With a new beginning, no end to BC's optimism
It was the dawn of a new era at Boston College, and athletic director Gene DeFilippo was not about to let it pass without an observance of the exact moment BC officially became a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference. It didn't matter that it was June 30. As far as DeFilippo was concerned, it was New Year's Eve.
After he and his wife, Anne, returned home from a staff outing earlier that evening at Fenway Park, celebrating BC's transition from the Big East to the ACC, DeFilippo was so excited he couldn't sleep.
''I didn't go to bed that night," he said recently, as he sat in the Murray Room of the new Yawkey Athletic Center, BC's $27 million, state-of-the-art, four-story football facility. ''Anne and I came home from [Fenway] and she says to me, 'C'mon, let's go to bed, I'm tired.' And I said, 'No, I'm not going to bed,' and she says, 'What are you doing?' and I said, 'Well, this is my New Year's Eve and I'm staying up to see the New Year in.' So she went up and went to bed and I stayed up until about five after 12 and I enjoyed the moment."
When the clock struck midnight, BC departed the Big East and arrived in the ACC. It was a painful and protracted process that took two years, but at that moment, there was a new league in town.
After the better part of two seasons as a Big East lame duck, the Eagles had officially taken flight for much warmer and more hospitable climes. But it wasn't until the ACC's Football Kickoff last month at The Homestead, a posh resort in Hot Springs, Va., that BC felt it had finally arrived.
''That's when it finally occurred to me that it had happened," DeFilippo said. ''This has been going on since Oct. 12, 2003. This had been a long, long time coming and it always seemed like it was down the road, down the road, down the road. Well, when I got [to Hot Springs], and we had our players and our coaches and our administrators there, it finally hit me, that it's here.
''That's when a real sense of relief and a sense of excitement came over me, really, for the first time."
The Eagles, with 15 starters returning from a 9-3 squad, were treated to a warm reception when they were picked in the ACC's preseason poll to finish second behind Florida State in the six-team Atlantic Division. (Virginia Tech was picked to win the Coastal Division ahead of Miami). In addition, 6-foot-7-inch, 261-pound senior defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka, an All-America candidate who last year earned Big East Defensive Player of the Year honors with a league-leading 11 1/2 sacks and 24 1/2 tackles for loss, was voted the ACC's Preseason Player of the Year.
''Obviously, it's better to be wanted," said BC coach Tom O'Brien. ''And for two years, we weren't wanted [in the Big East]. It's nice to go down and people are happy to see you, and happy that you're going to be a part of their program, instead of the way it was the previous two years.
''But such is life. We go on."
BC's arrival enabled the ACC to have the requisite 12 teams to bill itself a super-conference and stage a lucrative championship game, the Dr. Pepper ACC Football Championship Dec. 3 at
''The quality of the institution, it's so well-balanced from an academic and athletic standpoint," said ACC commissioner John Swofford, when asked why BC fit the conference membership profile. ''A lot of our schools in the ACC fit into the same category and I think that's one reason why Boston College had such an interest in the league, as well as the league having an interest in Boston College."
More than that, BC seemed to give the ACC a sense of completeness after a messy on-again, off-again courtship. ''We're to a point where we know who we are, we're all here and we can move forward together in a very positive way," said Swofford. ''I think this all turned out in a way that it's going to be very beneficial to Boston College and the Atlantic Coast Conference for many years to come."
Critics, though, have pointed to BC's inability to beat Miami in the Big East -- not to mention its two losses to Wake Forest, a team that went 4-12 in the ACC the last two seasons -- as reasons why the Eagles won't contend for a BCS berth, let alone win the Atlantic Division against the likes of Florida State, Clemson, Maryland, North Carolina State, and those confounding Demon Deacons.
''It's going to be interesting for us," said O'Brien. ''We've gone through two years now of being recruited against by people saying we're not skilled enough and we don't have a chance in this league. They've said, 'The ACC, they'll run rings round us.'
''I guess it'll be us Clydesdales against those thoroughbreds, so we'll see who wins."
BC seemingly proved it was more than a plodding team when it defeated North Carolina in the Continental Tire Bowl, 37-24, last December. That Tar Heel squad had pinned Miami with the first of its three ACC losses, 31-28, Oct. 30 at Chapel Hill, N.C.
''It's like a Big Ten team has come into the ACC with a huge offensive line," Wake Forest offensive tackle Steve Vallos said at the Football Kickoff. ''They have a couple of tackles [6-9, 330-pound senior Jeremy Trueblood and 6-7, 310-pound sophomore Gosder Cherilus] who are mountains.
''They're going to be right in the hunt for the championship game. I think they're a team that has something to prove because they weren't in the original plan with [ACC] expansion. I know we've beaten them twice, but that's a damn good team."
Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer, whose Hokies made a successful conference transition last year by winning the ACC title, knows the Eagles all too well from his days in the Big East.
''They always seem to have those big offensive linemen that rumble right through you, but don't underestimate their skill level," said Beamer, mindful of how BC defeated the Hokies two years ago, 34-27, in Blacksburg, Va., in Tech's last regular-season Big East game. ''If they're like a Big Ten team, they're probably like a Michigan. They've got those big guys, but they've also got those skill guys who can flat-out do it like at Ohio State and Michigan."
So what will be BC's greatest challenge in its inaugural ACC season?
''I think the biggest challenge is the consistency of the teams you face," said Miami coach Larry Coker, whose Hurricanes lost more conference games last season than in its previous five years in the Big East (33-2). ''I think everybody's pretty good, I really do. The coaching is very good. The road can be pretty tough. And, with the teams you'll face week in and week out, you're going to have to play well every Saturday."
Even Duke, long considered the league doormat, shared the ACC title in 1989 under Steve Spurrier. Temple, meanwhile, never came close to contending for a Big East championship during its 14-year run in the conference.
''There's no breathers," said Wake Forest coach Jim Grobe. ''You're not going to have anybody that you play that's easy, unless you're able to schedule them nonconference."
Said Beamer, ''I think in the Big East, for several years, there was about four or five of us who could win it, and four or five who couldn't. But I believe that there are more good teams in this conference. You look at the scores and they're all close. There's no weekends off in this league, I can assure you that."
BC will be given an early indoctrination into the rigors of ACC life when it opens conference play with back-to-back Bowden Bowls. BC hosts Bobby Bowden and Florida State Sept. 17 at Alumni Stadium, then visits Clemson, S.C., to face Tommy Bowden's Tigers Sept. 25.
Welcome to the ACC.
As daunting as they appear, BC is prepared to meet those challenges. A tour of the Yawkey Center leaves one with the unmistakable impression this small Jesuit school is committed to being a first-class program in a big-time conference. More important, it has sent the message that the Eagles are in it to win.
''It's a new day here at Boston College," DeFilippo proclaimed. ''There's a new league in town. We've opened our football building, we're in a new league, we've committed $4 million to redo our facilities and offices in Conte Forum. It's a new day."
