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Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Grantland dives deep on OLine with Addazio

The Addazio offseason media tour continues as he is the main subject in this Grantland article on building an offensive line. There are plenty of good nuggets in there, but the most interesting to me was the drill he has the lineman run in the offseason conditioning:


At Boston College, winter conditioning includes a borderline-sadistic drill in which one player contorts himself into a chairlike position, back against a wall, and balances weights on his knees. At the same time, another player pushes a 45-pound plate around the room as fast as he can. The longer it takes the second player to finish the course, the longer his teammate has to support the weights on his knees; if the player against the wall drops the plates, his teammate has to go back to the starting line. Addazio’s description of this regimen alone will turn the listener’s thighs to jelly.

“We’re trying to create accountability with each other,” Addazio says. “Don’t let your partner down. Don’t let your teammate down. You work on these skill sets.”


While Addazio has a plan for building an Oline, I still think it can be as simple as coaching. As mush as we hated Tranquill or thought Spaz was inept, what really undermined his teams was the OLine coaching. Jags showed that a head coach who appreciates OL play combined with a very good position coach can come in and make an Oline thrive. Addazio did the same thing in his first two years. I don't love the turnover at the OLine this year, but I have full confidence in Addazio and Justin Frye to make these guys competent by our opener.

BC proudly calls itself OLine U and I hope we always do. We need that mentality to compete. It is an area where we've shown we can recruit and develop and it covers so many potential weaknesses.

I hope Addazio has a long and successful tenure and I also hope that whoever replaces him has an Oline background. That works for BC.

7 comments:

  1. What about accountablity Coach? This is your third year Dude and you're blaming Spaz. Really?

    "You should never graduate one big unit like that. When you manage your recruiting classes, what you’re hoping is you never get stuck with this type of void. And voids happen because of bad recruiting decisions and mistakes. So we have to now fix it."

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  2. I'm looking for the Finance Major to come into his own on the Offensive Line this year.

    That would be Jim Cashman, former POY in New Jersey!

    Go BC - beat Maine and Howard. Thanks Brad - I'm really excited. So excited that I haven't renewed my season tickets yet at the 40 year mark.

    Love the ND tickets system too.

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  3. Coach Addazio had to take the Spaz recruits in 2013 - and that class had no O Linemen. But Daz only had three last year, which I found surprising. Seems to me he'll need a big bunch in the 2016 class.

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  4. How do you have no o lineman in a class how does that ever happen whats up spaz

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  5. These drills for the o-line are exercises for "run blocking". The question on whether Addazio survives next year is whether they can pass when needed. It doesn't look like the head coach has a smattering of what it means to pass. He is digging his own grave. If Wade fails and I believe that he will, then they will only win the first two games against a couple of dregs. In game three, FSU will take Wade apart. Murphy couldn't pass and the coaches couldn't develop a miracle. If Wade is the same, then BC could really be embarrassed. Fitch has his chance. The same happened at Temple and Addazio skipped out of town ahead of the torches. If he can't evolve and create a passing attack, then he won't be here next season. ND will torch Fenway with a real mixed attack with Zaire. To compound matters, Brown is a lot worse of a d.c. coordinator than Spaz ever thought of being. You just can't have validity with a defense that blitzes on every play. BC has a chance to do some deep soul searching before the season. If some reality doesn't return and Flutie isn't given a fair shot at starting and not at holding for extra points, then the program will explode.

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  6. The sky is falling!

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