Rakes has a great post on the BC Inferiority Complex. It’s in response to a ludicrous post from a BC fan site on SB Nation, and you can track that down from the Rakes post.
Rakes does a great job of tearing it apart, but they were way too kind. Perhaps because they ‘work’ for the same company. I have no such reservations.
BC Fans, if this is how they all think, are certifiably insane.
To wit:
1) They repeatedly claim to be ND’s rival. Hey BC folks, it’s only a rivalry if both sides care. We don’t. Granted, this sounds shitty, and it kind of is. But it’s true. We don’t circle the BC game on our calendars. You guys do. This is just a fact and not a ‘put down’. It comes out dick-ish, but it’s not meant that way at all, truly. Sorry.
2) They claim that BC holds the title of academic superiority. Okay, let’s examine this one:
US News: ND #19, BC #31
Newsweek: ND: #19, BC Not Ranked
Average Mid-Career Salary (it’s all about the benjamins baby): ND: #8, BC: Not Ranked
Acceptance Rate: ND: 28%, BC: 31%
Hmm, ND walks away with this one.
3) They claim to have the edge on the gridiron as well. As Rakes aptly points out, the last 10 years have been rough for ND, and have been the apex for BC. So yeah, we ‘lose’ over that time period (by roughly 1 game per season). Compare our worst run to your best run and yep, we lose. Sad that we’ve been so bad, but it’s true. But let’s look back at the program overall, shall we?
Overall Winning %: ND – 73.6%, BC – 58.7% ND Wins by a lot.
MNCs: ND – 13, BC – 0 ND Wins by a lot.
Bowl Game Appearances: ND – 29, BC – 22 ND Wins by a solid margin.
Bowl Game Record: ND – 15-15, BC – 13-9 BC Wins by a decent margin. Rakes takes on the quality of opponent aspect in their post, so I won’t go into it here. Either way, they have a better bowl record.
Oh, and then there’s that pesky thing of head to head: ND LEADS THE SERIES 11-9. It’s not domination, but if you want a clear/easy way to say who has been better on the field, this is it.
Net-net? ND whomps BC on the gridiron. Sure, you can pretend like ALL OF HISTORY EXCEPT THE PAST 10 YEARS DOESN’T EXIST to tell a story. But if that’s what we’re doing, I’ll just go with the past 2 years. ND is undefeated against BC! WE DOMINATE. Absurd.
4) They claim that BC has a more difficult Strength of Schedule for a host of nonsensical reasons, mostly based on ND’s ‘not beating the service academies’. I hate to have to explain to them that Ws and Ls have little to do with SOS. But, it’d be pointless, they’ll never get it. Instead, just look at the average SOS, according to Sagarin, over the past 11 years: ND rank #20, BC rank #46
Uh, fellas, 20 is less than 46! 20 < 46. 20 means HARDER than 46! And it’s not close.
In closing:
If I’m a BC fan, I’m simply angry that someone tried to write this article. It makes them look foolish. You want to make an argument? Great, find some facts and twist them to tell your story. They weren’t even able to do that. It’s pretty sad.
And net-net the story is the same: ND wins academically, on the field, in $’s, in SOS, and in life.
I’d feel bad if I were a BC fan too if this is the kind of representation I could expect from my alma mater/school. It’s just sad.
BC? You lose.
Don't take me, yourself, or life so seriously. This is supposed to be fun.
Biscuit co-founded HerLoyalSons in partnership with his ND roommate (Dillon Hall baby!), MQ, in 2006 and has been ranting about ND Football and everything Notre Dame since. He strongly believes in the mission of ND and its football program. Biscuit expects logic and data in arguments and will absolutely crush you if you come to a debate missing one or the other. He despises everything Michigan, and his favorite pastime is mocking Purdue.
- (Re)Introducing: DANCING LEPRECHAUNS - August 29, 2019
- Ticket Auction: ND vs USC - August 22, 2019
- No Respect! - December 14, 2018
seating-BC Alumni Stadium 44,500, Notre Dame Stadium 80,765.
Average attendance is an even more damning stat
TLNDMA, would you not agree if Notre Dame’s capacity was 105,000 we would still be full?
