Boston College Football 2010s Superlatives

With the decade wrapping up, BC Maven has given you their All Decade Team on offense, defensive line/linebackers and secondary. Here are a few more superlatives for Boston College Football from the past decade of play.

Best Special Teamer: Nate Freese. It may not register for many Boston College fans, but at one team the Eagles had one of the best kicking games in the country. In 2013, Freese went 20/20 on field goals including a game winner from 52 yards against Maryland on the road. (Honorable Mention: Michael Walker)

Best Assistant Coach: Don Brown. 2015 will go down in Boston College lure as the year of one of the ultimate "half teams" in all of college football history. The Eagles offense was truly wretched that year, but Brown brought a defense that only allowed 15.3 points a game, only bested by Alabama, Ohio State, and Wisconsin. Not only was the defense elite, they were doing this while the offense couldn't stay on the field. Brown's work with that defense was incredible, and their play made a terrible season a little more palatable.

Best Season: 2014. This wasn't a tough one to choose because 2010-2012 were the lost years, 2013 was reaffirming but not spectacular, 2015 was a mess, and 2016-2019 were all interchangeable. In the entire 2010's, Boston College had one top 25 win, and it came against USC that year. It seemed like the Eagles were in every game that year, battling to the end against Clemson, Florida State and Penn State. But this year had the combo of Ryan Day and Don Brown and some really terrific moments from Tyler Murphy, Sherm Alston and Jon Hilliman.

Best Game: USC 2014. Again this category didn't really have any competition. I was at this game and can easily say I've never heard Alumni louder than when Tyler Murphy broke off a 60 yard touchdown run late in the 4th quarter. A Red Bandana Game, with special moments on offense and defense, storming the field, and defeating the heavily favored USC Trojans at home.

Worst Game: Army 2012. There were so many solid contenders for this award including Wake Forest (2015) and Kansas (2019), but you have to give context to how painfully awful this game was. Army, who had just lost to Stony Brook the week before hosted Boston College and absolutely trucked them. The Black Knights ran for over 500 yards of offense, and seemingly were unstoppable against BC's struggling defense. If there was a game that signified the end of the Frank Spaziani era it was this.

Best Play Of The Decade: Andre Williams Stiff Arms His Way Into The Heisman Talk (2013). There were multiple devastating stiff arms from Williams, but I'll go with his stiff arm against Maryland that really catapulted him into the national discussion. A few others plays that were considered: AJ Dillon stiff arm on route to beating Louisville (2017), Luke Kuechly's Pick Six Against Miami (2011), Tyler Murphy takes it to the house (2014)

Worst "Moment": "Middle Schmiddle", Duke (2011). This was such a tough moment to choose, because I hate to say it there were so many bad moments in the past decade. I originally chose the Wake Forest ending in 2015 because that was just atrocious, but that game didn't win because 2015 was just a completely lost season. Against Duke in 2011, BC had no reason to lose this one. However with seconds remaining, Nate Freese just had to line up and kick a field goal from extra point distance, and he doinked it. Before the missed kick BC had run Andre Williams which ended up putting BC's kick on one of the hashes. Asked if he should have centered the ball before the kick attempt head coach Frank Spaziani made one of the comments that defined his era "Middle Schmiddle".

Here were some other moments: Almost the entire 2012 season, blowing what should have been an easy win against Colorado State (2014), blowing what should have been a win against Clemson (2014), the missed XP against Penn State in overtime (2014), the debacle at the end against Wake Forest (2015) punting against FSU on their side of the field and then having them throw a touchdown pass two plays later (2018), the huge run by Khalil Herbert before half for Kansas (2019), messing up setting up the game winning field goal against Wake (2019)

Players Of The Decade: See Above Video