Bounce back games, a short history

BC's hasn't lost an opener since 2003. Saturday's "L" has many of us believing the sky is falling. But our recent run of winning the 1st game of the season has been somewhat padded. A list of patsies benefited the win W-L record, but didn't always test the team or tell us much about the season ahead. Maybe it is good to play a decent team early. Let's look back all the way to the Coughlin days to see how losing the opener impacted BC the following week.

2003: BC 28, Wake Forest 32
This was before we were conference mates with the Deacons. It was also a painful loss. BC wasted multiple opportunities to put the game away, had some costly turnovers and allowed Wake to move the ball up and down the field. (Sound familiar?). People were down in the dumps and questioned Quinton Porter and our defense. The next week we upset Penn State in State College. In that game BC seemed extra motivated. We were aggressive on offense and Kiwi was all over their backfield.

2000: BC 14, West Virginia 34
This was one of those games where BC just looked over matched from the get go. The team was coming off of TOB's first winning season and many wondered if the Marine would actually build a consistent winner. The next game, BC throttled Army. They obviously put the opening stink bomb behind them, but the WVU loss showed that BC would struggle with quality teams throughout the 2000 season.

1997: BC 21, Temple 28.
This was a stomach punch of a loss. BC had optimism about its new head coach and he ended up losing to the dregs of the Big East in his debut. A few mistakes including allowing a special teams TD killed BC that day. The next week BC bounced back and beat West Virginia. Neither game really foretold things to come.

1995: BC 6, Ohio State 38
Back before 12th games, there were a few sanctioned "kick off" events on neutral sites. In 1995 BC played Ohio State in the season opener at the Meadowlands. We got drilled. Ohio State would go on to be one of the best teams in the country. Meanwhile BC would struggle with the toughest schedule in all of DIA. However, BC did recover from the beatdown to defeat Virginia Tech in our next game.

1994: BC 26, Michigan 34
BC took an early lead in this game only to watch the Wolverines take control and pull away. It had a bit of a moral victory feel. That proved costly as BC lost the following game to Virginia Tech. The offense, which seemed capable against Michigan couldn't do anything in the redzone against the Hokies.

1993: BC 7, Miami 23
This is a reminder that a tough opening loss can happen to anyone. Coughlin at this point was one of the hottest names in college football. Yet BC couldn't slow down Miami. Not only did they lose the first game, but they followed up with a loss to Northwestern the next week. To show that the two duds didn't capture the talent of the team, BC ran off eight straight wins after NU.

1991: BC 13, Rutgers 20
Like many BC coaches, Coughlin lost his debut. Rutgers hadn't bottomed out yet and BC was still making the transition from Bick to TC. After losing the opener, BC lost to Michigan. It would be one of seven losses on the season.