Amidon's decision

While Andre Williams and Matt Patchan open eyes at the NFL Combine, there is one BC star whose story is not getting much attention. Alex Amidon began the season as a legitimate Wide Receiver prospect. Although BC passed less this year, Amidon's speed against elite DBs would have been enough to get NFL attention. Yet he isn't at the NFL Combine and is not training for the BC Pro Day. Alex Amidon has decided to not continue his football career. Instead he's enjoying his final days at BC as a regular student.

While I don't think Amidon would have been a sure thing in the NFL, he was good enough. Amidon possessed legitimate speed and decent hands. He easily could have caught on with the right team or in a pass happy system. Heck, he still has time to change his mind. But regardless I think Amidon does deserve congratulation on his choice. Not many people could or would turn down the allure of the NFL to find their own path.

UConn-BC official and other links

Once we knew that both BC and UConn were in the 2k Classic, an official pairing seemed inevitable. The organizers agreed and the two former Big East foes will face off in the Semis. I know none of the current players, coaches or ADs share the bad blood, but the fans still do. I hope we win convincingly. Not only will it mean some revenge, but it will also be a huge RPI win for a BC team that will probably need one. 

Sarah Marshall Ryan took a job with the Atlanta Dream. 

Austin Tedesco's preseason basketball coverage continued with a Q&A with Anderson and Hanlan. 

Experience pays off for college QBs. Let's hope it holds true for Rettig.

BC is doing a good job of getting our players on the PreSeason Watch lists. Amidon made the Biletnikoff list.

Luke Kuechly can jump.

Amidon's NFL prospects and other links

As I've noted before, it has been more than 25 years since a BC Wide Receiver was selected in the NFL Draft. If NFL scouting gurus really do have Amidon in their Top 5 for the position, maybe the streak will finally end. But my fear is this season's shift to a ground attack might limit Amidon's catches. 

Al Skinner's name keeps coming up for the UMass-Lowell job. As I say anytime he is rumored for a position, UMass-Lowell would be lucky to have him.

The Women's Lacrosse team lost in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament. 

The son of former BC assistant Bonzi Colson is getting a lot of recruiting attention. Although he is local, I don't BC will get involved given how his dad's tenure ended. 

This is from earlier in the week, but it is nice to read about Nick Clancy's excitement over playing with the Falcons and Matt Ryan. 

ICYMI: links from the past week

Two great pieces from Austin Tedesco this week. The first is on the basketball's trip to Spain. The second is on Alex Amidon and features friend of this blog, his dad Stephen.

Soaring to Glory's continued their hockey preview. The season is right around the corner.

The trip to West Point brings back memories for WR coach Aaron Smith.

The Globe published a rare feature on a BC female athlete, hockey's Alex Carpenter.

Paul Gaughan is adjusting to Center.

This is not BC-related, but you should check out Yahoo's profile of LSUFreak. You've probably seen his work, but what is great about him and his rise is how the college football community embraced and celebrated his work.

Here is an article on Peter Frates from last week.

FSU game time and other links

The ACC announced a 5:30 PM kickoff for the Florida State-BC game. I can't remember a 5:30 start for any BC sporting event, but I am not against it. With this start we get the benefit of prime time without the late ending. Getting national coverage is largely based on Florida State, but as I've been promoting on Twitter, even in bad times, BC is still a good TV draw.

Alex Amidon's breakout season is getting noticed. He's was named the ACC's receiver of the week.

Hockey begins the season atop USCHO.com's preseason poll.

The Patriots resigned Matt Tennant. Hopefully he will get a chance to break into the starting lineup.

Charlie Rugg's three goals over the weekend earned him TopDrawerSoccer.com Player of the Week honors.

BC kept our slot at the bottom of the CBS Power Rankings.

BC hosted some potential recruits this past weekend.

Running into a wall...on purpose

Clemson is better than BC. If you win by 14 on the road and take a knee instead of going for another score, you deserve the win. Yet Clemson did not play that well. We could have won this game, but our inability to make a stop on defense, some very conservative play calling and bad punting cost BC any chance of pulling off the upset. Hats off to Alex Amidon who is really playing well.

I will post second viewing thoughts and grades late Sunday night.

Not so fast on the UConn-ND Fenway game and other links

As often happens when these rumors arise, they are quickly shot down. On Tuesday Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick called reports of a pending Fenway game inaccurate. But just because the Irish might not be interested or might not be able to schedule the game in 2014, doesn't mean that a similar game won't happen. BC needs to be involved in those discussions and find the right game and opponent to showcase the team and the Park.

