Know Your Notre Dame Football Enemy: Boston College
Notre Dame football has a special rivalry with the only other Catholic school in FBS.
Steve Addazio and his squad will come to South Bend for what will be senior night for Notre Dame football. Since 2013, when Addazio joined Boston College, his teams have been an exceedingly average 38-38 with a single bowl win.
Over that decidedly average span of time, Boston College had established a distinct reputation. They play tough defense and have an anemic offense. That might not be fair of each Boston College team in the past six seasons, but it’s hard to forget losing 3-0 at home to Wake Forest on homecoming.
Still, people thought they had a legitimate shot of beating Clemson last season (they didn’t). In other words, the Eagles are difficult to figure out.
If there’s one obvious thing about Boston College, though, it’s that their offense goes through AJ Dillon. Dillon is an elite running back and will arguably be the best player on the field when these two teams meet. During his freshman season, Dillon ran for over 1,500 yards. He followed it up with an 1,100-yard season, but took a beating in the process.
The same thing is going to be true of the 2019 season. Boston College is going to feed Dillon, and he’ll take a beating. There’s a good chance his legs aren’t fully under him by the time Notre Dame meets Boston College.
Having a guy like Dillon forces defenses to load up the box. That, hypothetically, will leave corners on an island against wide receivers. The other thing it will do is leave linebackers and safeties susceptible to play action. All it should take to succeed is an average quarterback.
Boston College has struggled to find consistent quarterback play.
Anthony Brown will be a third year starter, and if he can’t step up against top-competition now, he never will. Brown hasn’t been bad, just not good. In 2018, he threw for just over 2,000 yards and had just better than a 2-1 touchdown ratio. Of course, his bad games came against good teams, and his good games came against bad teams. Four of his twenty touchdowns came against UMass. Against Purdue, he threw 4 of his 10 interceptions.
With new offensive coordinator Mike Bajakian, they’ll probably look to open it up more than they did last season, but there still aren’t a ton of explosive options.
Defensively, Boston College lost a lot of talent on the defensive line. Most notably both defensive ends, who were elite. Zach Allen, Boston College’s elite defensive end, is now an Arizona Cardinal. He’s not the only defensive lineman gone, though. Boston College is going to be playing a number of inexperienced players on the defensive line.
Boston College has the same issue of turnover in the secondary. They’ll be inexperienced, and need to find the players to maintain their continued level of excellence on defense. Make no mistake — Boston College is typically going to ball on defense.
Prediction: Notre Dame 31, Boston College 19
Boston College will pound a Notre Dame defense with some question marks of its own, but not enough to consistently get into the end zone. By the end of the season, Boston College should have its defensive experience issues sorted out, but it’s unlikely they’ll be talented enough to contain the Notre Dame offense entirely. Too many field goals costs Boston College a shot at the upset.