E-Mail This Article to a Friend What do we have to do to get some major college football around here? BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

Growing up as a sports fan in upstate New York, I became accustomed to the paucity of Division-I football programs in the Empire State. Actually, that was also true of the collegiate-basketball situation, with only Syracuse University representing what one might call the elite programs north of the Big Apple. Sure, there’s always Army — but when’s the last time it was a football power? — and more recently, the State University of Buffalo. But given the fact that Army is 2-6 this season and SUNY Buffalo is 1-7, they are obviously the weak sisters to Syracuse, which without any healthy competition represents the sole elite college-football (and -hoops) program upstate.

Frankly, I have always been jealous of those folks down South who grew up with the weekly ritual of Saturday college football, and I always wondered what it would be like to get caught up in the bonanza of big-time gridiron conferences such as the Big Eight (now the Big 12), the Southeast, the Big 10, and the Pac-10. As part of the Big East basketball conference, Syracuse is a genuine player (and the 2003 National Champ), but in football, the conference definitely is regarded as a notch below the upper echelon, where college football lives and breathes 12 months of the year. Think Lincoln, Nebraska, or Gainesville, Florida, and you’ll get my drift.

Then I moved to Massachusetts. And it’s even worse! Boston College, believe it or not, is the lone Division-I football program in the Bay State, and one of only two schools in the entire New England Region (along with UConn, which joined Division I just last season).

Throw in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania — blue states all, one might note — and you have but eight Division-I football programs north of the Mason-Dixon Line. (And six of those eight are currently sub-.500, for what it’s worth.) That’s eight major programs for 10 states, with the other 109 Division-I programs being divided among 31 other states — 3.5 major college-football teams per state, as opposed to .8 per state in the Northeast.

Why is that? We can understand that small states such as Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island wouldn’t be able to support the huge expenditures that a Division-I football program entails — but New York (three), Pennsylvania (three), and New Jersey (one)? Jeez, even backwoods states such as Louisiana (five), North Carolina (five), Tennessee (four), Indiana (four), Alabama (four), Oklahoma (three), and Utah (three) have more than the Northeast states, and let’s not even talk about the likes of Ohio (eight), California (seven), Florida (five), and Michigan (five), all of whom boast a large number of Division-I programs despite their sometimes being based in small-town schools. For instance, Greater Boston has Harvard, UMass, and Northeastern, but they all play Division I-AA schedules; Ohio has top-conference teams in such football hotbeds as Akron, Bowling Green, Kent (State), Oxford (Miami of Ohio), Athens (Ohio University), and Toledo. Toledo? The home of Max Klinger’s beloved Mud Hens has a major football program, and the entire commonwealth of Massachusetts has but one? Man, even Idaho has two. Ridiculous.

I know, I know — a lot of the New England schools have major hockey programs that participate at the elite level, and UMass, UVM, and Boston University, among others, play Division-I basketball. But we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about college football — a sport revered in the South and in the Midwest and even in such outposts as Laramie, Wyoming — and we in Massachusetts have but one option: BC.

In some ways, that’s fine, because BC has a solid program; has been to several medium-sized bowl games in a row, under head coach Tom O’Brien; and has a sterling history in the sport (and a 1984 Heisman Trophy winner in Doug Flutie). But what if you’re a college-football fan and don’t like BC? Why should the home of the world-champion New England Patriots have only Division I-AA, II, and III alternatives when it comes to watching football on a Saturday afternoon?

The ESPN Game Day crew doesn’t come to Chestnut Hill that much, and it certainly doesn’t set up camp when Harvard meets Yale in The Game each November. No, that star-studded crew sets up its equipment in such college-football breeding grounds as Norman, Oklahoma; South Bend, Indiana; Tuscaloosa, Alabama; and Athens, Georgia, while we college-football fans of top-flight programs watch enviously from afar, wishing that our regional teams could stir up similar passions and develop enduring rivalries. Sure, Harvard-Yale is fine, but unless you’re an alum, who the hell cares about that Ivy League showdown?

