ESPN

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. -- Coming off its second straight postseason berth and going into its first-ever meeting with Boston College, Weber State is ranked 18th in the FCS coaches poll. The Wildcats are led by senior quarterback Cameron Higgins, who is on pace to break school and Big Sky Conference passing records.

“They are good, their quarterback is great. Cameron Higgins threw the ball for 1,000 yards,” sophomore linebacker Luke Kuechly said. “He puts the ball where it needs to be very fast and that’s one of the things we have to worry about. It’s going to be tough to get pressure on him. He’s only been sacked 22 times last year. What that shows is he’s very accurate with his passes and he gets the ball off quick so you have to get to your spot very quick because he knows where he’s going before the snap of the ball.

“Their O-line moves well," Kuechly added. "I think guys who move well are more scary than guys who are big because they get to you faster. Their running back [sophomore Bo Bolen] moves well. He’s got speed. I’ve seen him run away from people. We gotta keep him contained.”

A fifth-year senior, Higgins has thrown four or more touchdowns in a game 11 times during his career. That’s why Kuechly is glad he improved his pass coverage over the off-season, especially since he was moved from outside linebacker to middle linebacker.

“The pass patterns are more intricate and you have to work harder to get where you need to be in certain situations,” he said of moving to middle linebacker. “You can always be so good in the run game, but if you let someone toss it over your head everything is negated.”

Herzlich turns heads
BC linebacker Mark Herzlich is likely to be sporting his trademark eye black face mask on Saturday when he returns to the field for the first time in a year-and-a-half. But the cancer survivor who suffered from a rare form of bone cancer called Ewing’s sarcoma won’t be sporting the Mohawk he was also known for when he last played in 2008. After losing his hair during chemotherapy and radiation treatments, Herzlich now favors a mess of golden curls on top of his head.

“When I came back to campus I had no hair and I looked different,” Herzlich said. “I wasn’t playing and people looked at me different. They knew the story and they looked at me because I had cancer, and you wonder what are they are thinking?

“Now I don’t care what people are looking at me for. I don’t care. My hair is really long and really messed up. It might look better in a Mohawk to some people.”

Pierre-Louis gets the start
Freshman linebacker Kevin Pierre-Louis will start at outside linebacker on Saturday.

“I knew there was a possibility I wasn’t going to be able to [play this year] because I wasn’t great on the academic side,” Pierre-Louis said. “Them giving me an opportunity to play this year has helped out a lot. The game has slowed down so much. I’m very appreciative of the coaches giving me the opportunity this year.

ESPN's Robert Smith discuses what Boston College has to do to be successful this season.

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. -- Going into training camp, Boston College's wide receivers were the biggest question mark. Coming out of training camp and into the Eagles' home opener against Weber State on Saturday, the wideouts are an even bigger unknown.


Graduating five receivers from last year, including two starters, the last thing BC needed was top returner Colin Larmond Jr. to suffer a season-ending knee injury. Larmond led the Eagles in average yards per catch (20.6) and was second in touchdowns (5), receptions (29) and yards (596).

Click HERE to read on.

Mark Herzlich talked about his battle with cancer, returning to the practice field, what it will be like in his first game back and much more on First Take on Thursday morning.

NEWTON, Mass. -- For the past year and a half, Mark Herzlich has incessantly talked about running through Alumni Stadium's tunnel for his triumphant return to Boston College's roster. And when No. 94 finally sprints out on Saturday -- Sept. 4, as in 9/4 -- two rows of pediatric cancer patients will be waiting for him.

"It's pretty sweet," said Herzlich, who successfully fought off a rare form of bone cancer called Ewing's sarcoma. "Just make sure they stay far enough to the side so Thomas Claiborne doesn't run over any of them."

Cancer-free since October, Herzlich hasn't shied away from his status as a poster boy, collecting roughly $200,000 for Ewing's sarcoma research. Scores of survivors will be on hand Saturday, and Herzlich's father secured 75 seats for the home opener against Weber State at 1 p.m.

"It will be cool to see everyone," said Herzlich, who had a metal rod inserted in his leg. "To see the kids, what they're going through is where I was at."

CLICK HERE to read the rest of this story

ESPN.com’s college basketball Summer Shootaround turns its attention to the ACC this week, with analysis from Andy Katz, Doug Gottlieb and more.

-- Andy Katz has five things to know, including one focused on coaching changes:

1. Three coaches shockingly depart: No one saw the departures at Boston College, Clemson and Wake Forest coming in the weeks or months earlier. The decision to force out Al Skinner, the winningest coach in BC history, left the staff stunned and contributed to an Eagles dispersal draft as players like Brady Heslip (Baylor), Evan Ravenel (Ohio State), Kevin Noreen (West Virginia) and Rakim Sanders (Fairfield) found new homes. Wake Forest athletic director Ron Wellman clearly wasn't happy with the direction of the Demon Deacons, even though Dino Gaudio was a heck of a recruiter and won an NCAA tournament game in March. Clemson fully intended for Oliver Purnell to be the head coach for the foreseeable future and was just as miffed by his decision on the night of the national title game to head to bottom-dwelling DePaul of the Big East. The potential good news for all three schools is that they replaced the trio with well-respected head coaches: Steve Donahue (Cornell to BC), Jeff Bzdelik (Colorado to Wake) and Brad Brownell (Wright State to Clemson).

