Boston College head coach Jerry York is still focusing more on how his team looks than how the other team does. But the 39-year coaching veteran knows it would be unwise to ignore what happened in Denver last year: a two-goal surge in the third period that stole Boston College’s momentum and doused its chances of flying home with a win.

“There are ebbs and flows to the game, but certainly, when we went out there last time, it was one of our low points of the season,” York said. “St. Lawrence beat us and Denver beat us, and we need to make sure that doesn’t happen again this year.”

What happened last year comprised the worst stretch for the Eagles, who lost three straight to St. Lawrence, Denver, and Boston University in early January. It was the only time BC lost three in a row last season.

Denver pulled the same comeback stint against fellow Hockey East member Vermont over the weekend. After falling into an early 2-0 hole, the No. 6 Pioneers fired off four unanswered goals to build a 4-2 lead halfway through the third period, and held on for a 5-3 win. They held on for a 1-1 tie the following night, putting their strong defense on display.

This year, the Eagles must not only create a lead but also hold on to it, which won’t come easy on back-to-back nights at a hostile Magness Arena. It also won’t be easy to do against a squad from the rarely-seen WCHA, a conference known for its physicality. York, however, said that Denver is one of the teams that is leading the trend of adding more speed without sacrificing the patented toughness.

“When we play these teams, we see a lot of similarities between Denver’s team and our club,” York said. “Last year we played them, and I thought they were quick and physical, and they had excellent special teams – and that was last year.”

The difference in 2010? The first-round upset at the hands of RIT still looms in the Pioneers’ minds. After entering the NCAA tournament as the No. 2 team and the chic pick to win the Frozen Four, Denver was stunned by the upstart Tigers. That is only serving as added motivation to be the best.

“They got upset in the first round of nationals, which stung them a little bit, and from what I read, they are trying to make this a special year,” York said. “We watched them on tape against Vermont, and they have a good club. This will be a very good early season test for us.”

All of that, of course, was last year, which means little come Friday and Saturday night. What will play a role are the weaknesses BC showed in its 2-0 win at Northeastern last Friday. Breakaways that normally end in lamp-lighting wristers flew over the net, and defensive clears that usually thwart the opponent’s scoring chances were botched, handing the Huskies a number of great opportunities.

While the Eagles escaped unscathed in their season-opener, mostly due to goaltender John Muse’s clutch performance and 35 saves, York recognized that those mistakes won’t go unnoticed against a more talented team like Denver.

“What concerned us about the game was we gave up just as many good chances,” York said. “You can point to the fact that we could have had five on [Northeastern goaltender Chris] Rawlings, but they had a lot of good chances, too, and they missed opportunities. Even though it looked like a good defensive battle, we looked too loose defensively. If we do that against Denver, they’re going to capitalize, so we need to be tighter on defense.”

Improving the back line will be a major focus in practice this week, York said, and will be crucial for BC’s success in Denver this weekend. Even though York and his team aren’t forgetting what happened against the Pioneers last season, they are focused on returning with a better sense of how they stack up against the upper echelon of the national scene.

“We will find out where our strengths are and where our weaknesses are,” York said. “Sunday morning, we will come back on the plane and look at our club and say, ‘Here’s where we need improvement, here’s where we feel comfortable on defense and on our line combinations.’

“When you schedule strong opponents, you will be pushed and tested. It will all be good for us.”

The world of college athletics was rocked Tuesday afternoon after former NFL agent Josh Luchs gave the most stunning exposé on the business in recent memory.

In an article posted on SI.com that will appear in this week’s edition of Sports Illustrated, Luchs explains how he and many other agents befriended potential clients in college, took them to parties and concerts and paid them thousands of dollars.

Luchs’s account is the first time an agent has spoken so openly about the profession openly. He reveals many of the business practices that he and his partners and mentors used to attempt to convince college football players to let the agents represent them.

