No BC in BCS

Adios, Fiesta. Sayonara, Sugar. Bye-bye, Bowl Championship Series.

Gator, why don't you give a call?

Insight, you still interested?

Champagne corks could be heard popping from as far away as Pittsburgh and the Big East's home office in Providence yesterday after Syracuse put a Heisman-like stiff-arm on Boston College's hopes of clinching the conference title and a BCS berth. The unranked Orange (6-5 overall, 4-2 Big East) pinned the 17th-ranked Eagles (8-3, 4-2) with a devastating 43-17 setback before a sellout Alumni Stadium crowd of 44,500 that left Syracuse, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, and BC in a four-way tie for first place.

"It was not a good day for our football team," said BC coach Tom O'Brien, whose defense gave up 397 yards (including a season-high 309 rushing) and whose offense failed to rally around redshirt freshman quarterback Matt Ryan, who was forced to throw 51 times because of a rushing attack that mustered only 71 yards.

Ryan, who completed 24 of 51 attempts for 200 yards, had his first career start marred by three interceptions and six dropped passes -- two by Grant Adams, two by Joel Hazard, and one each by L.V. Whitworth and Larry Lester.

"We did not perform up to our expectations," O'Brien said. "The team is obviously down at this point."

Somewhere in the Steel City, though, Pittsburgh coach Walt Harris was toasting the Orange after Syracuse's first conference road victory in three years vaulted the Panthers from the middle of the conference to BCS contender.

Pittsburgh, which beat No. 21 West Virginia Thursday night, can wrap up the Big East's BCS berth in the Fiesta Bowl if it wins its season finale at South Florida Dec. 4, a makeup of a game that was postponed because of Hurricane Frances.

"We didn't want them being our representative [in the BCS]," Syracuse quarterback Perry Patterson said of the Eagles. "We'd let Pitt go, but not BC."

For the Eagles, the loss was far worse than the 39-14 setback they suffered at Syracuse last Oct. 18, when BC arrived at the Carrier Dome short on sleep for a noon kickoff after a travel delay and got a hostile reception from fans because of its decision earlier in the week to join the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2005.

"Personally? Yeah, it was [worse] for me," said senior defensive tackle Tim Bulman of Milton. "This was my last game and I didn't want to go out that way, because there was a lot more at stake. The time is now and we had everything going for us and we just couldn't do it, so it definitely hurts more." BC would've earned $2.5 million as the Big East champion, but now will have to settle for a quarter-share of first place, worth $1.575 million. Worse, the Eagles dropped out of contention for a Fiesta berth and may instead wind up in the Dec. 20 Continental Tire Bowl in Charlotte, N.C., against North Carolina."With an 8-3 team, we're going somewhere, rest assured of that," said BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo. "This was a team that was playing for a BCS spot, a top 17 team -- we're going somewhere." Diamond Ferri, a two-way player who starred at Everett High, shoved the ACC-bound Eagles out the door with an otherworldly performance that included 193 all-purpose yards and three TDs. With senior running back Walter Reyes sidelined by a shoulder injury, Ferri was thrust into the spotlight when Damien Rhodes -- who broke off a 69-yard TD run on the first play of the game -- suffered a left leg contusion on his fourth rushing attempt.

"They were lucky to have him, because I thought it gave us a shot to not have Reyes in there and with Rhodes out of the game," BC junior linebacker Ray Henderson said of Ferri, a senior. "But he was just as good as either of them." Ferri, a strong safety on defense, rushed 28 times for 141 yards and TDs of 7 and 4 yards, the second of which gave the Orange a 21-3 lead. It was the most points he'd scored and the most yards he'd rushed for since leading Everett to a Super Bowl victory over Bedford by rushing for 300 yards and four TDs in his senior year.

He also had six tackles (four solo) and returned an interception 44 yards for a touchdown that made it 36-17 with 4:28 to go and deflated any hopes the Eagles had after they scored on Ryan's 11-yard strike to Joel Hazard with 6:53 left.

Ferri also had two punt returns for 8 yards for good measure.

Before the game, Syracuse coach Paul Pasqualoni had asked Ferri how many plays he could go. Ferri estimated about 125-126. He wasn't far from the mark, and it was little wonder that Ferri required IVs at halftime (for leg cramps) and afterward sported a split thumb, a twisted ankle, and welts on his back after out-of-bounds collisions with a padded retaining wall and then an aluminum bench on Syracuse's sideline.

It was all a local boy could do to spoil it for the local team.

"If they want to leave the Big East," Ferri said, "we'll send them out with a loss."

Syracuse's parting shot also left BC's 14 departing seniors, and the rest of the team, with one last opportunity to remove this sour Orange taste from their mouths.

"We need another football game," O'Brien said. "Especially for the seniors, who have meant so much to this program and have worked so hard to get it here.

"For them, we need to play another football game."