Boston College is suffering from a deep-seeded malaise; the Eagles have seen their win total drop in each of the last four years, bottoming out with a four-win finish a year ago. The program lacks direction: Frank Spaziani is the favorite son of the administration, but he has painfully mishandled the program since inheriting a strong foundation in 2009.
B.C. hasn’t been this devoid of hope entering a season since the mid-1990s — before Tom O’Brien rebuilt the program, the Eagles spent three years scuffling under Dan Henning. That situation has one major parallel with the Eagles’ current issues: Henning replaced Tom Coughlin, theoretically taking control of a team on the rise, but like Spaziani, he failed to match his predecessor’s success.
As in 1997, when the university replaced Henning with O’Brien, the Eagles might need to make a drastic change in order to regain its footing in the A.C.C. Someone like O’Brien, who altered the entire culture of the program, would constitute a drastic change — especially after Spaziani, who seems befuddled by the program’s steep decline over the last 36 months.
Using terms and words like "befuddled" and "mishandled" is never a good sign. I appreciate that Presnap also points the blame at Spaz and not Jags.
While there were other factors in the attendance issues for the Spring Game, the black eye it is bringing to the program doesn't help perception.
I would say that BC needs to do something, but if you are reading this blog you already know.
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6 comments:
it is refreshing to read pieces from outside the BC consciousness that remind us of our regression. every program deals with injuries and missed FGs; reading gene and spaz quotes, you would think we are the only ones.
while I think it would take one hell of a coaching job to turn Umass into the New England Football Power as their current HC plans to do, it would not surprise me if such a rise coincided with another few years of the Spaz "leading" our program straight into the gutter.
i am hoping for the best this year. i really -- probably delusionally -- hope that the coaching changes on the offensive side of the ball will right some of the wrongs (predictability, inconsistency) that plagued us in the 3rd&9Quill/Rogers Era of Offensive Ineptitude. If not, though, Gene needs to be quick to right the wrong of hiring Spaz and finding someone who can turn this program in the right direction.
The Boston College comments are wrong. The weather sucked so the comment about spending time in Boston doing something else makes no sense and shows the writer is uninformed. I was at the game. There were more than 200 people. Closer to 500-1000. Still not great attendance but how does the writer(and his source the Gazette in IOWA?) know how many people were there. No tickets sold or given out.
El Miz's comments express the view of, IMHO, the BC "silent majority": Yeah BC football sucks lately -- but STILL there is reason to be hopeful.
The most publicized BC blog (BCI) has turned into a BC bashing machine. It is a train wreck of nastiness toward BC football. And BCI is proud of it. Every day they find new reasons to BASH BC. I think BCI gets paid a monthly stipend depending on how many 'eyeballs' they attract. They seem to have figured out that TRASH = CASH.
It would be really helpful if BC could have a real Sports information department that could get the 'good' word out, counterbalance the tide of blog negativity, and also create some enthusiasm so people would go to the Spring game, buy tickets, support the lads, etc.
BC has got to step up its efforts to present BC is a postive light. For starters, how about a few Doug Martin interviews? He is a very press savvy and a smart public speaker and he can generate some excitement.
Jimmy:
The fact that there are few Doug Martin interviews is indicative of what's wrong with the GDF and Spaz regime. You are not going to see anyone else rise to the top in the football program as long as "Coach Flip" runs the show.
As for the BC SID, they lost me years ago when they moved out the best SID we ever had, a great BC guy named Reid Oslin. The fact that he was my classmate has nothing to do with my anger over that. {grin]
Can anyone even name the current SID? I doubt it. GDF allows no one who could infringe on his total control. In fact, can you name anyone on the AD staff without looking it up? Nuff ssiad.
Sadly, Lenny, you are probably right. Napolean wants no competition to the thrown.
Remember when Geo. Bush I picked Quayle as VP. Most people thought he picked that idiot so the VP would not outshine Bush I and not outshine Bush's son -- who unbeknownst to all at the time was quickly heading for POTUSville.
Having Spaz as HC kind of serves those goals. GDF will always sound better than Spaz and maybe GDF is angling for his son to come along to resue us from Spaz. Yeeschhh.
One devastating comment after another. Where is William Patrick Leahy in all of the this? Eventually, he will be just one more Jesuit who is phased out and replaced by a lay administration. I am sure that there is plenty of politics behind the scenes with the woman who is now chair of the Board of Trustees.
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