Thursday, November 17, 2016

BC-UConn preview

On message boards, email chains, Twitter and Facebook, there is an ongoing debate about Addazio's future at BC. In the debate there is a cynical undercurrent that regardless of how the season finishes, the coach is coming back. (For what it is worth, I don't believe that.) But the fact that those who still care about BC Football have such cynicism about their team and school is a terrible sign. You can tell from Addazio's demeanor with the media that he doesn't take well to criticism. But I hope that if BC decides to keep him around one more year, someone of significance reaches out to the coach and tells him to change his attitude. The "angry dude" is not endearing, especially following blowout after blowout. The guy says he wants positivity, yet sneers at Meter for even wanting to consider a QB change. How about some appreciation of those supporting the team even when the product on the field is hard to watch? How about if things aren't working "his way" to try something new? I don't expect Addazio to change, but I hope someone at BC realizes that how this is playing out is not helping anyone.


What's on my mind (not totally related to this game)
The old Marine TOB will be part of the broadcast team for this game. Clearly someone at ESPN has a sense of humor. I would love to be a fly on the wall during the coach and broadcast team meeting Friday afternoon. I have never heard how TOB feels about Addazio or vice versa. Given what I know about the two, I imagine TOB is much more at piece with his career and what he accomplished at BC. It is not like Gene is still around and despite the success that Jags had following him, Spaz and Daz's stumbles have made TOB's boring, but steady days seem that much more remarkable. I don't know if Daz would view TOB's success at BC as a threat or a model. I can't remember him ever even talking about TOB. Who knows? Maybe they will use their private time to discuss how hard it is to succeed at BC and all the BC fans are unappreciative morons.

Three Simple Keys
1. Emphasize the short passing game. UConn will stop the run. It is up to BC to keep drives alive with short passes early in possessions.
2. Keep contain. They have a QB who can move and make something out of nothing. It is important for our front four to pressure him and keep him in the pocket.
3. Consistent Oline play. UConn's strength is in their DLine. We need to win that battle and not let them blow up our running game or get to Towles.

Gambling Notes
-- Addazio is 11-1 against non-Power 5 teams while at BC
-- BC has not lost on back to back Senior Days since 2003-04
-- BC leads the all-time series 10-0-2
The current line is BC-7

Factoid
Addazio dismissed UConn as a rival on his radio show and he sort of had a point. We have only played them four times since they made the jump to DIA in 2000.

Scoreboard Watching
No games will impact us, so I continue on with my coaching series. While I don't think BC will go this way, I would love to see a high risk, high ceiling type of hire, like Troy's Neal Brown. Troy is a different universe from BC Football, but I think Brown's offense would be fun to watch and his potential upside is huge. The UMass grad wouldn't be a total fish out of water either, having been an assistant at Catholic colleges and worked in the northeast. I don't think he is likely, but it wouldn't hurt to talk to him.

What I hope to see...
The seniors make the most out of Senior Day. This is their last chance to play at Alumni. As a team their careers started off so promising, but now it feels sort of hollow. I hope that they come out motivated and get one more win at home.

BC is in trouble if...
The game is close late in the fourth quarter. It took an INT to close out NC State. Otherwise I fear that Addazio's questionable game management tactics will doom us.

Overall
I think we win this week. It will be an ugly, defensive slog, but we have enough playmakers that turn something into nothing. When our play makers aren't breaking off long TDs, expect plenty of three and outs.
Final Score: BC 17, UConn, 10

25 comments:

mod34b said...

Jeff Brohm might be worth a look too.. See HERE a bit older than Neal Brown. (45 vs 34)

forget PJ Fleck.. he going well beyond BC levels....

UConn looks bad when I have watched them.

I am going to say BC 31, UConn 17.

Yukon seems to have decent Rush defense and not such a good pass rush or pass D. So if our man Towles has some time and some confidence, he might have a decent day.

Landry should do well too. UConn gives up a lot of sacks and has trouble running. They do pass ok. Will our secondary be up for the task? I think so.

FakeShalomTfree said...

For once I agree with Daz. UCF is UConn's rival, and as intense as this weekends matchup will be it will never match the Civil Conflict (nor have its own wiki page)

Bravesbill said...

UConn 17, BC 13. Due to the "moral victory," Daz lives to fight another year.

Unknown said...

It is kind of disgusting when you look at BC's out of conference schedule for both football and basketball. One of the many reasons they will never be relevant in this market.

CT said...

My regular bartender is a big FSU fan. The first time I saw him after the game, his first words were, "you guys' offense is pretty vanilla. I mean, even when our opponent tricks us it sucks, but you're like 'pretty cool.' You figure if I know that, the coaches do, too."

"Yes, Dave. I know."

"I was expecting a hard-fought, tough, maybe 17-10 kind of game. Because it's BC."

"Have you seen us on offense? The defense literally has no chance. They're on the field all the time."

"Sad, man. Not what I was expecting."

BC's only foray into the deep South. Not good. Saw we lost a commit today. Dlineman. Will be interesting to see where he winds up.