Biscuit, I agree with everything you said but one thing. Ever since I stood in a Sony TV store in Seattle Wash. in 1993 with approx 200 other Irish fans, watching the final quarter of the Bc/Irish game, I have hated Bc. Watching their place kicker put the ball through the uprights and dashing our National title,(the only team FSu lost to that year was the Irish) made me want vengeance of biblical proportions. I never went to Notre Dame, so I cannot comment on the two teams from a rivalry perspective, but I hate Bc. Indeed they are that cross town school that has an inferiority complex (Fredo Corleone)but I cannot help but be pissed off that their greatest success was preventing us from getting our 14th National Championship.
I wasn’t an ND fan then (or even CFB) and I get it. And I don’t LIKE BC. I’m just trying to put it in perspective for them. Their BC-colored glasses have severely confused them when they’re claiming academic superiority and a tougher SOS. This post isn’t about hating them (or not) but rather a straightening out of facts.
I responded to a poster from BC over on Rake’s site who asked why BC wasn’t higher on ND’s rivalry list than Michigan State, Navy, Purdue, Pitt, or Stanford. To me, that he even had to ask shows the difference. We did not start playing BC regularly until 1992, with a few scattered meetings before that. The only nationally relevant game was in 1993. We’re not in the same conference, nor does winning or losing really affect the season drastically for EITHER TEAM. It was ironic, because this same poster stated that most BC fans feel Virginia Tech is a bigger game for them, but he couldn’t understand why BC wasn’t more important to us. Virginia Tech SHOULD be a bigger game for you–they’re a conference rival that you have to beat in order to win your conference. There’s something very distinct on the line when you play. BC vs. ND has no historical meaning, no conference meaning, no national meaning. It’s a manufactured “rivalry” based simply on the fact that we’re two Catholic schools who play football. That might play well on TV, but it doesn’t resonate with ND fans/alums at all, because we have many other teams we have much more history with, playing games that meant something. All those other teams? Even if they’re not good now, we’ve played them when they were, and beaten them when they were. Army from 1913 through the 40’s, Michigan State in the 60’s, Pitt in the 70’s and 80’s, Purdue in the 60’s and 70’s…all of these had games that decided national standing. BC beating us and keeping us from an NC in 1993 simply pisses us off. For it to be a rivalry, we’d have to see them get a high ranking at some point, and us knock them down in return. It’s not that we think we’ve been better than BC the last decade (we haven’t), but this has pretty much been their heyday, other than Flutie. For us, it’s been a historic low.
Go make rivalries with your ACC foes, rivalries that matter. We can keep playing friendly games, but until our game means something nationally (ie, both ranked highly) on a consistent basis, BC won’t be a rival.
Since joining the ACC, BC is a team searching for a rival. Geographically no team in the ACC is a natural rival. The Big East had far more established rivalries for BC.
In many regards ND is the most natural team on BC’s schedule for them to yearn to create a rivalry with.
While I won’t question ND’s academic superiority to BC, I can’t really endorse the use of a terribly flawed system like USNWR to prove the point (particularly because it undervalues ND despite its elite statistical admissions profile). Rather, I’d feel more comfortable using metrics like 2010 ACT median range (32-34 vs. 28-32), admissions yield (50%+ vs. 24.2%), endowment per student ($625k vs. $163k), or most popular undergraduate major (at BC, it’s Communications- vomit: http://www.bc.edu/offices/pubaf/about/facts.html) to establish ND’s clear dominance.
Also, I love the listing of “Top 10 Cross-Application Competitors” BC has at the URL I linked. Alternate title: “Schools where Students who use BC as Backup are Most Likely to Earn Admissions”. LOL@ the blatant attempt to group with Ivies.
As far as rivalries go, here is my emotional summation of my feelings for Boston College…
Boston College is to Notre Dame,
as Appalachian State is to Michigan.
Erroneous. App State has more Nat’l Championships (3) than BC has conference championships (1, and even that was a 4-way tie).
Oh…..wow…..we’re gonna need some ointment for that burn.
Nicely done, Big Red.
There is a balm in Gilead…
Is that the same balm that’s part of their HIV cocktail package?