While some of the activities at the time were illegal, both under NFL Players Association and NCAA rules as well as state laws, most were not, such as paying off student-athletes’ massive credit card debts. Luchs also posted bail for at least one of his future clients.

When Luchs once questioned how agents could get away with this, his mentor, legendary agent Harold ‘Doc’ Daniels told him, “We ain’t members of the NCAA. We didn’t agree to follow these rules.” Even as states began to pass laws limiting student-athletes’ contact with agents, many continued to break the law anyway. They would hide their payments to student-athletes by using middlemen and other techniques.

If you didn’t know, it is very easy to become a certified agent in any one of the four major professional sports leagues.

The most stringent regulations come from the NFLPA, which requires prospective agents to hold a degree, attend a weekend-long seminar and complete an open-book test.

Other leagues simply require applicants to fill out an application and send in a fee. The MLB Players Association only asks prospective agents to contact them if they start representing a player on a team’s 40-man roster.

At best, these application procedures are a joke. Once they have been certified, many agents will not take any more classes or have any refresher training to make sure they understand updated rules.

Doc Daniels’s quote makes clear that agents don’t feel any need to follow NCAA rules, especially when there will be no punishment for them. While a school or former student-athlete may lose records and titles, an agent at worst might be fined. When you make large commissions, a couple of thousand dollars doesn’t matter.

In total, Luchs admitted to paying at least 30 players, some big-name, some small-name, during his nearly 20-year career as an agent. He even goes so far as to name almost all of the players who took money from him. Many of his early clients were from Southern California and were from schools with rich football pedigrees, such as the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles.

The article is being published as colleges and universities across the nation are being reviewed by the NCAA for violations similar to those Luchs admits to having committed. The review comes in the wake of the Reggie Bush scandal, when an NCAA investigation uncovered that the former USC running back had accepted money from an agent while in college.

Luchs’s exposé should serve as yet another major wake-up call to all parties involved in the transition from college to professional athletics. As I wrote in this space three weeks ago, it’s important for the NCAA to continue to enforce the concept of amateurism in college athletics.

While it was widely known that there were some student-athletes who were taking money, we had no real idea just how many of them were until now. The answer, at least among sports with major professional leagues such as football and presumably basketball, hockey and baseball, is the majority.

As Mark Emmert begins his tenure as president of the NCAA, it is now obvious that there are bigger problems on his plate than improving the academic performance of student-athletes.

Emmert needs to start his tenure by putting the association’s money where its mouth is. Emmert told the AP last month, that under his leadership, the NCAA would continue to work “with the universities and colleges to try to correct behaviors that are not in the school’s best interests.”

While some major schools with high numbers of student-athletes who go pro are currently under investigation, that is not enough. These violations are not limited to schools with prominent athletic programs and national followings. As Luchs writes, “It goes on everywhere.” The NCAA’s investigation needs to go everywhere as well.

Students who go abroad absorb every part of their adopted country’s culture, including its alcohol.

A recent study conducted by researchers at U. Washington revealed college students significantly increase their alcohol consumption while abroad.

The study, which was published in the Psychology of Addictive Behaviors journal on Monday, examined the drinking habits of 177 UW students before and after they studied abroad.

UW researchers found that students reported drinking more because they observed other students in their study abroad program drinking more, and followed suit. Students considered drinking abroad an important aspect of cultural immersion.

Students who participated in the survey said they drank over twice as much than they normally did at home while abroad, which amounted to about 10 drinks per week, according to the study.

After returning home, they said they resumed their normal drinking habits of three to five drinks per week.

While the average student increased his or her alcohol consumption by 105 percent, students under the age of 21 increased their drinking by 170 percent, the study said.

Joseph Finkhouse, the director of institutional relations for Boston U’s study abroad programs, said “students’ behavior abroad generally reflects students’ behavior at home.”

Finkhouse said the study only showed the behavior of a small sample of students and could not be used to generalize the behavior of BU students while abroad.

Many of the more than 2,200 students who travel abroad through BU travel to places where the drinking age is under 21, he said.

