None of us knows if this will work, so I just have to trust my instincts. After contemplating my initial surprise and disappointment, I thought Addazio would be fine at BC. He's not a gamechanger. He's a bit of a goof. But his core traits -- energy and recruiting -- would get us back to a respectable level of BCS football.
Recruiting
Even Florida fans who mocked his offense will candidly tell you about his ability to recruit. I know recruiting at BC will be different, but you could see from his press conference that he's probably good in a living room or coaching clinic. If Addazio gets the best kids from New England, sprinkles in some three stars from New Jersey and Ohio and fills out the class with typical BC under the radar types we will have enough talent to compete every year. Recruiting takes effort. To be great at it, you have to love it. Addazio does and I expect that passion to carry over into the assistants. Spaz was a terrible recruiter. He didn't sell and didn't try and his apathy carried over to the assistants.
Energy
In my opinion any successful venture begins with a shared belief in the goals and what could be accomplished. I don't know if Addazio can win championships at BC, but he certainly believes he can. I am sure the "Little Engine That Could" shtick will wear on us eventually, but it is refreshing. I would say that two of our last three head coaches only believed that you could win eight games at BC and only mentioned championships to appease the fans.
The competition
I've written this before, but our football world is very small. We only need to be better than six teams ( Louisville, NC State, Clemson, Wake Forest, Florida State, and Syracuse). Syracuse and Wake Forest don't concern me. I like Dave Doeren but think he will have a tough adjustment in Raliegh. I think Louisville is well coached and I think Clemson and Florida State are both coached by guys just like Addazio (high energy recruiters with questionable Xs and Os). We can compete against all of those programs. I also think we benefit from Penn State having limited scholarships and UConn being stranded in the Big East. Our recruiting should get easier on those factors alone.
The future
As long as he does what he is supposed to do -- recruit -- and empowers solid coordinators, Addizio can reach a consistent level of success. As a reminder Bicknell, Henning, TOB, Jags and Spaz all won bowl games at BC. It doesn't take a coaching genius. We may not be headed to the elite of college football, but we are headed back in the right direction.
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25 comments:
It is what it is. Yup, it is.
So I am coming around too. No point beating my head against the wall for 6 years.
Addazio can succeed. Go Daz Go!
His Florida work is very impressive and a very good calling card for recruits. Addazio's energy and ability to talk intelligently are wonderful.
And one last thing. Everyone is nervous that Addazio is a 1970's football mind who likes to run, run, run. That concerns me too.
But if I were to identify the biggest problem BC had last year, I would say it was the OL. The OL must improve if BC is to have a chance. It is the most important piece of the puzzle to get right.
The BC 2012 OL was not tough and could not establsih a run game against any FBS competition. The OL could not pass block too well either (in part becuase it was obvious when we were going to pass)
I think Addazio can and will quickly improve our OL play. That is going to improve the run and pass games.
Addazio knows he has a great weapon in Rettig. By improving the run, he will improve Rettig's chances to succeed too.
Why does it scare us that Addazio likes to run? Hasn't that been our bread and butter over the years. We need to get to adequate Oline play and eventually get back to "Oline U" style domination.
A commitment to the run is not a problem per say. Being terrible at the run is the problem.
I see more than a few refernces to Florida fans being down on his offenses. Exaxctly what fans are we talking about. Blog poster like the negative Neds that we see here? or, did anybody actually do some kind of survey. The numbers posted here certainly suggest that he ran a pretty good well balanced attack.
You are right about the o-line. run or pass they didn't get the job done. It is tough to say whether it was talent of coaching. For the sake of next year's team I hope that it was mostly coaching.
We could have a very decent offense next year, but the defense....
for all those hyperventilating about Al Golden, keep in mind Golden went 8-4 (5-3 in MAC) in his last year.
the next year Addazio took over and went 9-4 (5-3 in MAC) with basically the same team.
from what i can tell based on their roster, that team lost starting RB and starting WR (and future NFL players) bernard pierce and rod streater, starting TE (rodriguez), and at least 4 starting lineman (dennis, tribue, palumbo, boyle). his 2nd year at Temple is worrisome, but in the bigger picture realizing all the starters leaving, it makes some sense.
last year, BC had 10 recruits rated over 74 by ESPN. temple had 12. this year, they got 2 commits from guys who had BC offers.
when fairly assessed, i think Addazio has some positives as well as some negatives. we'll see how he does, and i hope we can get back to the ACC championship game sometime soon.
Even Herzlich is calling out the new coach for saying yesterday in his introduction speech that Herzlich had brain cancer and plays for the Jets. In his defense, he did correct the brain cancer piece ...
Anyone who has ever dealt with a salesmen, knows that they talk first, often times either not aware of or not caring about the content. Not saying that is necessarily the case with Adazzio. Maybe he was nervous ...
I apologize if these links are not live; but I occasionally do some work around here--when I'm not on BC sports boards.
