COLLEGE

Renewed Holy Cross-Boston College football rivalry kicks off Saturday

Jennifer Toland
jennifer.toland@telegram.com

A game ball from the last Holy Cross victory over Boston College, on December 2, 1978, is prominently displayed in Craig Cerretani’s Boston office. It is not encased in protective plastic or anything because Cerretani, a wide receiver and co-captain of the ’78 HC team, sometimes still plays catch with it.

Handwritten on the ball by former Holy Cross trainer and equipment manager Jack Moriarty is the final score, “Holy Cross 30, Boston College 29,” and the almost 40-year-old memento from the final game of the season and of Cerretani’s collegiate career is one of his cherished possessions.

“There’s no argument that Boston College is the cream of college football in New England,” Cerretani said. “There’s no argument. But that game, in our minds that game determined the best team in New England. To us, it was the most meaningful game on our schedule, and we wanted to leave everything on the field, and I think we did.”

From 1896 to 1986, Holy Cross and Boston College played 82 times, the most games against any single opponent for either school. For many years, the game between the Jesuit foes was played at the end of the regular season to cap the New England college football schedule. It was the biggest game of the year for area football fans.

Bob Fouracre, the longtime radio and TV voice of Holy Cross football, grew up watching HC-BC games at Fenway Park and Braves Field. Mel Massucco was 14-year-old Fouracre’s favorite player on the 1951 Crusaders team, which lost to BC, 19-14, on a last-second touchdown.

“I walked out of (Braves Field) crying,” Fouracre said. “We took that seriously.”

After the 1986 game, a 56-26 BC win at Fitton Field, the programs diverged. Holy Cross, a member of the Patriot League, dropped football scholarships and announced it was ending the annual rivalry with the Eagles. BC, a member of the Big East for many years, joined the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2005.

“The series ending in conjunction with the end of scholarships was kind of a double kick in the gut,” said Gordie Lockbaum, who was a junior on the ’86 HC team, “but quite frankly, if you’re not going to have scholarships, it’s going to be very difficult to field a team that’s going to be competitive against a Boston College.”

Holy Cross re-instituted football scholarships at the start of the 2013 academic year, and in 2014, former athletic directors Dick Regan (HC) and Brad Bates (BC) announced the schools would renew their football rivalry.

The Crusaders travel to Boston College’s Alumni Stadium for the long-awaited kickoff at 1 p.m. Saturday. The teams will also play Sept. 5, 2020, at BC.

“I think it’s great, and hopefully it’s something that’s reinvented over the next couple years,” John Andreoli, a captain of the 1981 HC team, said. “It’s just great to have that game on the schedule.”

This marks the second year Holy Cross, which plays in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS, formerly Division 1-AA), will face a Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS, formerly Division 1-A) team. The Crusaders fell to UConn, 27-20, in the 2017 opener. BC has faced FCS opponents like Maine, Wagner and Howard in recent seasons.

Boston College, which has won seven games four of the last five years, is a program seemingly on the rise. The Eagles thumped UMass, 55-21, in their 2018 opener. Holy Cross, under first-year coach Bob Chesney, is rebuilding. The Crusaders, who lost to Colgate, 24-17, last week, finished above .500 just once in the previous five seasons.

Still, the game at Boston College is a point of pride for Holy Cross alums and is generating interest among current HC students. Holy Cross sold out its allotment of 6,000 tickets.

“I think that since we have scholarships this is a game that we can play,” Lockbaum said. “It’s a great rival situation, and it’s a game steeped in tradition. It’s something the community can get behind and the campus can be excited about. There’s no question there is interest. People are talking about it.”

Lockbaum said his classmates and other HC alumni groups are organizing tailgates for Saturday. Cerretani will be there, too.

“Everybody is excited to enjoy the atmosphere of big-time college football,” Lockbaum said.

Chesney, too, has heard from a lot of former Holy Cross players leading up to the game.

‘“Beat BC!’ is something they’ve wanted to say for some time,” Chesney said.

BC leads the all-time series, 47-32-3. The teams played twice a season from 1896 to 1898. A crowd of 54,000 squeezed into Braves Field for the 1940 game, a 7-0 BC win. In 1942, the Crusaders upset the top-ranked and previously unbeaten Eagles, 55-12, at Fenway Park, but celebration turned to tragedy during the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire that night in Boston.

The Crusaders had lost eight straight to BC before beating the Eagles back-to-back in 1977 and 1978.

Cerretani was also a co-captain of the ’77 team, which registered a 35-20 victory at Fitton Field.

In the ’78 game, at BC, Holy Cross star defensive back Glenn Verrette broke up a 2-point conversion pass intended for Tim Sherwin, a future NFL tight end, in the closing minute.

“He made an otherworldly play to tip it,” Cerretani said. “It was special.”

After Boston College’s 45-10 win at Fitton Field in 1984, BC quarterback Doug Flutie famously flew from Worcester to New York, where he received the Heisman Trophy that night at the Downtown Athletic Club.

Fitton Field had to be plowed before the 1986 game as snow fell earlier in the week.

“The field iced over and was crumbly,” Lockbaum said, “then the sun came out, and it melted and turned into a big mud pit.”

A friend posted a photo of Lockbaum from that game on Facebook this week.

“I was absolutely covered in mud,” Lockbaum said.

The Crusaders jumped to a 14-0 lead, but BC roared back.

Lockbaum, HC’s two-way star and two-time Heisman Trophy finalist, had 10 catches for 104 yards, scored two touchdowns and caused a fumble.

“The first quarter was pretty cool,” Lockbaum said. “I remember people hanging off the rafters; the place was absolutely packed. It was a muddy, dirty game for sure. Their size and strength overwhelmed us. At that point, we were a speed team. The mud kind of nullified that.”

Since that day, Holy Cross alumni and fans have been hopeful the teams would play again.

HC’s current players aren’t as familiar with the history and tradition of the rivalry. As Chesney pointed out, HC’s seniors were born some 10 years after it ended. They are anticipating the game for other reasons.

“You want to be the best,” Chesney said. “You want to challenge yourself to be the best. This will be an important step for our program regardless of the outcome. How we compete, our effort, our energy, the things we do throughout this game will be things that define the rest of our year and hopefully what we build on.”

The Crusaders play FBS opponents Syracuse and Navy next season, BC in 2020 and UConn in 2021.

“To have a marquee-type game each year and play up a level, having those opportunities is very exciting,” Lockbaum said, “because players want to compete. You want to test yourself and to be able to do that on an annual basis is something I think the players look forward to.”

 The Holy Cross-Boston College football series