“Our policy is that students are bound by the laws of the country that they’re in,” he said. “We’re not going to tell them that they can’t drink, but we like to emphasize that drinking isn’t necessarily part of the culture.”

While the BU study abroad program sometimes has rules about alcohol consumption in residences abroad, the program does not attempt to curb legal drinking in the host country, Finkhouse said.

Alice Boudes, a senior in the College of Communication who studied in Paris last Spring, said that there was no pressure to drink more alcohol because alcohol was readily available everywhere.

“I think people were drinking about the same amount,” said Boudes.

However, instead of drinking a lot at once, students spread out their alcohol consumption over a longer period of time, she said.

Alexa Fernandez, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences and COM, had a similar experience when she was studying abroad in Sydney last fall.

“I guess I did drink more because I could actually go out to the bars and the program would provide alcohol at events as well,” she said.

Fernandez said that students seemed to be more responsible while drinking abroad, as they “would be going to bars, not parties.”

Both students agreed traveling abroad changed their drinking habits for the better.

“I learned to enjoy it,” Boudes said. “My program actually had a wine-tasting event during which we got to learn how to drink, savor and recognize wine properly.”

Boudes said that binge drinking seemed much more common in students in Boston than in Paris, regardless of their legal drinking status.

“My bosses would bring beers to work and we would drink on the job,” added Fernandez. “They have a ‘work hard, play hard’ lifestyle.”

According to the study, Europe, Australia and New Zealand were the countries where students’ drinking increased the most.

Writing/directing duo Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, responsible for “Half Nelson” (depressed teacher learns from students) and “Sugar” (sports underdog makes good), are no strangers to uplifting melodrama.

In an interview with the A.V. Club about “It’s Kind of a Funny Story,” the partners said they, “tried to embrace every cliché of a teen movie we could think of.” That’s no joke.

While the trailer looks like a “Cuckoo’s Nest” clone, the film replaces raging individualism and rebellion against an unqualified authority with raging libidos and rebellion against overbearing parents. The result is a cute and insubstantial story that is more John Hughes that Ken Kesey. This breakfast club just happens to be locked in an adult psychiatric ward.

The protagonist, Craig (Keir Gilchrist), is about as exciting as his name. He goes to a high-stakes high school in New York City, where the relative brilliance and sexuality of his peers leaves him a self-loathing wreck. Mom and Dad don’t understand; instead, they just push Craig to apply to a prestigious summer program that he doesn’t care about, but feels will solely determine his future happiness.

So he climbs the Brooklyn Bridge.

Craig doesn’t jump, but instead checks himself into a hospital psych ward, home to a cast of kooky patients and one flirty teen named Noelle (Emma Roberts – not Emma Watson, but about as cute). The relative weirdness of his new peers, and the attention from Noelle, eventually rehabilitates Craig after a few days in the hole. We should all be so lucky.

As promised by the directors, Craig’s short journey pauses at all the great teen movie clichés. He makes friends with a wizened loon (the surprisingly dynamic Zach Galifianakis) who becomes a teacher and confidante, despite violent mood swings. He breaks out of his cage and runs through hallways with his lady over songs by Broken Social Scene. He explains his past through Wes Anderson-style montages, some with stop-motion cityscapes. At one point, he impersonates David Bowie in an endearing musical fantasy.

But what gets lost in all the peppy teen homages is a reason to care. Craig’s problems are broad enough that any young student can sympathize, but his circumstances are too extreme and his changes too immediate to connect with. Many of us have thrown pity-parties over college applications and the pressure of future planning. Few of us have straddled the rails of the Brooklyn Bridge, ended up in psych ward and left feeling right as rain in five days. Craig’s easy victory emphasizes our own daily defeats. It’s a valid date movie.

If there’s one message to take away from this movie, it is this: Cute girls heal all wounds. Or maybe: Your life isn’t as bad as you think, you whiny turd. Maybe there isn’t one message. As in life, you need to find the meaning for yourself. Just don’t expect Zach Galifianakis to help you.

