The odds do not look good. Vegas has the SMU Mustangs favored by 10 points over the Boston College Eagles for Thursday’s Fenway Bowl, and even our own staff is taking SMU to cover.
Despite losing a few players to the transfer portal, BC’s roster is still mostly intact and should be ready to go after over a month of preparation. The cold(ish) weather will favor BC’s ground and pound style they’ve adopted, though it won’t exactly be terribly cold, more like 40 degrees. And the team will have hometown advantage with the ability to sleep in their own beds all week leading up to the game! Most of the outside factors are in Boston College’s favor.
Oh, except one: their opponent. SMU is an 11-2 AAC Champion that’s won 10 straight games. They are strong on both sides of the ball, especially defense, and are built well to take advantage of BC’s deficiencies. You can read more here. This is not an even match-up.
But any team can win on any given Saturday (oops, I mean Thursday). Jeff Hafley and his staff have been racking up transfer portal wins and clearly the headspace of the team is in a good spot. They are very well motivated to end this season on a good note and jump into 2024 with hope of improvement. Meanwhile, SMU might be overlooking their opponent and could be caught by surprise if the Eagles come hot out of the gate. But it would have to be a perfect storm for the upset to happen, because the talent and coaching coming from Texas seems to be much better than what’s coming from Chestnut Hill.