Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Signing Day means new Eagles

As someone who has been following BC recruiting as a skeptic, today is always a fun day. It means the speculation and projecting is over and we now have a group of guys to welcome into the BC family. You can do your best to guess who will make an impact, but history shows that these things are very tough to predict. What we do know: at least five of these guys will have minimal impact on BC. We know a few will be average and hopefully most will be great. Five years from now about four of them will be on NFL rosters. Basically they are in line with most BC recruiting classes of the past decade.


As for criticism and praise...I am glad we kept the Cincinnati pipeline flowing. I also appreciate we were able to take advantage of a deep year for Massachusetts talent. I don't like that we were not a bigger player in New Jersey. I also wish we had used up all our open scholarships. I think "banking" has little upside while another body always seems to be needed.


Because of the weather, BC did not hold a full press conference. Instead Spaz just spoke to reporters over the phone.


Scout.com ranked BC as the 35th overall. They consider it the fifth best ACC class.

The other major service, Rivals.com calculated BC as 39th overall. Rivals has BC as the seventh best in the ACC.


ESPN.com only list their Top 25 and BC didn't make the cut.


It does bother me that Spaz still blames the roster issues on the previous coaching staff. Why doesn't any reporter remind him that most of the staff created those "gaps" under Jags and that the team has had the same recruiting coordinator for five years. Shouldn't he have been involved in fixing those gaps years ago?


Illinois is becoming another niche spot that BC is mining.


Bruce Feldman named Albert Louis-Jean as one of the top early enrollees.


Brian Mihalik wants to study business at BC.


Alex Howell is already in touch with Ryan Quigley.

6 comments:

Jamie M said...

Its a class and finally gets us back to some much needed depth and development. Spaz deserves a helluva lotta credit.

There's a big difference when kids get a year to mature, get bigger and learn the system , rather than just sticking into the ACC directly from their high schools. This class goes a LONG way to putting us back on course.

Great job by Spaz and crew. Love keeping the few studs Mass produces in-state and I love the Catholic School pipeline.

If someone is unhappy with this class, they're too anit-Spaz to judge

Scott said...

Bill, I just can't buy this attempt to pawn off on Spaz the chronic offensive recruiting failures of TOB/Bible/Jags/Logan.

"It does bother me that Spaz still blames the roster issues on the previous coaching staff. Why doesn't any reporter remind him that most of the staff created those "gaps" under Jags and that the team has had the same recruiting coordinator for five years. Shouldn't he have been involved in fixing those gaps years ago?"

Recall, TOB & Jags were both former O-Line coaches and OCs, and Bible/Logan had very particular tastes for QBs and WRs. Those 4 guys controlled what types of QBs, OL, and WRs they wanted and recruited.

I'm sure the entire staff has some role in looking over and luring recruits, particularly if they hail from designated territories, but use some common sense.

Can you really see Spaz/Govs getting in the face of Logan/Bible or TOB/Jags and telling them, "Goddamit, you are targeting the wrong kind of QB, OL, and WR, and you aren't doing enough. I demand that you change it up & listen to me." Seriously that ain't how it goes.

Spacing wasn't perfect on defense either, but it's been a pretty damn good defense, and obviously that's where spaz/Govs had the most influence (when mere defensive assistants 3rd or 4th on the overall totem pole).

ATL_eagle said...

Four big spacing areas: OL, DL, DBs and QBs. DBs and DL are Spaz/Siravo.

QBs are now settled and the most closely tied to coaching changes (although the QB issue is a much bigger topic).

OL, gaps have been more about attrition and injuries. Not coaching changes.

I just get tired of excuse making. It stinks of TOB blaming the gambling scandal over and over. Spaz reminds the media all the time and no one ever mentions that he kept six staffers. The coaching change also had nothing to do with him talking Tranq out of his second retirement.

Scott said...

I don't know how you can leave out WRs when we were forced played 3 true frosh (and a raw RSF). WR, coulped with QB (shuttled between Frosh and RSF) are the dire holes where the dearth of talent/numbers was more than a spacing issue or lack of depth, but a lack of starters. Those were the huge ones.

- RB was close to same problem (for spacing/starters/depth), but solved with A.Williams ... and hopefully Finch/KImble on the depth side.

- The OL holes are about depth and development, i.e., do we have enough to bring them along slowly. That was caused by a drop off in OL recruiting under TOB, and mass attrition from injuries and change in system. We weren't forced to throw true Frosh or RSF to the wolves this year, and we won't next year, but we've had to recruit 11 in the last 2 classes to restock the shelves.


I agree we got thin at DL and corner this year. It forced Rudolph & C.J. Jones into the 2n deep early. This upcoming year, we'll likely have to toss ALJ & Wujack into the two-deep as well, and I suspect Bortich will earn his way onto the field as well, by beating out sophs. So I agree those fell thin, but nothing to the tune that undermined the defense or other overall program. That's pretty much fixed now.

I really didn't hear him making any excuses yesterday. I heard him say the last two years have been all about fixing our numbers, spacing, and creating enough depth so I can redshirt most. That's just objective fact, and frankly, it's the media who keeps pointing out how young the offense is, and how great the defense is.

eagleboston said...

ATL, I have to respectfully disagree with you about the gap in recruiting. If you look at the defense, there was no drop off in performance through the coaching changes. Last I checked, the defense was #1 against the run this year. You cannot get much better than that. The drop off occurred on the offensive side of the ball thanks to TOB and Jags recruiting QB's that all left the program. They also did a poor job recruiting wide receivers. I think they did alright with the O-line and running backs.

Spaz has tried to close these gaps over the past 2 years and I feel he has done a noticeably better job recruiting than TOB and Jags. I may question his conservative decision-making and clock management, but I cannot criticize his recruiting.

By the way, I don't feel Spaz was making excuses. He identified their recruiting focus and that required him to address the depth and spacing issues due to prior head coaches.

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