The Holy Inferiority Complex: Recent History of Boston College vs. Notre Dame

I've written before that I don't get the whole Backup College thing with Boston College.  I wasn't a Notre Dame fan before going there and I grew up in western Pennsylvania, so I didn't know any Boston College fans, nor did I ever think I should compare BC's academic tradition to that of Notre Dame's.  Even going to school there, I never really got it.  More than that, the Backup College thing didn't make sense to me, only because I didn't apply to BC, nor did many other people I knew.  (Maybe everyone at Boston College did apply to Notre Dame and got rejected, but I had no idea.)

So I basically ignored Boston College, save for the week we played them in football.  But following our fellow SBNation site BC Interruption on Twitter is just a master class in how to have a tremendous inferiority complex.  Any time there is a chance to take a crack at Notre Dame - no matter how far they have to stretch - it happens.  When it was announced that the Big Ten was holding its title game in Indianapolis, BC Interruption pulled a Mr. Fantastic, saying that it was an FU to the Irish.  The explanation didn't really make sense (something about a BCS title-affecting game being played in Indiana), but I don't get too upset with individual Twitter comments.  We're all just throwing crap out there, hoping something  will stick and make people laugh.

But then there's this from earlier month, a piece entitled "Notre Dame vs. Boston College: A One-Sided Holy War"?  We're going to talk about what would drive someone to write this in a moment, but first, let's look at some specifics.  I'm going to excerpt chunks to provide context, then bold the stuff I'd like to address. 

But before we get to the fun stuff, let's just bask in the gloriousness of this rivalry. Here are two teams, both with strong Irish Catholic traditions, with fan bases who hate each other based on perceived academic superiority (let's be honest here, BC holds the title there, and I don't need stats to prove it). Each year, the two play each other, and for the most part the games become instant classics. Fans from both schools travel in droves when their team is on the road, and for BC students, the RV trip to South Bend has become a highlight of their college careers.

I have no idea what the first bolded part means.  I know you said you don't need the stats, but is there any sort of academic ranking where Notre Dame is below Boston College?  Let's quickly move onto football stuff, I just honestly didn't understand that first line.  For the second highlighted part, let's be clear: Notre Dame travels well to every road game.  Notre Dame is one of like two games a year Boston College fans care about.  Please don't confuse "Lots of Notre Dame fans showing up at a stadium not in South Bend" with "Notre Dame fans really care about this game specifically!". 

There is now a list of Notre Dame and Boston College's records starting in 2000.  I'll address this in the summary, but I don't think any Notre Dame fan would argue that we haven't had a great last decade.  I also don't think any Notre Dame fan would trade their program for Boston College's, despite the Eagles averaging over a win more per year over that stretch.  Onward.

Based strictly on a wins-loss analysis, BC would have the edge. Strength of schedule has to go to Boston College here. Scheduling USC and Michigan on a regular basis will definitely make your life harder, but how would you explain not regularly beating the service academies? ND aims to build a schedule that just throws the BCS bowls on the Irish's lap. That is all part of ND's "we are part of football's elite" mentality, which as you can see, they haven't been in more than a decade.

Oh Jesus, here we go.  Does strength of schedule have to go to Boston College?  I would just like to remind everyone that they play in the ACC, which isn't exactly the SEC West.  And Notre Dame aims to build a schedule that throws the BCS bowls into their lap?  I'm not even going to respond to this because Stewart Mandel already did earlier in the year.

Notre Dame is only a "contender" in Notre Dame's eyes. They haven't been relevant for over a decade now. We've heard a million stories how they're finally back and ready to make a splash. They can't win games even though their schedule is soft every single year. ENOUGH! PLEASE! NO MORE NOTRE DAME STUFF! I HATE NOTRE DAME! (Just like everyone else in the country outside of Indiana.)
-- Tyler, Eden Prairie, Minn.

Tyler: You seem to be suffering from two misconceptions. One, Notre Dame isn't particularly loved in the state of Indiana, either. They have far more fans in Manhattan than Muncie. But second, whether or not you believe the Irish will ever be "back," can we stop with the outdated soft schedule nonsense? Unlike most FBS teams, they don't play FCS opponents. They play USC and Michigan every year. Two of their other annual opponents, Stanford and Michigan State, won 12 and 11 games, respectively, last season. In fact, their 2010 opponents had the highest combined FBS winning percentage (.653) in the country during the regular season, and nine of their 12 foes this season played in a bowl game last year. (And ineligible USC would have made for 10).

Also, Air Force and Navy are pretty good!  I'm not sure if you noticed, but they're regularly playing in bowl games.  Navy almost won at Ohio State in 2009.  Air Force beat Georgia  Tech in a bowl game last postseason.  I mean, I know you dominated Navy by one point when you played them in 2006, but the service academies (save Army) are not necessarily easy wins!

The best part about this is one of the BC Interruption writers actually does the work in calculating the SOS the last ten years.  The average?  Notre Dame's is 19.9, Boston College's is 46.4.  How is that clearly in favor of Boston College you ask?  The apparent answer.

But shouldn't that always be the case? Seems like you are comparing apples to oranges when you consider Notre Dame gets to hand-pick the 12 teams it faces each year (and still schedules the likes of Nevada, Tulsa, Western Michigan and San Diego State). BC gets to select just 3-4 opponents each year and doesn't have a choice in playing Duke, Wake Forest, Rutgers, UConn, etc., which weighs down SOS.

You can't see me right now, but I am kneading my forehead like a professional baker.  That is one of the most amazing attempts at twisting logic you will ever find: Notre Dame's strength of schedule is twenty spots better than Boston College's because Notre Dame gets to pick easier teams to play.  Try to digest that before you move on.

