Boston College at Virginia Tech: Opening Line & The Basics
By Joe Micik
For only the second weekend this season, Boston College football did not lose.
I’m not so sure they’ll be as fortunate this upcoming weekend, as the Eagles will travel down to Blacksburg, Virginia to play the #16 Virginia Tech Hokies.
With the nationally-ranked Hokies having six wins as compared to the Eagles with their five losses, it is no surprise, therefore, that they opened as 21.5-point favorites at home. (It has already dropped to -21 — whoopee.)
My initial guess was something on par with BC +17; this is a little more favorable to the Hokies than I had anticipated and even a point or so worse than the opening line at Clemson, a slightly better team. Irregardless of the pick I make on Friday, I am not sure I would lay the points here, not that I’m gambling or anything, nor do I condone it.
Sure, the upset-minded amongst you may be thinking to yourselves, “BC is coming off of a bye; shouldn’t they be fresher?” Fresher is a possibility; better is a reach, and the two do not necessarily correlate. They’re going to have to be much, much better than they have been, however, to even have a chance at knocking Virginia Tech off and securing their first ACC win of the season.
So far, Boston College’s resume includes a win over UMass and losses, in order, to Northwestern, Central Florida, Duke, Wake Forest, and Clemson. The Hokies, on the other hand, have victories over Appalachian State, East Carolina, Arkansas State, Marshall, Miami, and Wake Forest. Their lone defeat was to Clemson.
Virginia Tech may have six wins, but four of them were chip-shots (for a decent team, anyway). In games that actually matter, the Hokies are 2-1, which doesn’t seem like much, but BC is 0-5 against teams on their own competitive level. Despite the preposterous tripe coming from certain Boston Globe columnists and spin coming from other pro-Spaz sources, the Eagles haven’t played all that well in them, either, ranking near the bottom of the ACC and the nation in a number of the major statistical categories.
In short, this will be a difficult game for Boston College, which will start what promises to be a tough second half of the season.