Is BC Football The Worst BCS Conference Team?
By Joe Micik
Melina Vastola-US PRESSWIRE
Whether one has religion or not, it is doubtlessly the sign of a great and merciful higher being that the 2012 Boston College football season is already half over. The first six games have been an unmitigated disaster, leaving little hope for the next six, or the coach who has crashed the team beyond the dock and into the town like the boat in Speed 2. A smoldering wreckage is all that remains of our once proud football program, and it will be up to new athletic director Brad Bates to reconstitute its fleshy residue and start over. We know how bad it is, but relatively speaking, where does Boston College football compare to other teams in the same situation?
First, we will need a list of BCS conference teams that are stinking up the joint. They are:
• Boston College (1-5, 0-3): lost to Army; lost to FSU by 44; ACC Atlantic last place
• Virginia Cavaliers (2-5, 0-3): ACC Coastal last place; lost to Duke by 25; 5-game losing streak
• Kansas Jayhawks (1-5, 0-3): Big 12 last place; only win over South Dakota State; lost to Rice at home
• Illinois Fighting Illini (2-5, 0-3): Big Ten Leaders last place; all losses by 17 or more
• Colorado Buffaloes (1-5, 1-2): Pac-12 South 4th place; lost to Sacramento State; lost to Fresno State by 55
• Auburn Tigers (1-5, 0-4): SEC West last place; no wins in regulation
• Kentucky Wildcats (1-6, 0-4): SEC East last place; lost to Western Kentucky; lost to Arkansas by 42
That is some truly awful football right there. To look at their non-accomplishments graphically, try this out (worst in each category bolded):
| Total Yd | Scoring Off | Total D | Scoring D | FBS wins | FBS non-AQ losses | FCS losses | |
| BC | 387.2 | 24.7 | 503.0 | 32.7 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| UVA | 423.1 | 23.1 | 377.4 | 33.0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| KU | 377.7 | 19.0 | 433.7 | 28.0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| ILL | 309.6 | 18.1 | 376.4 | 30.7 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| COL | 327.3 | 20.8 | 494.2 | 41.3 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| AUB | 287.5 | 16.2 | 416.7 | 26.5 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| UK | 306.4 | 18.6 | 415.6 | 32.9 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Wowie zowie. Mind you, the 503 yards BC has allowed per game includes the Maine game. Remove that, and it shoots up to 565 against FBS competition.
For some outside analysis, I turned to two sites. The first is RealTime RPI, a site that primarily tracks basketball teams but uses the same formula to calculate power rankings for football. In their analysis, they mesh the FBS and FCS teams together, which makes the numbers uglier:
| Team | RealTime RPI Rank | FCS Teams Better | BCS Conf. Teams Worse | FBS Wins |
| UVA | 86 | 3 | 12 | 1 |
| AUB | 88 | 4 | 11 | 1 |
| UK | 101 | 9 | 6 | 1 |
| ILL | 105 | 11 | 5 | 1 |
| KU | 119 | 16 | 2 | 0 |
| BC | 129 | 21 | 1 | 0 |
| COL | 145 | 27 | 0 | 1 |
According to this website, Boston College is the second-worst BCS conference team at present. Wofford is better than us right now, as are an incredible 20 other FCS teams. RealTime RPI has also predicted a 2-10 finish for this team, which you have to admit sounds pretty realistic. That is very embarrassing, but the Sagarin ratings are far more favorable – if one wants to call it that. These, too, mix FBS and FCS teams together.
| Team | Sagarin Rank |
| AUB | 67 |
| BC | 85 |
| UVA | 90 |
| KU | 92 |
| ILL | 95 |
| UK | 102 |
| COL | 144 |
Jeff Sagarin thinks so highly of us that we’re the 85th-best Division I team in his view. If that’s something you’d like to hang your hat on, then be my guest.
It is very easy to argue at this point that Colorado is the worst of the BCS conference teams. They’re consistently at the bottom, so that’s an easy choice, but where does Boston College fall? We could be second-worst, or could be a few spots higher, depending on who you ask. BC fans don’t need statistical analysis to figure out that this team is bad, but it especially hurts knowing that the team doesn’t even compare favorably to other bad teams.