We here in New England shouldn’t complain about our lot in life, not with two defending world champs taking up residence within 30 miles of each other; however, this region cannot consider itself a well-rounded sports haven without the benefit of major college-football programs, and it’s just too bad that we’ve been shortchanged — especially with the Sox and the Revolution done, the Patriots but a weekly diversion, the Celtics humdrum, and the Bruins on ice (sorry) apparently for the season. It’d be nice to have another area team to rally around at this time of year, but BC football, while enjoying another encouraging season, is all we’ve got at the elite collegiate level.

And BC has provided its share of exciting moments recently — but just when it had nicely established rivalries with such teams as Syracuse, UMass, and UConn, the Eagles have now up and moved to the Atlantic Coast Conference for the coming years. No more easy road trips for Eagles boosters to Syracuse, Storrs, Amherst, or even New Brunswick, Philly, or Morgantown. Nooo-oo-oo. Now BC’s road trips will take the team out of the Northeast completely, with the shortest voyage being to College Park, Maryland, 10 hours away. BC will also have to take wing to the likes of the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle of North Carolina; Virginia; Georgia; and Florida. Sure, BC’s program will have to upgrade to stay competitive in the ultra-competitive ACC — especially in basketball — but what in tarnation is a New England school doing playing teams from the South almost exclusively? Will it help or hinder the efforts of BC officials in garnering more interest from fans?

My belief is that it won’t help. Fans around here had become accustomed to the regional foes that came to Chestnut Hill on a regular basis, especially with the burgeoning UConn football program that recently upgraded to Division-I status. Now, instead of the Orangemen, Huskies, or even the Mountaineers, BC football fans — who will never be confused with the gridiron worshipers in Dixie or the Sunshine State — will have to work themselves into a frenzy when the Eagles host such ACC rivals as the Duke Blue Devils or the UNC Tar Heels (great in hoops, perennially lousy in football), the Virginia Cavaliers, or the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. That may be a tough sell for New Englanders already fed up with the disparate cultures and Bible-thumpin’ populace that helped defeat their favorite son in the recent presidential election.

That leaves UConn as the only New England Division-I football program playing in a conference (the Big East) based within its geographical region. The Husky program has made great strides since moving up to Division I, but it too will host the kind of lackluster competition that makes folks yearn for the likes of a Texas-Oklahoma or Georgia-Florida rivalry. BC won’t be walking through that door for a football game anytime soon; instead, the opponent will often be an inconsequential school such as the University of South Florida, Cincinnati, or Louisville, since they are the newest members of the Big East for 2005. Miami, Maryland, and Notre Dame, they ain’t.

And, as mentioned, New Yorkers are in the same boat, with Syracuse remaining the sole outlet for major college football while the remaining New England states have nada. The Orange in particular cherished the yearly head-to-heads with BC, Miami, and even Virginia Tech, and replacement rivalries are difficult to throw together, usually taking decades to establish. Consequently, it’s back to the drawing board.

So that’s where we’re at. While the upcoming weekend’s national slate includes such intriguing match-ups as Georgia-Auburn, Pitt-Notre Dame, and Miami-Virginia, New Englanders will have one last shot at enjoying some important games, as BC visits West Virginia (for Big East supremacy) and UConn visits Georgia Tech. The rest of the weekend ledger is a precursor to what the marquee games for 2005 will likely present: Maine-URI, Towson-UNH, and Harvard-Penn.

Perhaps BC’s addition to the ACC will become a much bigger enhancement to the New England region’s college-football landscape than one can now imagine; if so, then I’ll take it all back. Until that happens, junkies of the sport will look back fondly upon the last decade or so as "the good old days" around here, and follow the really important, meaningful games of the sport not from the stands of a major collegiate stadium, but on TV with envious yearning as the combatants battle in a land far, far away.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com, and Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com