WVU could clinch BCS bowl with win
Win, and they are in.
It is as simple as that for the West Virginia Mountaineers against Boston College this weekend.
WVU (8-1, 4-0 Big East) will secure its place in the Bowl Championship Series with a victory over the Eagles in Morgantown, W.Va., on Saturday.
For Boston College, it is an opportunity to make history. BC has never finished higher than third in the conference and now has an opportunity to pull one win closer to the top of the Big East standings. The Eagles will have to do so on the road, though. Playing on the road is a key factor that lends the advantage to the Mountaineers.
‘It’s awful difficult to pack up and win on the road,’ BC head coach Tom O’Brien said. ‘We haven’t proven ourselves on the road this year, and it should be a real test for us.’
Morgantown has been an awfully difficult place for the Eagles to win. Quarterback Doug Flutie never won there, nor did Glenn Foley. BC has lost five consecutive times in Morgantown and has not left West Virginia with a win since a 27-14 win in 1990.
This season, BC (6-2, 2-1) has played one conference road game, a 20-17 defeat at the hands of Pittsburgh.
‘We want it to be hostile from a noise standpoint,’ WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez said, ‘and it will be.’
West Virginia beat BC on WVU’s Senior Day two years ago, and Saturday the Mountaineers will try to have another strong senior send-off. Rasheed Marshall and Kay-Jay Harris head the list of 21 graduating seniors for the Mountaineers.
For O’Brien and the Eagles, it will take their best effort of the season to net a victory. BC has bettered WVU in three of the last eight seasons, and O’Brien says he has been fortunate before.
‘When I first came here (in 1997),’ O’Brien said, ‘and we won the first game against West Virginia, everyone around here thought it was a miracle. And it might have been.’
With BC’s 21-10 victory over Rutgers last Saturday, the Eagles earned their sixth win, making them bowl eligible for a school record sixth consecutive time.
To date, the Eagles and the Mountaineers are the only bowl-eligible teams in the conference, but more could follow. In fact, the Big East could see as many as six teams become bowl eligible.
Syracuse needs just one more win for bowl eligibility, as do Pittsburgh and Connecticut. Rutgers still has an outside chance. The Scarlet Knights are 4-5 and have games remaining at Navy and UConn.
So that could make six bowl-eligible teams. In actuality, though, there would be seven. Notre Dame can be selected by any of the three non-BCS bowls the Big East is contracted with. The Gator Bowl, Insight Bowl and Continental Tire Bowl have the option, because of an agreement between Notre Dame and the Big East, to select the Fighting Irish if they are bowl eligible and don’t qualify for the BCS.
Any of the three bowls can select Notre Dame twice over a four-year span. Notre Dame played in the Gator Bowl in 2002 when the agreement began, and is a possible candidate to go before the second-, third- and fourth-place Big East teams.
In 21 career starts, Rutgers quarterback Ryan Hart has thrown 36 complete passes to his opponents. Hart threw 19 interceptions in 12 games last year, and this year is looking to worsen that mark. This fall, Hart has been picked off 17 times in nine games.
‘I think he is close to being a great quarterback,’ Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano said. ‘What’s getting us now is the interceptions. He’s got to find a way to cut them out, or at least down.’
The Randy Edsall fall reunion tour hasn’t played out quite like the Connecticut head coach would have liked. Already this season, the sixth-year head coach has returned to Boston College – where he served as defensive backs coach from 1991-93 – and his alma mater Syracuse, where he coached for a decade. Twice Edsall’s teams have fallen, 27-7 to the Eagles and 42-30 to the Orange.
Saturday, Edsall takes his Huskies to Atlanta for the final stop on the tour. Edsall was defensive coordinator with Georgia Tech in 1998. That year, the Yellow Jackets had one of their most successful seasons ever, sharing the Atlantic Coast Conference title as Edsall’s defense returned seven fumble recoveries for touchdowns.
‘I have nothing but great memories,’ Edsall said. ‘There are a lot of good people at Georgia Tech and in the Atlanta area.’
Published on November 9, 2004 at 12:00 pm