Amidon's breakout season moved him onto the Biletnikoff watch list.

Nick Clancy's ultra-productive Saturday earned ACC honors.

Tabor's Tevin Montgomery is still interested in BC.

The Herald posted a feature on future Eagle Mackay Lowrie.

Q&A with author and BC dad Stephen Amidon

When I interact with BC parents, I don't think many of them fully understand our emotional investment in teams their children play on. We're fans (and bloggers) with limited connection to their kids, yet we live and die with their games as if they were family. We glorify their children when they perform well and bluntly criticize the little things when times are rough. After reading his book Something Like the Gods, I think I Stephen Amidon (Alex's father) understands. His book takes a historical look at the evolution of our relationship with athletes. From ancient Greece to today's multimedia jock, Amidon does a very good job of relating our current passions with sports heroes. If you like history and the history of sports, you'll enjoy the book. 

With the season approaching and his book available online and in most major bookstores, I asked Amidon a few questions. His answers are below.


ATLeagle: The book has a historical and anthropological tone. Are you that analytical about sports when you are watching as a fan? What are you like on a Saturday in the Parents' Section at Alumni?

Stephen Amidon: I am not analytical at all. In the Parents' Section, I am a nervous wreck who occasionally experiences moments of delirious joy. I try to keep an outwardly calm demeanor, but on the inside things can get pretty hectic. In fact, the intensity of being the father of an athlete is one of the reasons I wrote the book. I wanted to explore exactly why we are so enthralled, captivated, moved and occasionally infuriated by the athlete. Nothing really matches the feeling of being a fan whose home team or favorite competitor is in the midst of a tough contest (even if your son is not out there!). Your daily life is suspended; you are taken to a place where everything is more extreme, more raw. You are totally focused, which is rare in our distracted world. Something Like the Gods is my attempt to analyze and, hopefully, illuminate that experience.

ATLeagle: You write extensively about race and sports. From a personal perspective how prejudicial do you think the leaders in sports are today? For example, your son is a white wide receiver who played high school football at a prep school in Connecticut. Yet his track experience showed that he had speed. If Alex had shown the same raw talent but been black and from Texas do you think he would have been recruited differently? Did most FBS programs assume he was going Ivy League?

Stephen Amidon: Yes, Alexander's experience was pretty unique. Because he went to a prep school that was not primarily known for football (it was traditionally more of a lacrosse/hockey school that does indeed feed into the Ivies), he was not really on many people's radar until he went to a combine in Philadelphia and put up some interesting times and scores. And then he attended the BC camp in the summer before his senior year and that's where he was offered a scholarship. We accepted right away - it felt like a perfect fit at the time and still does. So yes, if he had gone to high school in Texas or Florida, I think the experience would have been very different, a lot busier and more drawn out, fraught with dilemmas and choices. To be honest, I think this is more a question of geography than race. If you live in a big football market, you get more attention. As for racism, from an historical perspective, things are far better than they have ever been. Racial stereotypes still exist, but they tend to be a lot less toxic. You're right - because Alexander is white, people tend to assume he is a possession receiver, when actually he is very fast, and can function as a deep threat for the Eagles. Racial attitudes were a lot worse even in the 1970s, when I played sports. I played JV football in Maryland and was made the starting quarterback over a black player named Michael Anderson, even though he was better than me. But the coaches bought into the ridiculous myth that blacks were in some way ill-equipped to play quarterback. It still makes me cringe to think about. We were 1-9, by the way. Our single victory came when I turned an ankle and Mike played QB.

ATLeagle:  I love college sports but I often have to ignore all the corruption, hypocrisy and exploitation that goes into the system. In the book you researched all sports going back to the very first athletes. Did you ever come across a popular sport like college football that unraveled because it didn't police itself well?


Stephen Amidon: I cannot think of any major sport that completely unraveled due to lack of policing, but there are two that came very close. The first is college football in the first decade of the twentieth century, which was almost closed down by President Teddy Roosevelt after an epidemic of on-field deaths. The creation of the Flying Wedge formation a decade earlier meant that helmetless, lightly padded tacklers would often find themselves on the receiving end of five or six crushing blows while trying to get at a runner. The results were truly shocking. Twenty players died in 1904, thirty in 1909. Authorities responded with an ingenious solution - they invented the forward pass, opening up the game and saving it in the process. The second sport that almost ended was Major League Baseball during the 'Black Sox' scandal, in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox, including 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson, were convicted of throwing the 1919 World Series after being bribed by a syndicate of gangsters. In response, baseball owners brought in a tough-minded federal judge, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, to serve as commissioner and clean up the game. Among other things, he instituted a stringent set of anti-gambling rules that are still in effect to this day, as Pete Rose can attest. I think the key in both these cases was that strong, decisive leadership came from political figures outside the leagues to address the crisis. Perhaps there is a lesson here for the NCAA.