Boise State may be No. 3 in all three major polls again, but lets take a closer look at how the Broncos are clearly discriminated against. Strength of schedule (SOS) rankings, according to the consensus computer rankings this week, in bold. In English: the lower the number, the better the team is.

See how the overall rankings are broken down by the computers at http://www.masseyratings.com/cf/compsum.htm

Facts:

• 3.59 No. 3 BSU 5-0 (1-0 WAC) slipped from 101 to 120 points behind 7.69 No. 1 Ohio State 6-0 (2-0 Big 10) and from 24 to 53 points behind 5.98 No. 2 Oregon 6-0 (3-0 Pac-10) in this weeks USA Today Coaches’ Poll. BSU beat 66.84 Toledo 57-14 3-3 (2-0 MAC) last week.

• Ohio St. beat 74.68 Indiana 3-2 (0-2 Big 10) 38-10 — IU’s wins are against Towson, Western Kentucky and Akron. Oregon defeated 1-5 (0-3 Pac-10) 96.78 Washington State 43-23 — WSU’s only win vs. Montana State 23-22 in Pullman Wash.

• BSU ranks No. 5 in total offense and No. 2 in total defense nationally. No other team in the country ranks inside the top five of both these categories. According to the computers, BSU has played the toughest SOS out of any top five team and has performed the best on both sides of the ball, as the numbers communicate.

• 25.13 Virginia Tech 4-2 (2-0 ACC) received 24 votes in the USA Today Poll behind 24.91 North Carolina State 5-1 (2-1 ACC) that received 41 votes. VT defeated NCST 41-30 two weeks ago on the road in Raleigh, N.C.

• 21.21 Oregon State 3-2 (2-0 Pac-10) has only lost to BSU and 4.32 No. 5 TCU 6-0 (2-0 MWC) by a combined 22 points — both losses came on the road. Oregon St. beat 15.0 No. 20 Arizona 4-1 (1-1 Pac-10) last week on the road in Tucson, Ariz. 29-27.

Questions in need of answering:

• How does BSU get lose ground in the USA Today Coaches’ Poll when it beats a better team than Ohio St. and Oregon did last week?

• If the polls truly reflect how good a team is due to its overall body of work, then why isn’t BSU ranked above Ohio St. and Oregon when its the only team to have both its offense and defense ranked in the top five nationally?

• According to the computer averages, BSU has played a tougher SOS schedule than both Ohio St. and Oregon. Why isn’t BSU acknowledged for having the best overall team as the national offensive and defensive statistics imply?

• How is NCST receiving more votes than VT when VT was clearly the better team?

• How is Arizona ranked ahead of Oregon St. when Oregon St. just beat Arizona on the road?

• I thought the voters favored head-to-head match-ups more than anything?

Answers:

There is only one answer. This might not come as a surprise to anyone, but the polls are a complete joke, and it’s not hard to see. Establishment teams, for some reason, are rewarded for defeating inferior opponents. The computer system, that is one-third of the BCS formula, indicates BSU has played a superior schedule when compared to Ohio St. and Oregon.

Still, BSU is thrown to the back-burner. The coaches, or should I say the sports information directors who actually fill out the ballots, are obviously afraid of BSU crashing their party. Not only are they punishing BSU, they’re downgrading their own kind in Oregon St. and VT to ensure BSU doesn’t move up. Cannibalizing the weak so the strong can survive in a sense.

If the voters move Oregon St. or VT up, then BSU gets more credibility. This way they can say, “Look, BSU hasn’t beaten any teams in the Top 25. It doesn’t deserve to play for the BCS National Championship.”

Bravo, voters, bravo. Your ways of skewing the polls may oblivious to many, but for those who dig deep, we will use your own system against you to debunk your faults. We may live in Boise, Idaho, but we can do math and read graphs with the best of them