Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Offensive staff finally settled

During his Signing Day press conference, Steve Addazio got surprisingly defensive regarding next year's offense. He sort of dismissed that the change in Coordinators would impact the team and noted that it was his offense and he touched every aspect of the program. In fairness to Addazio and Day, our offense has looked more like Addazio's Florida schemes (heavy on power) than it ever looked like Day's variation on Chip Kelly. The team and scheme should probably look very familiar next year with Todd Fitch calling plays.

Fitch has plenty of experience calling plays. His past -- with mobile QBs in the spread -- will also mesh well with what Addazio wants. Overall I give Addazio credit for handling the search well. He lost his OC somewhat unexpectedly, looked around and decided his best option was promoting from the current staff. For those who fear that BC went cheap, backfilling Fitch's position spot with Brian White indicates otherwise.

I thought White might make it up to BC, but as a play caller. The fact that he's coming as a position coach confirms that BC's giving out competitive staff salaries. A veteran guy like White, who has been a coordinator and worked at various Power 5 programs, had options. He picked BC to come back to New England and to work with Addazio again. That's great validation of where we are headed. White also fits well with BC's needs. He's recruited Florida, recruited the Midwest, and with ties to Harvard and Notre Dame, understands that BC recruits have to put in time in the classroom.

I was sad to see Ryan Day go, but think Addazio handled this offseason's staff changes well. We kept continuity on offense and upgraded our recruiting.

6 comments:

mod34b said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
EL MIZ said...

had the honor to see Coach Addazio speak tonight at the Waldorf Astoria in NYC. what a boss. "FAITH! CONVICTION! TRUST!" "IT IS AN HONOR TO BE YOUR FOOTBALL COACH!" hard not to love this guy. was basically a pep rally. had the room laughing, got most to give him a standing O. nothing really groundbreaking - did mention a few recruits he was excited about. first recruit he mentioned as being excited about was Chris Garrison, TE/WR from Lawrence Academy. he described Garrison as "dynamic" http://www.hudl.com/athlete/2035312/highlights/205623375/v2

Addazio said that the "lineman from Syracuse" (John Phillips) has the potential to be the best linemen he ever coached. he was also very excited about Zach Allen the DE we flipped. also, Wyatt Ray is apparently the grandson of Nat King Cole.

Borgeson is apparently the fastest guy on the team.

he reiterated the 5-hour radius stuff with recruiting, but also said they are going to hit private and catholic HS in California real hard and they were getting good feedback out there. wouldn't surprise me if we got more commits from CA next year.

finally, said they need an indoor practice facility. what a surprise.

go daz, love that guy. program is in good hands. guy really commands a room.

Hoib said...

El Miz

Thanks for the info. I assume he said the offense will remain the same w/ the new OC. Did he have anything to say about the kicker? My sense from the beggining has been that Daz is a winner, glad to hear you endourse that view.

GP11 said...

I was there as well. Was ready to run through a wall after his talk.

One piece of info was that he doesn't much care for specific offensive schemes. Said he's seen them all and there's no way a specific is going to be a magic elixir. It's more about getting the best talent on the field. I hope he meant that as we'll fit the scheme to the talent as opposed to not being worried about innovation.

Another interesting tidbit was that he's less concerned with losing kids to other regional schools (i.e. if a kid in CT grew up wanting to go to UConn then there's not much they can do) but they are more concerned with losing kids to Stanford or Duke or Northwestern. The kids who are great athletes but also care about academics. He said those are the staff's biggest failures.

He tempered expectations for next year given the new O-line and QB. Said to expect more in line with years 1-2 (which seems reasonable) and then in year 4-5 he expects to be contending. In all it was a great 75-90 minutes from Coach Daz. He truly seems to love being at BC.

EL MIZ said...

HOIB - Daz did say he wanted to improve the passing. said he had tailored the offense to the talent on the roster and hoped that the passing would get better this year.

guy is a total winner. optimistic, relentless, believes BC can do big things.

no mention of the kick game

Hoib said...

El Miz

Just having guys who can catch is the most important missing link in the pass game. Thanks for the info.