Five Takeaways From Boston College Football's Newest 2020 Schedule

A look at the schedule and some thoughts about the upcoming year

On Wednesday, the ACC released a new scheduling model for the upcoming 2020 season. The "10+1 model" showed the conference teams and their proposed slate of opponents. Today we take a look at the schedule, and make some observations on it.

1. Difficulty: To start off the conversation let's look at the teams lost, and teams gained on the Eagles schedule. 

The Eagles dropped Wake Forest, NC State, Florida State, Kansas, Ohio, Holy Cross and Purdue. 

They added Notre Dame, Duke, UVA, Georgia Tech, Pitt and a team to be announced. 

Obviously the Fighting Irish are a big addition, and will be a double digit favorite against the Eagles. But it could be argued that the Eagles schedule other than that will get a bit easier. They avoid Florida State who could be playing well under their new coach, Wake and Purdue, and replace them with UVA/GT/Pitt three teams in the division Boston College should be able to match against. Losing Ohio, Kansas and Holy Cross however removes three games in which BC were projected to win. In the end I would give this schedule a bit of a leaning as a bit more difficult for the Eagles.

2. Flipping Some Home Games: BC ended up losing their scheduled home games against Clemson and Syracuse. All in all this shouldn't really matter. From all signs there probably will only be a slight home field advantage this year as crowds will be either at a minimum or not at games at all. 

3. Locations: The ACC did not end up going with the home and home against regional models. BC technically are avoiding the furthest two games in Miami and FSU, but they still need to travel to South Carolina. Instead of playing closer to home, the conference is trusting their medical model for COVID prevention. We will have to wait to see how that works.

4. Out of Conference Game: As the press release said it will have to be played in Massachusetts. This makes it sound like the Eagles will be scheduling either UConn or UMass, to make logistics work for both teams. Either of these teams would be an ideal first game for the Eagles to start off. 

5. One Division: I have to say, this one division system is very appealing moving forward. The conference probably will never stick to a ten game conference schedule, but getting rid of divisions and having just the top two teams qualify for the ACC Championship game seems much more equitable than some of the past years when the Coastal Division wasn't playing very well. Plus on top of this, if they were to keep it as is, and eliminate divisions, BC wouldn't have to play Clemson every year and could get games against other conference teams like Miami, Pittsburgh and Duke, teams they currently wait years to schedule. 

 

And a final thought: This schedule absolutely capitulates to Notre Dame, but does give the ACC a little added bonus. While, I am not a fan of giving the Fighting Irish an opportunity to win the ACC title unless they joining the conference full time in all sports, the ability to have ACC games on NBC is a win for the conference. The Irish will not necessarily have a golden path to the title, with games against Clemson, Louisville, Florida State, and UNC. 

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