Later this afternoon Notre Dame will run onto the tire-filled carpet of Boston College’s Alumni Stadium and another skirmish in this college football Holy War will be fought, and what was once a true event will take place with little national or regional attention.  

I used to plan my calendar around this event, and now it’s, “Oh, Boston College is hosting Notre Dame this weekend?”

In fact, I may have been put on a terrorist watch list with former Sheridan intern, Patrice Mooney, for using the term, “jihad”, in numerous email blasts to describe the gridiron clash between these two Catholic universities. And it may it explain why TSA selects me to go through the full body scan at a percentage that would suggest I have not been randomly selected. I confess long hair may have contributed to their repeated “random selection “ of me, but I’m sure Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA and other agencies within our national security umbrella have collected my puerile emails regarding “jihad” and have attached a watch status to my travels.  

 

What was once an incandescent romance between Boston College football and its fans has evolved into a mediocre Match.com date, which has the two participants gazing at their phones, wondering … when is it polite to say good-bye and head home?

Boston College football is the frumpy, middle-aged divorcee, who is looking for a good man or someone erotically exotic, to recharge her batteries and awaken her sexual libido. Unfortunately, our frumpy middle-aged divorcee refuses to say farewell to a man she has dated for the last five years.

When eligible and confident bachelors message our divorcee, who uses a headshot that is a few years younger than her current self, they are met with reluctance and skepticism. She has a dude. She has a mustachioed dude; who is conservative, boring, creatively-challenged, mildly incompetent – but he’s hung around for five years. He may not excite, he’s not really a winner – but she can’t seem to shake her dude.

The Dazzler

For the past five years, that seems to have been the administration at Boston College’s attitude towards head football coach Steve Addazio. He’s here. He’s okay. And we kind of like his “Be A Dude” aphorism. The Dazzler may not win a lot of football games, his teams get blown out more than any other squads in school history, but he’s our dude. This is sort of our guy.

In the last nine years, Boston College has failed to beat Notre Dame. Notre Dame’s five-game winning streak is a symbol of Boston College futility that cannot all be attributed to the incompetence of Steve Addazio (Because the incompetence of Frank Spaziani preceded The Dazzler’s incompetency.),  but this match-up has lost much of its sizzle as a result of Boston College’s inability to compete with Notre Dame or be relevant within the grand scale of college football. Boston College isn’t a MILF, but a confused middle-aged divorcee in stasis mode.

Boston College’s negligent decision to continue the Steve Addazio Experiment has undermined the appeal of its brand. Of course, the reluctance to fire Addazio was predicated on the idea that a new athletic director, Martin Jarmond, should have the ability to hire his own coach. But Boston College is a college football joke. With UMass losing to Temple last night and Boston College’s expected loss to Notre Dame this afternoon, it can be persuasively argued that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is home to the worst college football in America. Arguably retaining Addazio was the prudent course of action, but it has resulted in a Boston College football program that is stuck in neutral.

Entering today’s game versus the Fightin’ Irish, the Eagles sport a record of 1-1. Their win coming against MAC member, Northern Illinois University, which easily could have resulted in a loss. The Dazzler got lucky in DeKalb, Illinois. The Eagles were clearly the more talented team, but were outcoached and nearly outplayed by a physically inferior NIU squad. Last Saturday, Boston College hosted Wake Forest, a fellow ACC cellar dweller and recruiting rival, and got their asses handed to them by the lopsided score of 34-10.

How do you walk into a recruit’s home, after getting smoked by the less than impressive Demon Deacons, and convince a young man that Chestnut Hill should be his home for the next four to five years? That’s a tough sell.

I never thought I would write something like this or think something like this, but I want Notre Dame to wax the Eagles today. I want today’s game to put an end to any talk that Steve Addazio is the right man to coach the Eagles. I’m ashamed to write the previous sentences, but I want Boston College football to be relevant again and not stuck in a relationship that is lacking on so many levels.

Should Boston College hire another louche douche like Jeff Jagodzinski? No, but Jags could coach up a team on game day.

Should the Eagles hire a psychotic madman, in the vein of Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly, who sacrificed a student manager to make the echoes ring again? Uh … I don’t think so.

And should Martin Jarmond find the next P.J. Fleck, who has made Minnesota football a national brand, with his four-part, Being P.J. Fleck, documentary/reality show on ESPN? I believe that Mr. Jarmond understands that P.J. Fleck is a new coaching paradigm, who understands the impact of social media and brand exposure to college football recruits. Fleck is taking things to a whole new level and Boston College should be taking notes.

Where does this leave our middle-aged divorcee and this Boston College football fan? I’m waiting. I’m waiting for the right decision to be made and our relationship to move to another level. I want to fall back in love with Boston College football. I want to post Facebook photos of our new relationship and show all of my Facebook friends that love can be rekindled. At Alumni Stadium, let’s toast our rekindled passion with a Bud and a glass of white wine. (In the golden era of craft beer, only Boston College would offer Bud and Bud Light as the only in-stadium beer choices. How many craft breweries are located within twenty miles of Chestnut Hill?)

Hey, I’m waiting. Just take that first step, baby. We can work this out. This is more about me than it has ever been about you, but just give me a sign. Just an indication that this wait is worth it.

Memories

 

Prediction & Hopefully A Self-Fulfilling Prophesy: Boston College will be without their starting center and starting middle linebacker, which translates into a huge edge for Notre Dame. With redshirt freshman and New Jersey native, Anthony Brown, taking the snaps at quarterback, look for the Notre Dame defense to have its way with another Steve Addazio offense that is ranked near the bottom of college football. Expect the game to be sort of close for a half, and then Brian Kelly’s Fightin’ Irish will assert its dominance in the second half.

Score: Notre Dame 41  Boston College 13

Put the needle on Father John Misty’s The Night Josh Tillman Came To Our Apt.