Massachusetts at Boston College: 5 big questions

I’m fairly certain that I could come up with more than five questions, given how distressing of a start this team is off to, but I’m going to hold at five. There’s a lot I want to know about this team’s composure coming into the UMass game, and I think if there’s anything left to learn about this group, we’ll find it out on Saturday.

5.) If there were a spread for this game, what would it be?

4.) What’s the difference between a bad FBS team and a decent FCS team?

[Combined onto one page due to similarity and to reduce my output of effort]

Sort of difficult to answer the first one since this is an FBS/FCS game, but if I had to put one down on paper, it would be BC -7. I feel ridiculous for even suggesting that this Boston College team could be a seven-point favorite in anything, but that’s roughly what I think the difference between a bad FBS team and a decent FCS team is. It may, in reality, be a little bit bigger than that in ordinary times, but the Eagles are definitely playing down to the level of their opposition. I would not be surprised in the slightest if they did not cover that hypothetical spread.

Would the Eagles lose on Saturday to the best FCS team (currently Georgia Southern?) I don’t know, but I do know that UMass is #19 in FCS, not the best, and BC isn’t playing well enough on the whole to win any game convincingly. In fact, they’re almost certainly one of the top ten worst FBS teams at present. With regards to question 4, I think we’re going to get a definitive answer by Saturday afternoon.

The Sagarin ratings, for what they’re worth, think we very well might lose to the top FCS team, and we’re not doing so well against UMass, either.