Army at Boston College: Political Football

Normally, Wednesday is the day in which this website establishes the matchup between the Eagles defense and the opponent’s offense. A supporting graphic may yet come late this week if the Army vs. Boston College game is played after all.

Nevertheless, it is Wednesday morning and we do not know if the Eagles will play their game on Saturday. Sometimes, things generally unrelated to politics are said to be used as “political footballs” if they get dragged into a governmental mess. This time, one political football is…football.

As such, the game on Saturday is in limbo. Since that disturbs and saddens a great many of you, let me cheer you up with a catchy tune:

Of course this happened to us. It has already been a bizarre football season with the spring game getting cancelled after the bombing, the #BeADude controversy, headaches from PETA, and now this. We would be lucky if a game potentially being cancelled due to Congressional infighting is the last crazy thing that happens to Boston College this year.

As stated yesterday, there are options available to the Eagles as they attempt to iron out a suitable scenario for both schools. ATL outlines several of them in detail, noting correctly that both programs want this game but that the school will not necessarily be bound to a make-up game with Army if one is needed. Lawyers are involved due to the messy issues that have to be assessed, such as the source of Army athletic department funding and what their personnel can and cannot do during this shutdown.

What we do know is that Army is able to practice for the game and that “shutdown games” have been played before. Whether or not this one gets played is still up in the air, but backup plans are being formulated. We also know that Boston College and Army have about a day to figure this out before the game on Saturday gets bagged. If that happens with no make-up game, BC Athletics is going to be giving back a lot of dough to those who bought tickets.

My job is to talk about Boston College sports, not politics. At the end of the day, our non-sports opinions here are both irrelevant and unsolicited, and nothing would give any of us in the blogosphere greater pleasure than to only have to worry about sports. Unfortunately, that is not the lot we have drawn so far.

We can only hope that there is a swift resolution to this problem derived from the shutdown for the sake of both our schools and for the players, who are completely blameless in this.