Couple of swipes @ UMass & BC within:
-> Group of Five: Somebody needs to explain why UMass still sponsors an FBS program rather than devoting more resources to hockey, where they’re a national power, and a sport like basketball where they can make the NCAA tournament every now and then. UMass hasn’t won more than four games in a season since 2011 — really, 2011 — and hasn’t even sniffed a bowl game since moving up to the FBS in 2012. What’s the point of that? Some lower-resource schools chase the football dream because they believe it’s good for the image of the university, but it would be hard to identify what UMass gains from 42-6 and 47-7 spankings from Missouri and Iowa, respectively, the last two weeks. But they’ve also been blown out by Temple and Western Michigan with a loss to Bryant. <-
-> Bill O’Brien: The worst performance of the weekend has to be the Boston College’s 48-7 loss to a Pittsburgh team that was also not having a very good season. The margin of defeat was surprising given that Boston College had been competitive in its other games, albeit on the losing end against Michigan State in overtime, Stanford and Cal. This one smells like a frustrated team letting go of the rope a bit, and O’Brien was at a loss in his postgame news conference to identify the problem. “I’m not getting it done,” he said. This feels like one of those situations where teams should be able to trade coaches. If you could send O’Brien to North Carolina and bring his buddy Belichick to Boston College it would make a lot of sense for both sides. Alas, in both Hills — Chapel and Chestnut — the beatings will continue until morale improves for the former Patriots colleagues. <-
