Rounding Up Recent BC Bowl Projections

A bowl game usually means the chance to travel somewhere new for the holidays. It offers a chance for recruits near the site to easily check out the team and for the current players to enjoy a change of scenery.

Boston College might not get that experience. The Eagles are bowl eligible, but they’re projected by several outlets to remain in Beantown for the Wasabi Fenway Bowl, which is scheduled for an 11 a.m. kickoff at Fenway Park on Dec. 29.

The bowl pits an ACC team versus an AAC team. It didn’t happen last year because of COVID-19, so this will be its inaugural game.

Here are some of this week’s projections:

Takeaway: East Carolina is having its best season since 2014, a year in which the Pirates were ranked as high as No. 18 in the AP Poll and were last bowl eligible. ECU is currently 7-4 and 5-2 in AAC play. The Pirates haven’t lost a game by more than two scores this year and gave No. 19 Houston a run for its money, falling in overtime when the teams met on Oct. 23. ECU plays No. 4 Cincinnati this week. A win over the Bearcats would not only spoil whatever College Football Playoff hopes Cincinnati has but also propel ECU to a better bowl than Fenway.

Takeaway: At one point last year, Tulsa was the No. 18 team in the country. The Hurricane went 6-1 in AAC play during the COVID-19-affected season and played in its first bowl game since 2016. Head coach Philip Montgomery’s team is trying to make it two in a row but needs a win this week at SMU. Tulsa is 5-6 but has played some great teams tough this year. The Hurricane blew a fourth quarter lead and fell to now-No. 7 Oklahoma State, 28-23, back in September. Then, the next week, it was only trailing now-No. 2 Ohio State by a touchdown at halftime. And, later in the year, Tulsa held its own against a top-five Cincinnati team. Wouldn’t be an eye-catching draw for BC, however, it would be a decent test for this Eagles team.

Takeaway: It’s been a down year for a Memphis program that had won eight or more games each of the previous seven seasons. The Tigers are 5-6 and need a victory this week against Tulane to clinch bowl eligibility. Memphis has been up and down, upsetting Mississippi State in September, nearly beating still-undefeated UTSA the next week but then losing to Temple and Tulsa. Memphis is second in the AAC in passing offense, thanks to quarterback Seth Henigan, who has thrown for 2,986 yards while posting a 22:8 touchdown-to-interception ratio. So that could be an intriguing matchup with BC’s improved secondary.

Outlook: Look, the Fenway Bowl certainly wasn’t BC’s goal at the beginning of the season. And it isn’t right now. After all, if the Eagles upset No. 21 Wake Forest this weekend, recording their first victory over an AP-ranked opponent since 2014, they’ll most definitely play in a better postseason game. But if BC does end up at Fenway, the Eagles, at the very least, will be able to sell a bunch of tickets, which is harder for the program to do when it’s sent to somewhere like Detroit or Birmingham, Alabama.