First off, Tulsa and Nevada are good.  For crying out loud, Nevada beat Boston College in a bowl game last year!  They both won double digit games in 2010.  If Tulsa, Nevada, Navy or Air Force is the worst team on your schedule, that is an incredibly tough schedule.  Secondly, Notre Dame didn't play Western Michigan and San Diego State in the same season.  They only played two of those teams in the same season (Western Michigan and Tulsa, last year), and if you want to make the "Oh, we had to schedule someone!" argument, some Irish fans would make that for Western Michigan after the TCU contract fell apart (thanks, Dr. White).  And if Notre Dame is hand-picking easy opponents, why is their SOS so high every year?  Hey Notre Dame: Crappy job of picking easy opponents!

But the part I love the most - oh man, do I love this - is that Boston College gets to select just 3-4 opponents every year.  Playing the brutal ACC schedule that they have to deal with (I'm not sure what's good sarcasm font, but pretend I used it for the start of this sentence), these are who the brave and mighty Eagles have scheduled the last few years:

2010 - Weber State, Kent State, Notre Dame, Syracuse

2009 - Northeastern, Kent State, Central Michigan, Notre Dame 

2008 - Kent State, Central Florida, Rhode Island, Notre Dame

2007 - Army, UMass, Bowling Green, Notre Dame

So I think it's safe to say that the thing hurting Boston College's annual strength of schedule is not, in fact, that they have to play a couple of bad in-conference opponents ever year.  I would maybe attribute it to the fact that they're playing a I-AA team every year, along with the annual showdown with Kent State.  Maybe the Boston College athletic department can give some advice to Notre Dame's on how to pick SOS-dropping opponents?

The piece then moves onto bowl history.  I think we all know that Notre Dame has been through some dark, dark times when it comes to bowls.  Again, there isn't a single Notre Dame fan that would argue that.  If you wanted to make the argument as a Boston College fan, you would just say "You went a decade and a half without winning a bowl, there's no way you're better than us in that."  I would nod vigorously, because that's the truth.  Somehow, you managed to screw up that argument, too.

It's not very tough to pick a winner in this debate. BC has a much better record in their bowls 8-3, to Notre Dame's 2-8. And honestly, I don't care if the Irish were in higher ranked bowls -- if you don't win, you don't win (ask UConn how that feels). Getting stomped in BCS bowls doesn't do much for the credibility of your program (again talk to UConn).

 

BC, on the other hand, has taken care of business with the bowls they have been assigned to. Could some of these teams beaten better teams in better bowls? That's an interesting question, but the bowl BC has been selected to was not dictated by skill, but mostly due to the fact that our fans travel very poorly.

Listen, it does matter who you play.  Boston College went on a nice eight-game bowl winning streak at the start of the prior decade.  These are the bowls they won: Aloha, Music City, Motor City, San Francisco, Continental Tire, MPC Computers, Meineke Car Care and Champs Sports.  Notre Dame has no excuse for how poorly they played in bowl games, but I will point out that they were underdogs in nearly all of them.  If you feed the 2005 and 2006 Boston College teams to 2005 Ohio State and 2006 LSU, that bowl streak is not as long.  Heck, if Boston College had to go against Phil Rivers with their backup quarterback in 2002, that streak might get stopped a lot shorter.

And this gets down to why this post had to be written: It must be incredibly frustrating to be a Boston College fan when no one ever cares about your program.  You have Matt Ryan, Heisman candidate and future first round draft pick, and after you lose the ACC championship game you get sent all the way to the Champs Sports Bowl.  You have to beg your alumni to come back for games.  You played consistent winning football for a decade and didn't get to play on New Year's Day once.  Are any of those games even on New Year's Eve?  It must be a special kind of frustrating to see Notre Dame doted on by the media, playing in primetime game after primetime game when away or with their own network for every home game.  They go 8-5 after an extended fallow period, and whoosh, they shoot up to number six in Phil Steele's preseason poll.

If it helps you to take an 11-year sample size during one of the worst periods in Notre Dame's history and cling to it, I'll allow you that.  This is the time to do it, as Brian Kelly (hopefully) begins to set things right in the world.  You can already see the trend, as Notre Dame has a meager two-bowl game win streak and has won its last two games against Boston College, while the Eagles have dropped three straight postseason games.  If this post serves as time capsule for when Boston College had an edge in the Holy War, so be it.

But please, don't make terrible arguments.  Just say "Boston College has had a better last ten years than Notre Dame," and stick to the useful bullet points you posted at the end.    Don't try to qualify it by saying that bowl game opponents don't matter or your strength of schedule is tougher.  During one of the best ten-year stretches in Boston College history, you have a slight - and admitted! - edge on one of the worst stretches in Notre Dame history.  Enjoy this moment -savor it - because I don't think the next few years will treat you as kindly in comparison.

Update: I got lazy last night and stopped block quoting.  I was watching Andrew McCutchen's walkoff home run on repeat and neglected to point out the part where BC Hysteria gave some props to Notre Dame, as was pointed out in the comments.  I'm going to clip that, as well as the the bullet points at the end.  

But are the winds changing for these two Catholic rivals? Notre Dame looked much improved last year, and Brian Kelly could have the Irish heading in the right direction, while Spaz has the Eagles  mired in the muck of mediocrity. 

-- In the Holy War since 2000, Boston College has 6 wins to Notre Dame's 3.
-- BC has had eight first round NFL Draft picks since 2000, compared to Notre Dame's 2.
-- Since 2004, BC has had 9 wins against ranked opponents. Notre Dame has 7.
-- While BC has never had an ESPN Top 25 recruiting class, Notre Dame has been on the list every year since the site kept track in 2006.
-- In 2010, Notre Dame spent $29.4 million dollars on its football program while Boston College spent $17.2 million.