Lessons from the Dillon Quinn departure

Dillon Quinn left the team and left BC for "personal reasons." While Spaz deserves his fair share of blame for problems with the team, Dillon Quinn's disappointing career is not one of them. In my opinion Quinn represents a different issue facing our fanbase and fanbases around college football: the expectations created by the recruiting ratings.

I am not opposed to the recruiting sites. I worked for one in the past and know good people at Rivals, Scout and 247. I do think there is some predictive value to the rankings. In football "bigger, stronger, faster" remains important and if you bring in multiple highly-recruited players, you are likely to succeed. But like any forecasting system, these things are not fool proof. Collectively the rankings work, but individual teams, individual recruiting classes and individual players can all be rise above or fall below expectations. There are outliers in any statistical model, but even more in college football where the volume of data and recruits cannot be captured by the ratings sites. That volume also forces shortcuts that lead to misjudgement and that is what happened with Quinn.

Dillon Quinn should never have been a four star recruit. He wasn't on many radars until he showed up at a Rivals camp with a friend of his prior to his senior season. The friend was the invitee. But upon seeing him, the Rivals Camp Directors invited him too. Quinn was a massive specimen and Rivals knows their customers. His strength and speed also impressed and a buzz started. Rivals slapped four stars on him and let the meteoric rise begin. What Rivals didn't account for in their ranking is why Quinn arrived on the scene so late and why his workouts were so impressive. I obviously have no proof, but even in the early days there were whispers and allegations about Quinn's use of performance enhancers. No one seemed to care about his lack of four star productivity prior to his "growth spurt" or his technique. But given his abilities, if he were truly four star, he should have been dominating his league. As a reference point Alex Amidon played in the same league and was even better, but no one ever considered giving him four stars.

Once Quinn arrived at BC and the whispers continued. Outside of the gossip, he also wasn't ready to be a ACC DT. He needed to learn more and get better. He played with mixed results in his second year on campus. From my perspective his efforts seemed mixed and he was never a special players. Certainly not four star. Now his career is over and BC has another player to add to the "four star" bust list. But at this point we should really be making a list of four star guys who were misjudged by the systems.

As for this season, Quinn's departure doesn't mean much. The positive aspect of the outcome is that it frees up one more scholarship for our new coach

Rudolph's suspension leaves bigger hole at DT

BC suspended Jaryd Rudolph indefinitely after he was charged with illegally audio taping his teammate's sexual encounter with a female student in their suite. He's still a BC student but I don't think Spaz can count on him returning for the rest of Spring practice. As long as he remains a student and fights the charges, there is hope he can return to football, but given BC and BC football's track record with players and anything related to sex and illegal activities (I don't know if this is considered a sexual assault), the odds of Rudolph's return are long. Rudolph wasn't a star, but he provided depth at a position where BC is now alarmingly thin. Connor O'Neal is gone. Kaleb Ramsey is still recovering from injury. None of the incoming recruits is slotted to be a defensive tackle.

I think Appiah is going to be a star. Ricci showed potential. Quinn is serviceable. Bryan Murray is okay. But that is it. We desperately need Ramsey to comeback at 100% and we better hope the rest of the guys stay healthy. I know players can be moved over and we can use more 3-4 and 3-3 formations, but this is not the best way to manage your roster.

Why was BC so evasive on Dillon Quinn's suspension?

For some time now there has been rumors floating about regarding Dillon Quinn's suspension. Players joked about it on Facebook. The message boards filled up with speculation. Yet no word from BC.

When he was missing from the spring depth chart, people took it as confirmation that Quinn was in trouble. At the time, I asked BC about it and never received an on the record confirmation or rebuttal. Now, with the season a week away, BC finally announced that Quinn has been suspended for three games due to a violation of team rules.

You will never get an on the record confirmation of what Quinn did. BC -- and most colleges -- are very sensitive to student privacy. But process of elimination tells you what it isn't. Pot usually gets one game. Academics means you miss the whole semester. Minor NCAA infractions (like Rice's illegal summer league games) usually call for a one game suspension. Sitting out three is unique for BC. And the rumors have all been related to PEDs. But unless Quinn talks, we will never know for sure.

I am not going to scold Quinn. I am disappointed, but not naive enough to think he is the first or last BC athlete to use PEDs allegedly. (Bill Romonoski has been a PED poster boy and the recently departed Harold Connolly was a pioneer in PEDs.)

So I once again return to my initial question: why was BC so evasive? They could have announced the suspension months ago and made it less of a story. Now it will be a focus for the next few weeks.

As for what it means on the field...it hurts. Quinn has reportedly played well this summer and we are thin up front. We should be fine against Weber State and Kent State. Virginia Tech obviously would have been a challenge with him. It will be that much harder without.

This will hopefully be a minor bump in Dillon's career. I hope that by waiting until the last minute, BC didn't make this a bigger deal than it needed to be. Regardless of how he got here, let's hope Dillon puts this all behind him and becomes a better player and person.

Clearing up the Quinn speculation and other links

When highly-touted 4-star recruit Dillon Quinn didn't appear on the spring depth chart, speculation kicked into overdrive. Was he a bust? Was he injured? What's the story? The rumors on the message boards and in the comments section on this blog are claiming Quinn has been suspended allegedly for Performance Enhancing Drugs. Let me be clear: I don't believe Quinn is under any suspension for anything. In the past BC has been very clear when a player was suspended. The school might not always disclose why a player was suspended, but they will come forward with the news of the suspension. Because of the silence on Quinn, I am assuming there are no nefarious reasons for his absence from the depth chart. If there is more to the story it will eventually come out, but for now, give the kid the benefit of the doubt.

Ron Brace is hoping his second season will be better than his rookie year.

New England prospect Albert Louis-Jean is not coming to BC but will play in the ACC.

Second scrimmage and other links

BC held their second scrimmage and it seems like more of the same. The D looks good and the offense struggled. As for the QBs, Shinskie got the most snaps and looked a little more accurate. Marscovetra was ok but also threw a pic.

The smart guys don't get caught up in all the offseason noise with BC. Football Outsiders predicts a 9-3 record and a second place finish in the division. This is easily the most optimistic outlook and has a lot to do with our D remaining strong and the Oline.

The Globe featured Dillon Quinn this morning. It will be interesting to see how he matures this year. He's obviously raw, but Spaz has done a good job rotating in the younger Dlineman. Will McGovern do the same?

Add another "unique" destination to the ACC bowl lineup. The fifth place team will head to El Paso for the Sun Bowl. The Sun Bowl has a nice tradition and offers a Pac 10 opponent. I don't think many BC fans will make the trip to west Texas though.

Buster Sports considers Montel Harris one of the most underrated players in the ACC.

HD thinks Spaz can be coach of the year.

Folks in other media markets continue to focus on Spaz's steady hand.

This is the time of year when hometown papers love to cover their kids. This time it is Castonzo who gets the press.

Despite the media attention, I don't think you'll see BC play UConn as long as Gene is still making the schedules.

Future Eagle Philip Samuelsson has been staying busy this summer.