Friday, January 09, 2009

Interim issues

If the timeline Blaudschun sets is real (and all the gossip seems to confirm it) then Frank Spaziani is only a few days away from being named coach. There are hundreds of questions to ask, but the two big ones for me are:

1. Why no real efforts at a national search? Gene boasted of the stack of names interested in the job. BC should explore any and all decent candidates. Despite fears of losing recruits, there is no reason to rush this. Find the right guy and this recruiting class will not matter. There is no looming game. Spring practice is down the road. Get the right guy and everything will be fine in the long run. This is an opportunity. Rushing it would be a mistake.

2. What makes Spaziani a better candidate now than he was two years ago? He's been passed over once. There were reasons then. Do those reasons not hold true now? If the arguement for Spaz now is consistency and ability to hold the staff in place (which is no sure thing with any internal guy) and recruits in place (which is no sure thing) then go with the better internal choice of Jack Bicknell Jr. He might not be the best candidate out there, but in my opinion, he is a much better candidate now than Spaz.

I am hoping this Globe article is a trial ballon that pops.

13 comments:

America said...

Like I have said over and over again. Gene wants someone that is going to be a Bobby Bowden/Joe Pa/Frank Beamer type at BC. His vision of the program is so much greater than BC Fans see the program. He wants a coach loyal who loves it here and can convince recruits that they will love it too!

Spaz is the perfect choice because he wants to be here, he is loyal and he will recruit because of his enthusiasism.

GOOD CHOICE GENE!!!

WI_Eagle said...

I would be much more in favor of Spaz if he was on the other side of 50, but the fact is he is 62....how many good years does he have left in him? 10 at most? I buy the arguement that he loves BC, he has been a great DC, etc etc. There are a lot of reasons to hire him, but the fact is he is 62...how often does a guy get his first head coaching gig in a BCS conference at that age? Very seldom. And there is a reason for that.

Anonymous said...

Let me tell you a story Vincent....there once was a man who worked at a Fortune 500 company. He worked hard...his division did good...he was soon promoted. He became a middle manager. His employees liked him and upper management did. Then one day, he got a promotion to upper management.

Six months later he was found passed out in a local park with an empty bottle of Jack Daniels and a pink slip in his hand....a couple months after that he wasted his life savings betting on the ponies.

It seems that the pressure got to him and he just couldn't juggle more than one thing at a time.

Spaz might be loyal to BC but can he handle the pressure? Doubt it.

Gene is on his way to making his 3rd faux pas in the last two years. Great way to redeem himself. Get ready for the ACC basement.

campy said...

Herzlich will not enter the NFL draft and return for his senior season.

Sheesh, what a poorly written sentence. Doesn't the Globe employ editors any more?

mod34b said...

Brookline -- What you are referring to with Spaz is the "Peter Principle. "

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle.

I fear a promotion of Spaz with be an example of the Peter Principle: “Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence.”

“The Peter Principle is the principle that ‘In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence.’ While formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1968 book The Peter Principle, a humorous treatise which also introduced the "salutary science of Hierarchiology", "inadvertently founded" by Peter, the principle has real validity. It holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their "level of incompetence"), and there they remain. Peter's Corollary states that "in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties" and adds that "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.’”

Old Heightsonian said...

I loathe Blaudschun as much as any BC fan, college football fan, Globe reader or general reader of the English language, however the byline on this article is "Adam Kilgore and Mark Blaudschun," so it may not be entirely fair to put this (both the timeline ATL mentions or the terrible sentence campy picks out) entirely on him. As evident from his other articles in today's paper, Blauschun (the Globe's BC beat writer I remind you) was in Miami covering the BSC title game. During the most nationally-covered coaching transition in BC football history, the Globe saw fit to send its BC beat writer to Florida to produce two generic articles that could just as easily have been pieced together from the AP newswires.

Dear Jack Connors '63,
Please buy The Boston Globe!

Bryan said...

After what Florida's done the past couple seasons, how does GDF not interview Charlie Strong? A lot of potential there, would be a shame not to even have a conversation.

Eagle0407 said...

How many seconds do you think it took Blaudschun to confirm and reconfirm with the Globe that he could still go to Florida once the BC story broke? Like he'd ever miss that to cover BC. Maybe he assured them that Florida has mailboxes too...

colf44 said...

I am a huge BC fan living in Chapel Hill NC. I cant tell you how this reminds me of the UNC program when Mack Brown left. UNC ended up giving the job to Carl Torbush and he ran the program into the ground. The same things were said about him that they are saying about Spaz. This would be a huge mistake. They need to take their time on this one and get it right.

SectionKK said...

@colf44: maybe this is part of Gene's master plan to get Butch Davis in 2017.

eagleboston said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
eagleboston said...

I seem to remember Whipple being a done deal 2 years back and then Gene pulled out the Jags announcement. If it is Spaz, keep in mind, he is 1-0 as a head coach. That is 1000%.

I want a full, aggressive search. Bill is correct, there is no reason to rush this. You've lost a year of recruiting anyway.

I am curious about Charlie Strong. However, keep in mind, he is coaching 4 and 5 star players. Can he be as successful coaching players below that level? Gene Chizik was great until he got to Iowa State and did not have 5 star players to coach. He won 5 games in 2 years.

Greg said...

Does anyone know if Strong is actually a candidate? I think I've only heard him mentioned from fans.