Put Down the Turf, and Slowly Back Away | by Jay

From this morning's Boston Herald:

ND gets Irish up, will sack BC
By Steve Conroy

BLACKSBURG, Va. – According to a source close to Boston College, Notre Dame has decided not to continue its deal to play BC after the 2010 season because of damage the jubilant Eagles did to the field and locker room at Notre Dame Stadium after their defeat of the Irish in South Bend, Ind., three years ago.

Notre Dame has substituted Rutgers on its schedule after 2010 to fill the BC void, the source said.

BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo would not comment directly on Notre Dame's decision to discontinue its football relationship with BC. The Eagles and Irish were originally scheduled to play through 2013, but Notre Dame informed DeFilippo in the spring it only wanted to go until 2010. The Eagles have beaten Notre Dame three consecutive seasons, including two meetings in South Bend.

"We had an incident that's already been talked about, it's already been played out and it's not nearly as bad as it was made out to be, believe me,'' DeFilippo said of the Eagles' 14-7 victory in 2002. "Whatever they want to say or whatever reasons they want to give (for dropping BC), I'm certainly not going to comment on that. We think Notre Dame is a great, great institution. We've had a terrific relationship with them through the years. We would love to play Notre Dame every year in football, we'd like to play them in basketball, we'd like to play them in other sports.

"If they choose not to play. . . . I realize that scheduling only happens when it's mutually beneficial and if it's not beneficial to them, then that's up to them and they don't have to play. I really, really doubt that those are the reasons. If so, why are we playing in '07, '08, '09, '10?''

DeFilippo said BC will have no problem filling its schedule.

"There's plenty of other teams that want to play us,'' DeFilippo said. "We're talking to Texas, we're talking to Syracuse, Georgia's called and they want to play. There are just so many people who've called. Minnesota's called and they want to play. There's plenty of teams for us to play after 2010.

"Personally, I would like to see the Notre Dame series going, but as I've said, if it's not mutually beneficial for them, then we'll just go our way. There are no hard feelings on my part or anybody's part. I'd hate to have innuendos coming out about something that occurred two or three years ago. And believe me, it was not nearly what some people made it out to be.''

I'd like to see some corroboration from White's office before ascribing the discontinuation of the series to the locker room incident of three years ago. As the article stands, we're made out to appear fairly petulant and vindictive ("And believe me, it was not nearly what some people made it out to be"). I'd like to hear our side of the story.

The truth is, we add and drop teams all the time while arranging our future schedules. This is nothing out of the ordinary. Conspiracy theories aside, the reason we moved away from BC is probably because of our other game commitments (notably our pledge to the Big East to play three per year starting in 2011).

Or maybe, we'd just rather play some better competition than Boston College.