Final scrimmage feedback and other links

The BC scrimmage pattern fulfilled itself Wednesday. As always, the unit that was ahead in the early scrimmages was brought down to earth. This year that meant the defense finally looked strong in scrimmage 4. There is usually some design to this. I imagine Spaz added new wrinkles this week to keep the offense off balance and give the D a mental boost. We won't know anything until Northwestern. I am not concerned about the INTs. Rettig won't face a defense as tough as ours until October.

Hampton Hughes's move to the defensive backfield seems promising.

Alex Amidon has made big improvements from last season.

Brian St. Pierre embraced the chance to join BC's broadcast team.

2011 Position Previews: Wide Receivers and Tight Ends

New season. New format. Instead of a digestible combo of factoids and opinions, I am going to write in a more narrative, free style post. As always, feedback is appreciated.

If you've read this blog long enough, you know that at times the little things can piss me off. But you know what moment still lingers with me a year later? Matt Millen disparaging our Wide Receivers during the Notre Dame game. I don't have his direct quote, but the gist was that we didn't have FBS talent at the position. While we aren't sending out a bunch of Jerry Rices, the guys played hard and have potential. The reason no one noticed had more to do with the rest of the offense and not them. I think that will start to change this season.

The reason I remain so optimistic about our WR talent is that I've seen plenty of mediocre pass catchers at BC over the years. A guy can look servicable in an offense if the offense finds the right playes. Plays that work. Plays that build off of one another. Think of some of the catches we saw Swigert and Amidon make last year. Were they flukes? Of course not. But we didn't get them the ball enough because the patterns didn't allow them to get space, the QBs didn't have time and the play calling was suspect. That has to change this year. Not only are the players more mature, but we should have some offensive competency. I'd argue that there were multiple Dana Bible offenses that had less raw talent and depth than our returning starters. If we could put plays together then, there is no reason to think it can't happen now.

The biggest reason you won't hear a Matt Millen type run down our WRs is the return of Colin Larmond. He has big play capability. He's saying he's faster than ever. Whispers differ a bit. Knee injuries are tricky, but even at less than 100% he should be the leading target. Swigert and Amidon were forced to grow up fast last year. It should pay off this season. I still like what Momah brings to the table. We had him all over the place last year but you can't coach height. Logan found a niche for him in 2008. I hope Rogers can his year. Lee will also get a chance to make plays.

I also like our Tight Ends. Pantale is progressing and I could see him having a 40+ catch season. (Rogers likes to work the ball to Tight Ends and H backs.) Anderson has be been very dependable for most of his career. I am guessing that he'll spend a little time in the backfield as a blocking back. I doesn't matter as long as he is being used effectively. Naples and Darmstatter both have favorable buzz. Are there enough snaps for them to make an impact?

If you want to torture analogies to get an understanding of our pass catchers, you can't even use the chicken and the egg. We had a rotten egg that produced nothing but an embarrassing stench. How can you say what is and is not FBS when the scoreboard would indicate that none of it was? But that changes this year because you can't keep talent and hard work down forever.

Year in Review: Top Surprises

This is Part II of my Year in Review series. For this, I try to highlight guys or groups that I didn't expect much from and in turn exceeded my expectations.

1. Alex Amidon and Bobby Swigert
Their Bowl game was bad and they were maligned throughout the season by the talking heads, but these two guys really stepped. Swigert had more of an impact and became one of the few consistent aspects of our passing game. Amidon did not have the same sort of impact but towards the end of the season was making some tough catches in traffic. We have a lot of problems on offense, but don't let people fool you on these two. They can play.

2. The Defensive Backs coaching and system.
People hate our reliance on zone defense and the corners playing well off the line. You will also hear plenty of complaints about Mike Siravo as recruiting coordinator. But those gripes aside, it is hard to deny how well prepared the DBs were this season. Davis goes down. Other guys step up. Gause goes down. Fox looks good. Fox gets dinged and Ryan Lindsey plays corner. But roster shuffling isn't what it is all about. Fox, Noel and Okoroha all had breakout seasons. Their position coach deserves credit for having them ready.

3. Andre Williams
His real impact was only felt late in the season, but what an impact it was. Williams provided a combination of power and explosiveness we haven't had at the position in a long time. Nevada adjusted to his style and he still has many areas for improvement, but I don't think anyone would have guessed that he had this much potential heading into the season.