BC Closes Season at Wake Forest, Preview and Predictions

By Quinn Kelly

Tomorrow afternoon, Boston College will play its final regular season game against the Demon Deacons of Wake Forest.  Going into the game at 5-6, the Eagles need a win to guarantee themselves a bowl game.  As it stands now, BC could, in theory, get a bowl game with a 5-7 record due to their high academic standing, but only a win tomorrow will promise a postseason game.  I’ve heard both opinions around campus on whether or not Eagles fans want to make a bowl game.  While the reasons in favor of making one are obvious, some stand in the camp that says they’d rather miss out in hopes that a change in coaching is sparked as a result.  For those of you who stand in this camp, I think it may be time to jump the fence.  Michael Sullivan, head sports writer for The Heights, tweeted out this two days ago, giving credence to a fear that many in the anti-Addazio group had:

If this is the case, as all signs point to it being, then it is truly imperative that BC goes bowling.  This is a team that has a lot of people down on it, and Daz & Co are in desperate need of a selling point to gain future recruits.  On top of this, the team that remains is in need of a serious morale boost as it is.  So, it looks like we should be giving our whole-hearted support to the Eagles tomorrow.  They certainly have a tough test in front of them, going in 3-point underdog to a Wake Forest team that many people are high on.  But, the Eagles do have one victory against the spread this year.  Let’s dive in and see if BC could be in line for another down in Winston-Salem.

The Demon Deacons come in just a game better than the Eagles, sitting at 6-5 themselves.  The two teams have 5 common opponents: Louisville, Clemson, FSU, NC State, and Syracuse.  Both teams lost to the first three on the list, but have opposing results with the latter two.  The Eagles scored their lone ACC win against NC State, a team that Wake Forest lost to 33-16, but lost by 8 to Syracuse, who Wake Forest defeated 28-9.  So why does ESPN give Wake a 70.1% chance to win?  Why do people generally believe Wake to be a superior team to BC?  The thing you could point to would be Wake’s performances against the first three teams on the common opponents list.  While Boston College was outscored by Louisville, Clemson, and FSU by a combined 153-24, Wake played FSU tight, losing 17-6, and had one good half against the other two (taking a 12-3 lead into the half against Louisville and holding Clemson to one score on their final six drives after scuffling out of the gate).

In reality, though, these teams are very similar.  Wake, like the Eagles, don’t have many quality wins, if any.  They are two better in the ACC win column than the Eagles, but the Eagles didn’t have the benefit of playing two basement dwellers in Duke and Virginia, instead playing two bowl eligible teams in Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech.  Take a look at the split stats as well; plenty of similarities here:

The only category with major disparity here is the yards allowed category.  But, though Wake allows about 76 more yards per game, they make up for it by allowing just over 3 fewer points per game, essentially making the defensive statistics a wash.  This considered, the Demon Deacons and the Eagles prove further to be very similar teams.  So what about these numbers says that the Eagles can get it done Saturday?

First and foremost, it’s definitely encouraging that Wake is allowing over 160 yards on the ground.  If there defensive numbers were more skewed towards pass yards allowed, then the Eagles would have a real problem on their hands.  Patrick Towles and the Eagles receiving corps have proven to struggle all season with moving the ball through the air.  The rushing game, while not entirely consistent, has been far more reliable than the passing game, and the Eagles will build a win off the back of their rushing.  If you want to look deeper, though, there are even encouraging signs for the passing game.  Though BC doesn’t move the ball through the air well, when they do it’s on big passing plays rather than sustained drives.  Wake Forest has a bit of a penchant for allowing big plays, having given up at least one play of more than 40 yards in every single game this season except their matchup with Delaware.  And of those games, 7 of them have had a passing play of more than 40 yards.  That just means that with the speed of Jeff Smith and Michael Walker, it’s more than likely that BC will have at least one shot to take the top off the Deacons defense.

On the other side of the ball, this Wake Forest offense is not one that the Eagles should fear at all.  Junior quarterback John Wolford will lead Wake into the game after missing last week’s game against Clemson with a shoulder injury.  While the Deacons do bring a two-headed rushing attack with Matt Coburn and Cade Carney, the Eagles have had no problem stopping the rush all season, allowing just a bit over 100 yards per game.  Where the defense has been exposed, though, is in the passing game.  The Eagles secondary has been far from the secondaries of recent years, being beaten with increasing regularity as the season has gone on.  The good news for them, however, is that this is not a big passing team.  Despite touting a pretty balanced attack and averaging about 161 yards per game through the air, Wake is still a bit of a dink and dunk type passing offense.  Wolford only averages 5.89 yards per pass attempt.  This is something that the BC secondary can definitely handle.

Is all this enough to suggest that the Eagles will get the job done in Winston-Salem, though?  I have a tough time saying yes.  Be it justified or unjustified, there seems to me to be an air around this team that says they can’t get up for a big game.  There’s not much to base this thought off of, other than the fact that it’s been so long since this team has been in a big game.  The biggest game they’ve really been in over the last two years was this year’s opener in Ireland against Georgia Tech.  And, of course, we saw how the Eagles blew that game.  But, inexperience and lack of success aside, the numbers would suggest that BC has a great shot at taking this game from the Demon Deacons.  Let’s see what our experts have to say on the matter, on to the predictions:

Quinn Kelly	Boston College 13-10	This is a classic case of my head thinking one thing, and my heart feeling another.  I don’t think that BC will win this game, but I bleed Maroon and Gold so #RollDamnEags and give me Mikey Knoll with a pair for the dub.
Scott Geyman	Boston College 17-14
Steve McAlee	Wake Forest 17-13	I wish I would have seen something by this point in the season that tells me BC is up to the challenge of a must-win game, but the only convincing wins have come against teams that are well below ANY Power 5’s caliber. Wake wants 7 wins badly, and I just don’t see Patrick Towles and the running game stopping that from happening considering what we have seen so far this season. Even in the lone ACC win over NC State, the offense only mustered two touchdowns and one of them came from the arm of Davon Jones, the backup running back. The Demon Deacons are nothing special, but they are much better than the UConn team that BC dominated last weekend. It’s a close one up until the end, and I see Mike Knoll hitting two big field goals, but the offense sputters late and Wake Forest takes Rivalry Week.
Landon Komishane	Boston College 17-1o	It’s going to be a slow day offensively for both teams, but the Eagles will play with more urgency and win the special teams battle.
Ben Neuwirth	Wake Forest 24-14
Conor Hawley	Boston College 3-0	…..Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Kyle Maslan	Boston College 17-14
Anthony Iati	Wake Forest 17-13	The Demon Deacons are coming off a brutal two game stretch of losing to Louisville and Clemson. While the Deacs are already bowl eligible, they are hungry to improve their positioning by beating a weak opponent at home. The Eagles have not shown enough consistency against conference foes on either side of the ball. BC loses at Wake and will need help in order to be selected for a bowl game.
Casey Hague	Boston College 13-10	After the 3-0 debacle at Alumni last year, Coach Addazio adjusts the game plan to clinch the 6th win of the season, securing BC a bowl game birth and his position as head coach for 2017.
Andrew Kelley	Boston College 20-17	2 key FG from Knoll and a strong defensive effort gets BC to bowl eligibility.
Jake DeLorenzo	Wake Forest 20-13
Michael Graziano	—–	——
Ryan Short	Boston College 24-21