You asked who was critical of Daz at Florida? Here's a representative sample:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fire-Steve-Addazio/147873948582822
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kbn8JSET5OE
http://rumorsandrants.com/2010/11/florida-to-fire-offensive-coordinator-steve-addazio.html
Just Google "fire Steve Addazio"
Thanks. Just as I suspected. The usual types who are around every pro and college sport in the country. A small number of big mouths scream for a while and too many people think that it is universal. These are the types that are on sports radio every night bitching and complaining and coming up with quick fixes for every ill that their team has. Noise. Just noise.
He is not the second coming, but let's wait and see what he can do.
I'm afraid our fanbase is as divided as the nation....we have new separated into maroon fans and gold fans. Maroon fans are cynical, beaten down, hopeless and filled with vitriolic hatred for Bates and Addazio. I am not really sure if Bates hired Jon Gruden if they could have been happy. Maroon fans look at stats without the context behind the stats. Maroon fans exaggerate the facts ("He's bringing back all of Spaz's assistants!")
Gold fans have hope in the future, are thrilled we finally have a coach with enthusiasm, will at least give the guy one game to see what he is about. Gold fans know that BC can attract the best players in New England and scour the top catholic HS programs to build our roster. And gold fans know we will kick Notre Dame's ass in 3 years!
One thing is for certain: Addazio is going to be a much better media spokesperson for BC football than Spaziani (aka Eeyore). Clearly, we need makeovers of both the O and D lines, and we need wins, but effective PR will help our recruiting, too.
Sgt Slaughter will indeed sell BC well ... hopefully nearly as well as he sells himself ...
Ivan Maisel in today's "3-point stance":
1. Steve Addazio is so excitable and so enthusiastic that I think he believes every word he says when he says it. Here’s what he said Wednesday: “This is my dream job. I’ve been a lot of great places, and everywhere I’ve been and all the friends that know me and the people that I’ve worked with, knew that I wanted to one day be here at Boston College.” And here’s what he said two years ago: “My message is make it a destination to be at Temple. Don’t be passing through….(N)ow I’m honestly living my dream.” Addazio believes it. Boston College hopes he meant it.
I am moving the floor up for BC. Floor is now 5 wins. Ceiling, until proven otherwise is 8 wins. I expect 6 wins this year and the next and not less than 7 in future years. That is reasonable.
EagleBoston, I am a Maroon and Gold fan -- an Eagles Fan!
The seemingly optimistic Gold fans are incrediblely narrow-minded and pessimistic when describing the qualities of the Maroon fans.
The Golds seems a bit smug.
The maroon/gold divide is well put and understandable. The maroons reflect really bad decisions on hiring with Spaz, the ever growing questions about Donahue, women's basketball, BC sports marketing, only fair to middling facilities improvement - one does get discouraged but mark me gold on Addazio's hiring. I live in the Philie area and he was great with the media, solid coach, represented Temple in a superior way with the community.
I refuse to let me stay immersed in the maroon category. That is past and a new day has come....but...the away from gold back to maroon for me depends on what Bates does with the whole athletic landscape at BC which currently is far below the "ever to excel" matra. I was taught at my beloved BC!
I wonder if Cory Jasudowich signs on to play at Linebacker U. now? Addazio was rcruiting him at Temple...and he was a BC commit at one point.
Everyone says he's a good recruiter, did you ever hear a kid going to a school because the coach was lousy but the recruiter was good. Did those kids go to play for Urban Meyer or because Dizzi was a good recruit?
What BC needed was a good coach in his mid to late 30s coach who could hire a staff to do the recruiting. It didn't need an over the hill guy with no record who is so much like Spazio it is frightening.
Spin it all you want about going with the team etc., but it's all the same talk as when Spazio was hired. Everyone is talking about how good at PR and for the community he is but the bottom line he isn't a good coach nor does he attract good coaches to work with him. His educational background is lacking, his football prowess is deficient and we're going to suffer with him for year after year.
Why did he get a 6 year contract? Was he a hot commodity. Hell, Coach Strayhand had better statistics than him and he didn't exist.
For everyone talking about what a great recruiter he is, I have two words for you Ron Zook!
If he's such a great recruiter, shouldn't we be hearing that his top incoming recruits at Temple are now coming to BC.
Daz could very well end up like Zook. As bad a coach as Zook was, he did leave Meyer with a lot of talent though (Not sure about his Illinois years). In a weird way, that could be a positive for Daz. Even if he turns out to be a bad hire, he will most likely significantly increase the talent base for the next coach. Some of the other guys we were considering had no recruiting experience in college, or at the BCS level, so they couldn't even guarantee that.
ATL, you've done it. Peanut is aboard the Daz train.
We shall know the answer in 3 years. Will he be Dazoo or Dazzle?
Any guy who is 53 years old and is still wearing his college ring has problems.
It's not focusing on the run that is worrisome. It's the run, run, pass, punt sequence that is. And with the runs, it's always run up the middle. We have seen that sequence already in the last years of TOB and the first years of Spaz and it didn't turn out too well. Addazio was notorious for this at Florida, which is one of the reasons the fanbase wanted to kick him to the curb.
Are we sure that's not a national championship ring?
I predict that BC has a new President, a new AD and a new head football coach (in that order) 4 years from now.
Retirement, no confidence force out and a worn out act, respectively.
I used to not be a cynical person.
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