CLICK HERE to read the rest of this


-- Eamonn Brennan breaks down the best-case and worst-case scenario for each team:

Best case: Most programs with new coaches get a year or three to figure things out. Boston College will not want to wait that long. New coach Steve Donahue -- fresh off a Sweet 16 run with Cornell -- inherits former coach Al Skinner's expectations. Fortunately, he also inherits some talent. Boston College returns six of its nine top scorers from a team that went 15-16 last year; that experience alone should make the Eagles a competitive bunch in the otherwise soft underbelly of the ACC.

Worst case: Being competitive is great, but Skinner's firing ensured Donahue will have to wait a season before he can welcome a talented incoming recruiting class. In the meantime, junior Reggie Jackson will have to become a more efficient shooter, and the senior trio of Joe Trapani, Corey Raji, and Biko Paris will have to make major strides under their new head coach. The experience is there, but coaching transitions are hard, and if BC doesn't improve on its .500-ish 2009-10 performance, no one will be all that upset. Or, for that matter, surprised.

CLICK HERE to read the rest of this


-- Video: Andy Katz and Doug Gottleib discuss the offseason storylines in the ACC.

On SportsCenter on Monday, ESPN.com’s Ivan Maisel talks about the return of BC’s Mark Herzlich and whether he will be back on the field this Saturday when the Eagles open their season against Weber St.

ESPN.com ACC blogger Heather Dinich checks in Monday with some predictions for the ACC, including one for BC lineback Mark Herzlich.

The ACC is one of the most unpredictable conferences in the country, but that makes this list even more fun. Here are 10 things I think will -- or won’t -- happen in the conference this fall:

1. BC linebacker Mark Herzlich plays in the season opener against Weber State and is back to his 2008 form in time for the home game against Virginia Tech on Sept. 25.

CLICK HERE to read the rest of this entry

Editor's note: This story ran on August 20.

NEWTON, Mass. -- As the horn sounded to signal the end of the first of two overtime periods between No. 2 Stanford and No. 7 Boston College on Friday, Eagles women's soccer coach Alison Kulik made a beeline for goalkeeper Jillian Mastroianni, intercepting her as she walked toward the home team's bench.

"A tie with them won't be too bad," Kulik said she told her keeper. "You've got one job to do: Don't let the ball go in the goal in the last 10 minutes."

Mastroianni didn't, albeit with an assist from her crossbar on a Cardinal header in the game's final minute, and the exhausted Eagles walked away after 110 minutes of soccer with a 1-1 tie against the team that eliminated them from the NCAA tournament quarterfinals last season.

Boston College has three and a half months to make its case as the best team in women's college soccer. For the season's first night, proving itself equal was enough.

A year ago, there were 245 people in the stands to watch Boston College open its season at home on a Friday against Fairfield. Those fans perhaps went home happier after the Eagles rolled to a crowd-pleasing 5-0 win, but the announced crowd of 2,000 filling the bleachers and lining the fences around the field on this night saw a sink-or-swim proposition to start the season. And coming out of the deep end exhausted and a little battered but unbowed and unbeaten, thanks to Natalie Crutchfield's second-half equalizer, revealed more about what this team is -- and what it still isn't -- than styling in the wading end against a weaker foe would have.

It didn't hurt to have a life preserver in goal. If not for Mastroianni, who made 10 saves in the game, including at least two on point-blank shots in the first half that few other college keepers could be counted on to make, there might well have been a gurgling noise drifting out of one end of the Newton Soccer Field by the second half.

Editor's note: This story ran on August 16.

CHESTNUT HILL -- With an older quarterback who's finally matured on the field as well, Boston College hopes it won't have to ride its running back as hard as it did last season.

"I was more a baseball player last year, not quite into everything football had to offer," said sophomore quarterback and former minor league baseball player Dave Shinskie. "Over the summer I've worked hard with the receivers and line and feel more comfortable this year.

"Even though I am more mature at 26 years old, I feel a lot more mature in the game [now]," he said.

After permanently taking over BC's quarterbacking reins during a brutal beating by Clemson last season, Shinskie mostly handed the ball off to Montel Harris, who collected the second-most carries in a season (308) in school history to log 1,457 yards. The junior ranks 10th all-time at BC in carries (487) and rushing yards (2,357).

"This year Dave is a lot better from last year," Harris said. "Dave has been able to read defenses and pick them apart. This year we're going to surprise defenses with how much we're not going to have to run because we're going to rely on our passing game a lot more."

That might be out of necessity more than anything else. While Harris was a lesser-known commodity in a conference filled with backfield talent, this year he will no doubt be on the radar screens of every opponent.

CLICK HERE to read the rest of this story