College football bowl thread: Days of Signs and Roses

Yeah -- I had plenty of annoying BC grads in my class at BC Law. I don't know when the decline in Massachusetts prep sports hit. But coming from Michigan, BC football just had such a small-time feel and that was the mid-90s. I didn't to go many games -- just Notre Dame, Miami and Pitt for the most part and Michigan the one time they came while I was there. The gameday atmosphere in the stadium itself and the tailgate lots and a little bit walking around the Reservoir isn't bad but there's just no local or regional relevance beyond alumni. There's no bigger buzz in the city on gameday. Maybe it would be different if they were better but I doubt it. It's just not a college market. At all.

 

This isn't exactly true. BC's problem is that Boston has too many colleges. Non-BC alums who live in this town outnumber BC grads by a wide margin and all of them range from wholly indifferent to downright hostile to BC football. The BC-BU hockey rivalry is great. The two schools are on the same subway line and they hate each other. But the city will never unite behind BC football. The only time it did were the two and a half Doug Flutie years, and that was him, not the school.

 

And now Flutie's selling pecker pills. What a career!

 

This thread near the top and the one for tonight’s game in the middle of page 3 kinda says a lot about how I expect ratings to go.

 

Seeing credentials for tonight's CFP championship game and saw none for The Dallas Morning News. Is that right? Seems shocking to me. I know a lot of papers have cut back on coverage but, I mean it's in Houston.

 

They are not on the list, but the college football hotbed that is Rhode Island is repped by the Providence Journal.

 

Fair enough. But in college sports markets, teams have huge followings beyond their alumni. Growing up in Michigan, people were Michigan fans and Sparty fans when they had zero connection to the schools. You were much, much more likely to see kids at school wearing Michigan State apparel even in the Muddy Waters years than any of the Detroit pro teams in the 70s and 80s (even in the Tigers/Red Wings/Pistons golden years). You do NOT see that with any of the schools around here. I've never met anyone up here who's hostile to BC football -- people are indifferent.

And I know the BC-BU hockey rivalry is absolutely fantastic as far as college hockey goes. But it's still really a niche sport and nobody really pays much attention to that rivalry if they aren't BC or BU alumni or students or if they aren't a big hockey family.

 

That's a lot of people in Boston.

 

Worth pointing out that BU phased out football a number of years ago.

 

Good brother.

 

So did Northeastern.

 

Ummmm ...