Only a 7 point favorite over UConn at home? My Lord.

Max said...

BC football is dead currently. Until the school decides what it wants to do - all this angst is meaningless and self serving. I tired of excuses. When I played we had a 500?square foot weight room we shared with all other teams. We played anyone, anywhere and won - and had fun doing it. Maybe we didn't know any better and it was a different time but JFC stop the excuses, rationalization and plain lies on why you can not win. Ever! Pat yourself on the back for beating Wagner. No one ever grew up playing football saying "whenI get to college I want to play Wagner". "When I get to college I want to change my uniform every f'n year. Man up you puss@@@ and play football. If not F@@@ Off and play soccer. You can look back 30 years from now and say "I sucked. I wish I wasn't such a puss@.

TGS said...

Max is da man.

The Daz is the opposite.

Geezer eagle said...

Max is da man!

Geezer eagle said...

If the administration was committed to winning, BB and Daz would be gone by now.

Knucklehead said...

Houston over Louisville 31-0.

Looks like Lville didn't steal the game plan from Houston this week,

Something is up with college football this year. A lot of high scoring blowouts.

Unknown said...

For ATL Eagle, I would like to share this little story. Last year, I went to the FSU game at Alumni. Prior to the Eagle Walk, the team assembled in Gasson to gather and prayers. I like to go there and sit in the hallway to catch a glimpse of players and coaches up close. Through the main entrance in walks Bates with TOB who was being honored that night. Bates does not look like a confident self assured AD or at least what I thought he would look like. TOB on the other hand acts, looks and appears in all aspects like a D-1 head coach. When he went into that room full of BC players assembled in their blue blazers, shirts and ties, I could see how he commanded attention of the room but the look on face was all, 'God, I miss it here.' The image stuck with me. Love the guy or not, he was good for BC.

Big Jack Krack said...

I agree, David.

Big Jack Krack said...

Defildicko wouldn't give TOB a raise, and it's been pretty much all downhill after his players graduated and left.

eagleboston said...

I loved TOB. Turned BC around after the downfall in the mid-90's. Consistently beat Notre Dame and almost always won his bowl games. He screwed up by not playing Ryan earlier but on the whole, he was very, very good for BC. He could not break through the 8 or 9 win barrier, but, hell, I would take a decade of 8 win seasons over the BC we have endured the past 8 years.

blockparty said...

ATL,

please change the heading to the blog.

"A Boston College sports blog capturing the lows of being a BC fan living 1,000 miles from Chestnut Hill."

Hope we don't lose to UConn.

CT said...

Looking forward to the bullshit ACC post from that one dude Ned. Don't believe the hype! Songwriter for Public Enemy. Oops.

Louisville blew their shot. All Clemson now.

ObserverCollege said...

The ACC Commissioner's office was stupid to leave Clemson unprotected against Pittsburgh last week. Conferences like the SEC know they have to home in on their key team, and plow the road for them. They don't let some dinky Kentucky or MSU team take down an Alabama or a Florida. Sorry, but no.

The ACC, on the other hand, leaves it to the officials to call the game "the way they see it.". That leads to officiating that's "unbiased" for that game, but on the whole "biased" against the conference's prospects for revenue and prestige.

That takes us to tomorrow. The Commissioner's office needs to dip into its funds to bribe the officials in BC's nonconference game against UConn tomorrow. Clemson needs a strong conference rating to squeeze into the playoff now, and a loss to UConn coming off Louisville's loss to Houston would be disastrous. You can't just say "oh, ESPN will make things better".

Thomas said...

At this point I think we should all be rooting for UCONN and Wake Forest. DRAIN THE SWAMP!

JDK said...

Why are we subjecting Matty Ice to this game? Couldn't we have waited for a real opponent.

Bravesbill said...

Hey at least the basketball team isn't as bad as UConn's. I don't know if I can bring myself to rooting for UConn on Saturday.

Unknown said...

Why doesn't BC schedule real out of conference opponents like other schools do? No wonder college sports will never get off the ground around here.

mod34b said...

so Clemson will win the division and likely play VT in ACCCG. that will be a close game. I'd bet on VT. If VT wins, no one from ACC is going to the playoffs.

Clemson has been just so-so this season.

OSU and MIch are 2 and 3 in playoff pic. the still have to play each other. But if OSU wins, they will not be going to B10 title game. Penn State will. does that mean noone form b10 is going to playoffs either?

BUt If Michigan wins, they would go to title game and winning that the playoff. I thik OSU will beat them.

so who besides Alabama is a almost lock for the playoffs at this point?

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

I think Ohio St. gets in even if they don't make it to the Big 10 championship. I also think that either Penn St. or Wisconsin gets in if they win the Big 10 in that scenario. Washington will probably lose again so it might come down to Clemson v. Oklahoma. Do you take a 2 loss team that failed to win its conference or a conference winner that has 2 bad losses?

CT said...

Mod and Bravesbill, right on. Who knows? November always shakes things up, doesn't it? I do think that the ambiguity is one major reason why college football is viewed by many to be more entertaining than the NFL. If that makes sense.