The success of Boston College's football team is easy to measure in numbers: The Eagles won 10 regular-season games for the first time since 1940 and, for only the second time in school history, attained their best ranking in 65 years when they reached No. 2 in the BCS polls. The team achieved the best overall record, 38-11, for any senior class in school history.
While their athletic accomplishments are undeniable, the Eagles' success on the football field has also had less conspicuous effects beyond the gates of Alumni Stadium.
One of the more noted effects of football success is seen in the rise in the number of applications to BC. The phenomenon of increased applications due to football success has been nicknamed the "Flutie Effect" in the media after the large increase in applications that occurred in the year after Doug Flutie threw his infamous Hail Mary pass. But Doug Flutie can hardly be held entirely responsible for BC's success, said Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo.
"At that time, [BC] had made a major effort to hire some great faculty and had made some major improvements in the quality of students," DeFilippo said. "They had really done a great job on the academic side. What Doug Flutie did was he let the country know about Boston College and what a great institution it was."
Though athletic success provided the publicity, it was the quality of BC as a University that generated the increase in students.
So, will Matt Ryan and this season's Eagles have an effect similar to Flutie's? At this point, it's hard to say.
"As for a direct correlation between football success and admission applications, that's hard to establish," said John Mahoney, director of undergraduate admissions, in an e-mail. "We are seeing an increase in applications so far this year, but so are most of our major competitors."
Mahoney said that other factors, such as an increase in the size of the college-going population, and the fact that students are generally applying to more colleges, may be largely responsible for the increase.
2008 Woodie Awards
