memory could spell a big win for the Irish.
Keywords: Notre Dame Football, Fighting Irish, Boston College Football, Boston College Eagles, College Football, Football, Charlie Weis, Jimmy Clausen
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