Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Re-examining the "lost season"

College Football and the College Football media love narratives. One of the narratives related to Steve Addazio is that 2015 was a "lost season" where he was snake bitten with injuries. The theory is that the season and its record should be graded on a curve. Bill Connelly worked in the idea when talking about "hot seats" in this article. What the media fails to realize with that season is that BC already gave Addazio a mulligan. It did not fire him after the embarrassment. He will be judged primarily on how he does this season. But if the media or BC decision makers do look at 2015, they will realize that history has not been kind to the narrative. Addazio's lost season looks more like a really bad coaching job.

1. The Darius Wade issue. Wade had a season ending leg break in the Florida State game. Losing your starting QB is always a tough blow. But Wade has done nothing since to validate Addazio's decision to build the season around him. Addazio admitted that he did not bring in a transfer and was ready to go with his homegrown QBs (Wade, Flutie and later surprisingly Jeff Smith and John Fadule). Even if Wade stays healthy, does the season become a success? I think Addazio doubts it because he has had numerous chances to put Wade back on the field and hasn't. In hindsight, it seems like Addazio entered the season without a good idea of what he had at QB. That's not good coaching or roster management.

2. BC only won three games despite having the best defense in the country. When one side of the ball is that good, you just have to be competent in other aspects of football to win even a few games. Addazio didn't. A good coach would have done some triage to the roster and offense to put together some sort of simple, winning game plan for a few of the games.

3. BC finished 1-5 in games decided by seven points or less. This speaks to Addazio being a poor game manager and not just unlucky (although luck is a factor in close games). The Wake Forest game was epic mismanagement. The Duke game was too as he kept Flutie in way too long. The Syracuse game also saw BC squander a late tie against a bad Syracuse team with a fired coach. If Addazio flips two of those games and closes out the near upsets of Notre Dame and Louisville, his job is safe now.

4. 2015 was the first sign that Addazio had real issues managing his offensive staff. As I have said, when you are the worst at one aspect of something, it is a complete failure in how you plan, how you practice, how you teach, how you evaluate, and how you work together. We were a complete grab bag of styles and players and approaches. BC started four QBs that year who have little in common other than their uniforms. I don't know what Addazio was trying to be. I don't know if Todd Fitch did either because he was shown the door after the season. Now if that season was just a one-time issue, I would buy into the "lost" narrative. But Addazio has yet to stabilize that side of the ball. Was last week's outburst a turning point? We will see. Right now it looks like an aberration. 

5. Even Spaz didn't have a winless ACC season. And Addazio's only won three ACC games since. That is not lost. That is a pattern. 

14 comments:

NEDofSavinHill said...

He kept Flutie in way too long in the Duke game??? Flutie was 5 for 8 for 129 yards, one TD and no ints. 16 yards per attempt. Better than Tom Brady ever does. The alternative Smith was 3 for 13 for 12 yards and no TDs. Less than one yard per try. 63% completion rate vs. 23%. Atl have you ever watched a football game before or are you devoid of any math skills?

knucklehead said...

He jerked Flutie around in the Wake game. Most embarrassing coaching performance in school history, by Dazzler for that, his behavior and failure on the goal line.

Geezer eagle said...

Bottom line: Dazoshit can't recruit a QB to save his life. He must go.

knucklehead said...

Not sure with Brown yet. His accuracy is poor. Needs to get his eyes checked. He has everything else.

Who is starting against Virginia?

Eagle Esquire said...

No announcement yet. Hopefully Wade.

STL_eagle said...

We can hypothesize all day long but results should rule the day. My sense is that:

5-7 or worse: Daz toast

6-6 depends on bowl win or loss

7-5 or better Daz stays

The buyout is not an issue for a school that has money likes BC does. The new AD offers a mandate for change if the results are not there.

At this point we are just waiting to see how the next 5 games play out. UConn is the only game where we are favored so give BC one extra upset and 5-7 looks likely. See above for the fate of Daz.

Napolean Bonaparte said...

Well let's see where he goes from here. He has five more games and needs to win at least three of them. Assuming a win over UConn - he needs to win half of the remaining ACC games. Typical Daz would be to play Brown (and have nearly no passing yardage and no gameplan adjustment for Brown) and run Dillon into the ground. I would use Wade and try to pick up where we left off at Louisville - but at some point he is going to have to throw to his right. Wade's timing won't be there for deep passes and they need to throw for first down yardage only. Brown should transfer to Georgia Tech where he would be a much better fit.

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

And the receivers need to catch the ball. Jeff Smith in the 1st half turtled on the deep pass and someone dropped Wade's only decent down field throw in the second.

I would do a lot of two or three TE's and split the runs between the QB,Hilliman and Dillion in the first half to tenderize Virginias defense. Then let the QB and Dillion work in the second half. Have been calling for this for three years. I would like to see 2 RB's in the backfield. Hilliman can catch and block fairly well. He and Dillion on the field together is something potentially effective that defenses haven't seen from us. Most of the well coached teams we play know what we are going to do before we do it. They know even more after the Louisville game. We ran the same 3-5 plays over and over.

Couldn't agree more though that they need to manage Dillions attempts to the extent that they don't run him into an injury

Geezer eagle said...

When was the last time BC recruited a quality wide receiver? This problem certainly predates Dazoshit. Remember the days when we had tight ends who got drafted by the NFL??

BCAlum2000 said...

Not getting a quality WR has been an issue at BC for decades. Not having good TE's is indeed a recent phenomena. As for QB, I continue to chuckle at those who try to claim Flutie was even serviceable. He was terrible and was a QB at BC (or any DI program for that matter) for one reason only ... and it wasnt his arm ...

Big Ern said...

Lost season? It has been a lost decade.

Geezer eagle said...

Completely agree

NEDofSavinHill said...

Flutie was very good. He was the best QB of the Daz era. Compare his numbers to the others. Three TDs to one int. Easily the best. 8 yards per attempt. Easily the best. Terrible is less than 5 yards per attempt and more ints than TDs.