The Sgt. Slaughter meets Steve Ballmer person that is Boston College head coach Steve Addazio returns to Chestnut Hill for his 5th season but just barely. The Eagles won the Quick Lane Bowl against Maryland to give Addazio a key 7th victory and winning record. They even scored 30+ points against a Power 5 team for the first time in 2 full seasons!

Boston College was off the schedule last year but will be meeting the Irish for the 21st time out of the last 26 seasons. Let’s check back in with them and see how they’re doing.

BOSTON COLLEGE

2016 Record: 7-6
2016 S&P Rank: 86
Offense Returning Production Rank: 53
Defense Returning Production Rank: 43

Wade v. Brown

The Eagles have been going through a quarterback competition this spring following the departure of Kentucky grad transfer Patrick Towles and his modest single year as starter. Darius Wade is a redshirt junior who began as the starter back in 2015 but suffered a season-ending injury and comes into this fall with only 69 career pass attempts.

Anthony Brown is a redshirt freshman who is getting praised for all of the things younger guys receive in competitions with an older teammate: He’s faster, stronger arm, but still learning.

Both players are pretty similar: black, around 6’0″ and 200 pounds, and more athletic than polished passers. In order to take advantage of their skill-sets the Eagles are trying to run more uptempo this off-season.

Help!

Boston College is in need of copious amounts of help on offense as they’ve finished 124th and 125th in S&P+ offense over the last 2 seasons. Quite literally, among the worst offenses in the game. There’s some building confidence in Darius Wade but if the spring game is any indication he won’t offer much explosiveness in the pass game, just 194 yards on 27 attempts. Last year, BC was second-to-last in YPA in the ACC.

The offensive line returns several pieces from last year only to spend most of spring dealing with a lot of injuries and shuffling of positions. At the playmaking spots there’s just not enough proven talent anywhere to really comment too much on right now.

In short, the Eagles are probably looking at a ceiling of below average Power 5 offense and likely being worse than that once again.

Groundhog Day

The loss of Don Brown at the defensive coordinator position (he’s now making $1.4 million per year at Michigan) was big but not back-breaking for the Eagles. They fell from the 2nd overall S&P+ defense to the 21st rank. Imagine if the Irish could achieve that type of success on defense?

Will they continue to slide down the rankings? Maybe a little bit. All-American defensive end Harold Landry returns after a dominant 2016 (22 TFL, 16.5 sacks, 7 forced fumbles) which is a huge boost. A couple of draft picks are gone (4 from the defense selected over the last two drafts) and two out of the top 3 players who helped lead the No. 2 overall havoc rate in the country have moved on.

Enough guys are coming back + Landry where this will still be a good defense and a tricky one to face coming off the heels of the Georgia game.

Summer Spread: Irish Favored by 9.5

When the Irish met BC last time around at Fenway Park in 2015 the spread was a healthy 16.5 points. That was when Notre Dame was 9-1 and the Eagles 3-7 coming in with 6 straight losses.

The last two trips to Alumni Stadium have been notable for boring but relatively easy victories. Notre Dame’s poor record in true road games plus the uncertainty around the program will drag this spread down a little bit.

Buy or Sell: Addazio Coaching BC in 2018

It’s going to be very close but I will sell. The schedule is unusually difficult featuring Clemson, FSU, and Louisville in league play plus a not terrible OOC lineup of Northern Illinois, Central Michigan, and UConn.

Boston College also just hired a young hot-shot new athletic director Martin Jarmond from Ohio State where he was the deputy director of athletics. Won’t he want to make a splashy new hire? The bad news is that Addazio will have 3 years left on his contract after 2017. Not an insurmountable hurdle but perhaps something to force an additional year of Sargent Ballmer.

Know a Player: RB Jon Hilliman

Boston College has been trying their best to run Hilliman straight into the ground. In 2014, he broke the Eagles’ freshman record for rushing attempts (211) with a decent 860 yards and more impressive 13 touchdowns. Hilliman was supposed to be the future star in Chestnut Hill.

However, he broke his foot early in 2015 and missed the majority of the season and came back last year with an atrocious 542 yards on 184 carries. His 2.95 YPC was half a yard worse than any other qualifying ACC running back last year.

Outfitter: Under Armour

BC was one of the first Power 5 programs to ink a deal with Under Armour. Heading into 2017 they’ll be wearing the Baltimore-based company gear for the 8th year. Their original deal was for 6 years and a 10-year extension was signed back in 2015.

Most Important Game: Virginia, Week 8

The Eagles need to find a way to get bowl eligible and they’ll have a relatively easy string of games to conclude the season (NC State, at UConn, at Syracuse) to do just that. The game in Charlottesville is sandwiched in between Louisville and Florida State which is a real tough break. They’re really going to need this game against Virginia.