The Boston College–UMass football rivalry is a

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

rivalry A rivalry is the state of two people or groups engaging in a lasting competitive relationship. Rivalry is the "against each other" spirit between two competing sides. The relationship itself may also be called "a rivalry", and each participant o ...

between the

Eagles Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just ...

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...

and

Minutemen Minutemen were members of the organized New England colonial militia companies trained in weaponry, tactics, and military strategies during the American Revolutionary War. They were known for being ready at a minute's notice, hence the name. Mi ...

of the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...

. The rivalry was most active during the 1960s and 1970s, when the teams met on an annual basis. Because of changes to the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

's division structure, the teams did not meet for 30 years, but UMass' promotion to the top-tier

NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As ...

enabled them to resume the rivalry, with a three-game series starting in 2014. The latest series has been dubbed The Battle of the Bay State. As of 2021, Boston College has won the past 11 meetings, including all of the 21st century matchups.

Early history

The first game played between the two schools took place in

Amherst Amherst may refer to: People * Amherst (surname), including a list of people with the name * Earl Amherst of Arracan in the East Indies, a title in the British Peerage; formerly ''Baron Amherst'' * Baron Amherst of Hackney of the City of London, ...

, on November 28, 1901, with Massachusetts winning, 11–0. BC and Massachusetts met again 1902 and 1912, with Massachusetts winning all three contests before the series was halted. The two schools did not meet again on the football field until 1966, when BC and UMass—which by then had adopted its present name—began a 17-year series in which the teams would play each other in the last week of UMass' football season. Though both programs were in

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of College athletics, intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major ...

, the highest level of competition at the time, they were facing an increasingly different level of opponents. BC, as an independent, played many of its games against large schools from outside New England. UMass was part of the

Yankee Conference The Yankee Conference was a collegiate sports conference in the eastern United States. From 1947 to 1976, it sponsored competition in many sports, but was a football-only league from mid-1976 until its dissolution in 1996. It is essentially the an ...

and played most of its games against regional rivals. Boston College dominated the stretch of the rivalry, winning 15 of the 17 games, routinely blowing out the overmatched Minutemen. The NCAA split Division I into two subdivisions in 1978: the premier Division I-A (now known as the Football Bowl Subdivision) and the second-tier Division I-AA (now known as the

Football Championship Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision. Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athleti ...

). Boston College was placed in I-A; UMass, along with the rest of the Yankee Conference, in I-AA. With BC's schedule increasingly filled with powerhouse I-A teams from outside New England, the annual rivalry entered a long hiatus after the 1982 game, and would not be played again for 30 years.

Recent history

Starting in the 1990s, UMass administrators began talking about moving the football team to what was then still called Division I-A. Though the school trustees voted to hold off on an immediate move in 2003, the school did start to schedule games against Division I-A opponents—including trips to Chestnut Hill to play the Eagles. In April 2011, UMass announced plans to join the

Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I collegiate athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Nine of the twel ...

and play the next year as the second

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

member of the FBS. This prompted speculation that the two schools might renew their rivalry on a more regular basis. This was confirmed when it was reported in September 2011 that they had agreed to play a three-game biannual series beginning in 2014. The first two games would be played in 2014 and 2016 at

Gillette Stadium Gillette Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium located in the town of Foxborough, Massachusetts, which is southwest of downtown Boston. It serves as the home stadium and administrative offices for both the New England Patriots of the National Footb ...

in Foxborough, a Boston suburb, about 30 miles south of Chestnut Hill. The games counted as UMass home dates, however, as the

New England Patriots The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East divisio ...

stadium had been UMass' regular home field in 2012 and 2013, and the team continued to play half its home schedule there for several years. A rematch in 2018 would be played at BC's

Alumni Stadium Alumni Stadium is a football stadium located on the lower campus of Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, approximately west of downtown Boston. It is the home of the Boston College Eagles. Its present seating capacity is 44,500. Offic ...

. For UMass, the games were a chance to test their mettle against the only other FBS team in the state and prove that they belong at the top level of NCAA football. For Boston College, the "rivalry" was not as keenly felt, as the Eagles have had four decades to establish a long history of competition with top-tier programs outside New England.

2014

The first-ever all-FBS BC-UMass game was both teams' season opener in September 2014. BC won the game by a score of 30–7. The weeks preceding the game were met by a moderate amount of local media coverage and hype, mostly from the UMass side, which billed the game as the "Battle of the Bay State". One UMass fan even went as far as to outfit the

Doug Flutie Douglas Richard Flutie (born October 23, 1962) is an American former football quarterback whose professional career spanned 21 seasons. He played 12 seasons in the National Football League (NFL), eight seasons in the Canadian Football League (CF ...

statue outside BC's

with a Minuteman jersey. The famous 1980s BC quarterback tweeted: "Ew." BC fans scoffed at the matchup, noting that UMass entered the game with a 2-22 record in the two years since joining the FBS.

2016

The contest was again called the Battle of the Bay State. A UMass pep rally in the city of

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

was held the day before the game. BC defeated UMass 26-7.

Game results

''Rankings for BC from the Division I-A/FBS-level

AP Poll The Associated Press poll (AP poll) provides weekly rankings of the top 25 NCAA teams in one of three Division I college sports: football, men's basketball and women's basketball. The rankings are compiled by polling 62 sportswriters and broadca ...

. Rankings for UMass from Division I-AA/FCS-level

Sports Network Sports channels are television speciality channels (usually available exclusively through cable and satellite) broadcast sporting events, usually live, and when not broadcasting events, sports news and other related programming. The first sport ...

Poll 2011 or earlier, or AP Poll 2012 or later.''

References