Get Ready For Motor City Madness

When Boston College last met up with the Maryland Terrapins, the two were ACC Atlantic Division rivals. It was a cold November evening in College Park in 2013 and the Eagles were riding a three-game winning streak that included wins over Virginia Tech and NC State. Becoming bowl-eligible the week before, BC was looking for a signature road win to improve its profile.

What took place was a signature moment for the Eagles. Andre Williams, on his way to a stage reserved only for Heisman Trophy finalists, racked up 263 yards on 32 carries. On one run, he stiff-armed a defender in the middle of next week. Later, a 72-yard touchdown carry later in the game broke him through the 2,000 yard mark. With the game tied at 26, Williams rumbled for 36 yards, setting up a 52-yard Nate Freese field goal that clinched the BC victory.

Three years later, the Eagles and Terrapins are readying to renew acquaintances under very different circumstances. The BC loss was the last home game the Terps would play as members of the ACC, departing for the Big Ten before the 2014 season. Randy Edsall is no longer the Terps' head coach, replaced by DJ Durkin, a former Florida and Michigan assistant who previously coached with current BC head coach Steve Addazio.

The teams won't be playing on a campus site either. Maryland and Boston College - former ACC foes with a shared past - will meet in the Quick Lane Bowl on Dec. 26, a neutral site game where there's an opportunity to play one more game for the seniors, a chance to springboard the program into the offseason and a chance to finish with a stamp on a winning record.

"We're all certainly excited to have an opportunity to go play Maryland in Detroit," Addazio said. "(We're) excited about the bowl game, excited to have an opportunity to extend our practices and to continue to develop our football team, just to be together. As I said many times, I really love our football team. I love being around these guys, and they love football, and it's a lot of fun to coach."

This is a game built on similarity and opportunity. Both teams enter with 6-6 records and sub-.500 conference records. Both handled business against non-conference, non-power opponents, with the Terps defeating Howard, FIU and UCF. The only difference is Maryland's nine-game conference schedule, something that enabled them to gain a third victory while losing to teams who finished ahead of them in their conference. Both programs would love a win over each other since it would be a good measure of what comes next for teams trying to rebuild their proud programs.

"I think as you head in, finish the season, it's a great springboard into the next season," Addazio said. "It's really every bit as many practices as spring ball, and we play a Power Five team, play a Big Ten team, and with recognition to the BC fans, as a former ACC team, (get the opportunity for) your seventh win. I think that's all positive, spring boarding to the future, and continuing to develop our team."

"I'm really looking forward to playing again," senior running back Tyler Rouse said. "Getting to play in the last two bowl games when I was here and not going to one last year was kind of heartbreaking. Just getting back to one feels great. And for the young guys who haven't been to one yet, it's really exciting for them, and they're kind of like, 'what are we going to do, what's going on.' It's really exciting, and we're all looking forward to just getting out and playing and trying to get the seventh win."

BC will compete against a Maryland team with intertwined history. Members of the Atlantic Division together from 2005-2013, the Eagles went 7-2 against the Terrapins. Though they didn't go bowling in 2011 or 2012, BC defeated the Terrapins both of those years, ending Maryland's ACC tenure with a three-game Eagles winning streak. Yet in 2007, when Boston College rolled into College Park ranked eighth in the nation, Maryland, who was 4-5 entering that game, shocked the Eagles with a 42-35 victory. It was just the second loss of BC's season and the last defeat in the regular season.

While the two fan bases know each other seemingly well, there's also familiarity from elsewhere on the sidelines. Maryland's Durkin was once the Florida special teams coordinator, joining the program during a year in which Addazio had been the interim head coach of the Gators. Following the 2010 season, Durkin remained at Florida to coach with Will Muschamp, rising to defensive coordinator in 2013. He eventually moved onto Michigan, coaching under Jim Harbaugh in that same capacity. This past offseason, he earned Maryland's head coaching position, a move impacting BC downstream. The hire opened up the Michigan coordinator position accepted by Don Brown, leading to Jim Reid joining the current Eagles coaching configuration.

"DJ is a high-energy, high-octane guy," Addazio said. "When we were at Florida and I was the interim head coach, I had a chance to be a part of hiring him to get him to come to Florida from Stanford, and he is a great special teams mind, obviously a great defensive mind, becoming the defensive coordinator at Florida after I left, going onto be the defensive coordinator at Michigan, and then of course having this opportunity at Maryland.

"We've worked together. We're good friends," Addazio continued. "I love DJ. I love the way he coaches. So I have a lot of respect for him, for his staff."

This will create an atmosphere baking the past into the present. The Maryland-BC dynamic is one storyline and the coaching staff is another. It's a game between teams looking to rebuild and make the jump to join the tops of their respective conferences. Just as BC suffered tough defeats to their conference's establishment, the Terrapins sustained blowout losses to Michigan and Ohio State with another to Penn State - all of which earned New Year's Six bowl berths out of the Big Ten East.

Then there's the lasting memory of BC's the Pinstripe Bowl loss to the Nittany Lions two years ago, a game for the ages that broke against BC. For the current Eagles roster, this year is a chance to right that wrong and provide its school with its first bowl victory since that lightning bolt season in '07.

"That was a hard way to end the year," senior defensive lineman Truman Gutapfel said. "I think, as a senior class, we really want to really work and focus on winning this game. Because we went my freshman and my sophomore year and we lost them both, it's been a while since we've won a bowl game here. So it's pretty important to the senior class to leave a legacy, to go out with a winning record (at) 7-6."

Over the next several weeks, the storylines will run deep and the game will blossom. At its surface level, this might be a game between two teams that won their way into a bowl by winning their final weekend. As it becomes deeper, it becomes one of the more compelling matchups of bowl season, one that will bring an intense form of madness to the Motor City in an underrated power conference matchup.

Players Mentioned

Truman Gutapfel

Tyler Rouse

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