Tessitore feature and other links

SI.com posted a long feature on BC guy Joe Tessitore. Definitely worth the read. Joe is one of ESPN's rising stars and in my opinion the best college play-by-play guy they have. Of course now that BC has Friday night games in our future, Tess has moved on to ESPN's prime Saturday slots.

The players elected Jim Noel, Kaleb Ramsey, Emmett Cleary and Chris Pantale as team captains. Congrats to all of them.

The ACC is playing checkers with TV deals while the other major conferences play chess. This is pretty damning for any remaining Swofford defenders.

Ron Brace is ready for a big year. So is Luke Kuechly. Meanwhile Alex Albright might play both ways this fall. Mark Herzlich will get his shot at starting too.

CBS outlays pretty realistic best and worst case scenarios. I'll post mine closer to the opener.

Reggie Jackson has a chance to break into the Thunder's regular rotation.

Key Players for 2012: Jim Noel

This is a series on the key players for the 2012 season. Big things are expected for some, while others will need to improve over their previous performances. If 2012 is a good year, it will be in part due to the key players overachieving.

Senior Safety, Jim Noel

What he's been: A contributor since day one, Noel has grown from back up to fill in starter, to a full time starter over three years. While primarily a safety, BC has also used him at corner. He missed a good portion of 2011, leaving our already depleted secondary without an impact player. Noel has never been a big hitter or ballhawk, but he's been good in coverage and done what's been asked.

What he needs to be: Noel needs to take over. Our defense is at its best when we have safeties with great anticipation. If you design your defense to exploit QB mistakes, you need a smart and athletic Safety to be in the right place at the right time. One of the reasons we struggled ending drives last year and giving up big plays to teams like Central Florida was because our safeties just couldn't make plays. Noel was doing his best filling in at Corner, while Syvlia, Hughes and Rositano kept getting burned. Hopefully Noel can focus on one area this year, stay healthy and have a big season.

Why I like his chances to shine: Look back on the interceptions Noel has made. They are often really great athletic plays. Few are gimmes that just landed in his hand. If he can be that great for 12 games and get even a little help from his other safeties, he will have a big year.

Last season BC only had 13 interceptions. It was our lowest output since the TOB years. If Noel can help end a few drives with big takeaways, BC could be a strong defensive team again.

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.