Eagles set for takeoff

PROVO, Utah -- They have come here -- to this picturesque setting at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains -- to spread their wings, finally.

No longer Big East lame ducks, the Boston College Eagles have arrived in the Utah Valley intent on soaring into a new era of their gridiron history as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Eagles, ranked 22d in the Associated Press Top 25 and the ESPN/USA Today coaches' polls and picked in a preseason ACC poll to finish second behind Florida State in the Atlantic Division, will open their inaugural season in the ACC with today's nonconference showdown against Brigham Young at LaVell Edwards Stadium.

''It doesn't matter what conference they're from, they're still going to get respect from us," said Bronco Mendenhall, BYU's first-year coach who was promoted after serving the last two years as defensive coordinator on the staff of Gary Crowton.

The Eagles certainly earned that much after finishing in four-way tie for the Big East title in 2004 and capping a 9-3 season with a 37-24 victory over North Carolina in the Continental Tire Bowl, marking BC's fifth consecutive bowl win under coach Tom O'Brien, who is 57-39 in eight years at The Heights.

Each year, though, has brought O'Brien a new set of concerns in the opener.

''I'm anxious to see how this team plays," said O'Brien, who is 5-3 in his eight openers, winning three of the last four, including a shaky, 19-11 triumph at Ball State last season. ''Every year you have to put pieces of the puzzle together and you're not sure if you've done it the right way. You're not sure how a team's going to react to adversity, how they're going to react if they have success. The leadership and the dynamics of that; who's going to step up and be the leader in a time of crisis.

''This will be a good test for us. There's going to be 65,000 people, I guess, right on top of us. It's going to be tough playing conditions and we're going to play a team that has a tremendous heritage in football. So this is going to be a heck of a challenge for this football team."

While much as been made of the distinct home-field advantage that BYU will have playing at altitude (elevation: 4,500 feet above sea level), and how more than half of BYU's roster is made up of ''mature" players (31 married, eight with children) who have completed their two-year missions, O'Brien and his staff have had to focus on more pressing concerns.

Namely, what kind of offensive scheme BYU will throw at the Eagles.

One clue, perhaps, came when the 38-year-old Mendenhall, in one of his first official acts as head coach, decreed his Cougars (5-6 last year, 4-3 Mountain West) would go back to wearing the traditional, royal blue uniforms of BYU teams past in attempt to restore the program's proud heritage. Translation: The Cougars will be looking to fling it early and often, much like they did in the days of Robbie Bosco, Jim McMahon, Steve Young, and Ty Detmer before making the fashion mistake of switching to those unsightly, navy blue with gold trim unis they wore last year.

Another came, perhaps, when Mendenhall hired Robert Anae, an offensive line coach at pass-happy Texas Tech, to return to his alma mater as the Cougars' offensive coordinator. Translation: ''Robert, when you come back to Provo, don't forget to bring Texas Tech's playbook with you."

So forget the altitude, and forget the fact that BYU may have a roster of players eligible to carry AARP cards. Figuring out what Mendenhall has up his sleeves is what's kept O'Brien and his staff up at night this preseason.

''I think that's the harder thing, for us as a coaching staff," O'Brien said. ''You figure the defense isn't going to change if he keeps his fingers in the defense, but it's trying to piece together what they're going to do on offense. The quarterback coach [Brandon Doman] is a former BYU guy who came back from the 49ers and has a professional football background, and the other guy [Anae], the offensive coordinator, has a Texas Tech background.

''A Utah writer asked me if there was going to be a lot of halftime adjustments, and I said, 'There could be a lot of adjustments after the first series.' If they come out in the Air Force wishbone . . . then we guessed wrong."

O'Brien can take some comfort in the fact his offensive line will return all five starters from last year and that fifth-year senior quarterback Quinton Porter, who went 5-5 as a junior starter in 2003 and passed for 1,764 yards and 14 touchdowns, has reclaimed the job after spending last season as a redshirt on the scout squad.

Then there's the matter of BC's defense, which returns its talented linebacking corps and its leader, senior defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka, who was voted the ACC's preseason Player of the Year, without ever having played a down in the conference.

''It's not something that affects me on a constant basis, I'm not always thinking about it," Kiwanuka said, when asked if he felt burdened at all by the preseason hype. ''I talked to my sister after another article had come out and I was like, 'I'm getting a lot of accolades and a lot of praise on credit.' It's going to be time to pay back these loans here in a little bit."