Sunday, November 20, 2005

Thoughts on the weekend

An 8-3 regular season is probably better than most BC fans would have predicted in August. BC was lucky to win such a sloppy game. Ignore the Peach Bowl talk. Way too many things need to happen. Orlando looks like the most likely option.


I just got back in from Vegas late Sunday, so I won’t have my second viewing thoughts posted until Monday.


While in Vegas I was able to watch a ton of college football and get a new perspective on BC football. The two guys I was with are both BC grads and sports fans (one of the guys has regular season tickets to the Celtics and Red Sox, yet not BC). Neither is a diehard BC fan. They both root for the Eagles, but don’t rearrange their schedules around gametimes like I do. You just don’t find SEC grads into sports that don’t root for their school before pro teams. Part of it is culture. College football is behind pro sports in the Northeast. Part of it is our BC experience (we all graduated in 1998. The Super Fans and the rabid culture had not caught on yet. BC football was still about the party). And part of it is TOB. I get a lot of email on him. I also spend a ton of time on the BC message boards where I have already described the divide. But hearing the casual fans talk about our predictable mediocrity was an awakening. It proved to me that the average BC grad is underwhelmed by O’Brien and his accomplishments. I have talked about how torn I am on the guy. I think he might be the best coach in the history of our program. I’ve also discussed his numerous and frustrating short comings. Listening to these guys made me realize that the general population is bored with our program and it will take a new marketing push or TOB taking us to the next level for the malaise to change.

5 comments:

Joe said...

Have to disagree on this one. TOB wins games. It isn't a circus down there, and therefore not as entertaining as some other more risky programs, but we are going to another bowl game this year and that is all that matters.

Jaime Lannister said...

Bill kick this guy off your site, what a stupid post.

Going to 'another bowl game' is not all that matters. I'd gladly stay home and miss a mid-afternoon workday bowl game every other year or even for 2 years if it meant going to a truly exciting bowl sometime reasonably soon. A bowl I could travel to without taking off a week from work, a bowl on a weekend or near New Year's Eve, a 'good' bowl. The Orlando bowl would be fine if it weren't on the Tuesday after Christmas. Terrible.

ATL_eagle said...

I don't delete posts. This isn't Eagle Action.

Joe said...

thanks for the stay of execution Atl. Jaime, I hear your frustration on not going to a "good" bowl, but we will get there. For now, we are winning games, graduating players, and staying off of the mafia's speed dial. It pisses me off when we blow games like UNC, but besides that, where is there really an excuse to complain about this season?

Deacon Drake said...

Yeah, firing Ron Zook and Frank Solich really worked wonders for those schools. While I feel TOB makes a handful of horrible decisions every season that end up being the difference between Gator and blah (This season it was leaving Porter in to crap UNC away), the consistency of being an 8 win team has helped in recruiting and there has not been a season in the 2000s when I did not feel BC could win the conference with a key win. Chance struck us down in the Ed Reed game. We never have to start a true freshman QB for an entire season, like FSU is doing now, and have him sabotage a season. And if you look around, name a fan base outside of USC and Notre Dame that aren't bad-mouthing their coach. (Seriously, look what happened in Tennessee this year)