Is Boston College the worst CFB team in America?

There have been multiple big-name college football teams guilty of some early stinking, but none match such a description better than Boston College.

It’s only been a couple of weeks, but the ACC has already established itself as a struggling conference in what is a visibly chaotic college football season. Outside of performances from Florida State, Duke and Miami, there hasn’t been much from the league worthy of garnering any serious love.

That statement would serve as bad news when standing on its own, but unfortunately, there’s also been a lot of ugliness seen from schools like Clemson, NC State, Virginia and Boston College—oh my, Boston College.

It’s one thing to have a convincing loss to what should be a significantly inferior foe (such as the one that mistake-riddled Clemson was dealt by Duke), and it’s another thing to have a heartbreaking loss to a strong school that plays at a smaller level (like the Cavaliers have thanks to James Madison), but the Eagles have been victimized by some early woes so heinous that they are not just a blemish on the ACC, but quite possibly the worst squad in the entire Power 5.

In Week 1, Boston College suffered a 27-24 overtime loss to Northern Illinois. That may not sound like the end of the world when considering how good the Huskies have been over the last 15-20 years, but them dealing the loss in Chestnut Hill despite coming off of a 3-9 year feels a bit more offensive.

But hey, the Eagles are coming off of a 3-9 run themselves, so them losing a close one in their season opener is far from the craziest thing we’ve witnessed in the world of CFB. Not only that, but with their Week 2 matchup being at home against an FCS-level opponent in Holy Cross, bouncing back in overwhelming fashion should not be too tall of an order, right? Well, as it turns out, not exactly.

While Boston College can at least get some credit for winning this time around, it had to fight like heck to do so. Ultimately, the Eagles squeaked by the Crusaders by a frighteningly close score of 31-28. As for the aforementioned Huskies, they went on to lose in DeKalb to Southern Illinois, who is also FCS; that doesn’t exactly help the image enveloping Boston College, either.

Following up a pathetic loss like the one to NIU with a pathetic win over Holy Cross amounts to many causes for concern when pondering just how bleak things can get in the coming weeks—especially when knowing who all awaits BC in said weeks.

Boston College’s future opponents are in no way gracious

This Saturday, the Eagles will be at home for the third game straight, the only problem is that this time they’ll be hosting Florida State.

Earlier, I mentioned the Seminoles as one of the ACC’s most praiseworthy teams, having crushed what was a top-five LSU by 21 and Southern Mississippi by a staggering 53. The early success has helped them earn a top-three ranking of their own. Considering all of that along with the fact that the Eagles have only downed them once since 2009 makes the idea of the Seminoles falling in Week 3 seem rather improbable.

After that, BC is on the road for the first time this season, heading into Louisville. The Cardinals are 2-0 with a conference win over Georgia Tech and are recognized for providing a relatively jarring road atmosphere. This game would be brutal for the Eagles if they were coming off a bye week, but coming off a near-certain beatdown by Florida State won’t make circumstances any kinder.

The remainder of the season from that point forward includes several matchups that are on pace to result in nothing but more losses, with names like Virginia Tech and Miami at home and ones like Army, Georgia Tech, Syracuse and Pittsburgh on the road. If all of those deal Boston College defeat as well, the Eagles will have as many losses as they had last year (nine, which made them the Atlantic Coast’s worst team by final record).

There are a couple of games that have decent chances of softening 2023’s blow, and those are BC’s home games against Virginia and UConn, the latter of which will be the Homecoming opponent. The Cavaliers are 0-2 with the previously-established home loss to JMU (yet still outshine the Eagles when comparing the strengths of their non-conference slates), and the Huskies are also winless after convincing losses to NC State and Georgia State.

While neither of those foes (particularly the former) promise victory, they’re seemingly BC’s best shots at success as of today. In other words, I currently see the Eagles with a floor of 1-11 and a ceiling of 3-9.

Having that quality of future while playing in a conference that’s far from the toughest is bad enough, but all four of the Power 5 teams to finish 2022 as bad as/worse than 3-9 (Arizona State, Colorado, Northwestern, Stanford) being in better shape than Boston College only confirms that the Eagles are the “runts of the litter” until further notice.