Boston College is projected to finish third in the ACC Atlantic Division under second-year coach Frank Spaziani and trailed USC by just four points in the fourth quarter in the Emerald Bowl last season before losing 24-13.
Weber State went to the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs for the second straight season for the first time in school history last year and is projected by coaches and the media to finish fourth in the Big Sky Conference. WSU is also ranked No. 18 in the FCS coaches preseason poll and No. 19 in The Sports Network poll.
Opening up on the road Saturday at Boston College would be a stiff test for any FCS team, but Weber State coach Ron McBride won't be talking to the Wildcats about not being overwhelmed.
"You don't even talk about that. You don't want to sit there and say, oh, we've got to run this trick play and that trick play. You just line up and play football and compete," McBride said.
McBride, who began his first season as the University of Utah football coach 20 years ago this week, has his own memories of a tough-loss -- a 1993 bowl game against USC -- to prove his point.
"If you compete and you don't make a lot of mistakes and you just play hard-nosed football ... it's kind of like that one year we were playing SC in a bowl game at the Freedom Bowl in L.A. All of our guys were like, geez, we're playing USC and they were scared to death. All of a sudden, the score is 28-nothing at halftime," he said. "We started playing, scored 21 unanswered points and we were by far in command of the game at the end."
McBride has plenty of respect for Boston College, which went 8-5 in Spaziani's first season.
"We're kind of an unknown quantity and they're kind of a proven commodity. They've got a hell of a football team. They're big, physical, tough guys," he said.
Weber State did that twice against Football Bowl Subdivision schools last year, opening the season with a seven-point loss to Wyoming. A week later, the Wildcats took a heartbreaking 24-23 defeat by Colorado State after a WSU drive to the Rams' 11-yard line in the final minute was halted by a fumble.
Spaziani returns the respect for McBride's program.
"They're well-coached," Spaziani said Sunday. "They're a good football team and their expectations for this year are a national championship. They were in the playoffs last year and they are better than they were last year. This is a very difficult game for us in a lot of ways."
QB question
Weber State is set at the quarterback position with veteran Cameron Higgins, who could finish this season at the top of several school all-time lists.
Boston College resolved a quarterback battle this week, but unlike BYU, which will find out if a two-quarterback attack is a double threat or double trouble, the Eagles will stick with just one signal-caller. Spaziani named sophomore Dave Shinskie the starter over classmate Mike Marscovetra.
The 26-year-old Shinskie is an interesting story, having pitched seven seasons in minor league baseball for the Minnesota Twins and Toronto Blue Jays organizations. Shinskie, originally a Delaware QB recruit, reached Double-A before being released and deciding to give college football a try.
Boston College is hoping Shinskie finds someone to throw to after top receiver Colin Larmond Jr. was lost for the season with a leg injury in a scrimmage last Saturday.
Roy Burton covers Weber State athletics for the Standard-Examiner. Follow the Wildcats on the Weber State sports blog at blogs.standard.net/wsu-sports-blog and on Twitter at twitter.com/royburton.
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