A glimpse into the new offense via Steve Logan

Steve Logan is long gone from BC, but with his former protege Doug Martin taking over the offense, I predict you will see some of Logan's touches on the new offense. There are two big takeaways from these two videos: 1. how the offense is taught and 2. what is the core philosophy.

The best part for me is the discussion is getting rid of the ball off of the five step drop. It speaks to an aggressiveness that has been lacking from BC for the entire Spaz era. Logan concedes that the QB will get hit, but he also has faith that his guy will get rid of the ball and that a big play will be there.

Tidbit from another tone deaf article and Kuechly speculation

Others have already tackled the Herald's Spaz article. It was more of the same of lowering expectations, not taking ownership of the current situation and addressing some of the gossip regarding staff friction. What I found interesting is that Spaz sort of gave credence to the growing rumor that Brock is out as Offensive Coordinator.

In that regard, Spaziani admits that likely being on his fourth offensive coordinator next season in as many years is not what he hoped for.

As I've said before I want Brock to stay on as Offensive Coordinator. He has experience. He has the relationship with Rettig. He was who Spaz wanted all along. The results stunk this year, but give the guy a full season of prep and his own playbook. Why force another OC on Spaz that he doesn't want? If Coach Flip is going to keep picking Spaz's coordinators, why doesn't he just drop the pretense and officially put on a headset on the sidelines? As of now nothing is official and Brock still doesn't know his fate. Even if he does come back the above article isn't the greatest confidence builder for 2012.

Also all the message boards are buzzing that Luke Kuechly needs Tommy John surgery on his elbow. He sustained the injury in the NC State game. The severity of the injury is not keeping him from making the rounds on the awards circuit. Surgery is always serious, but this is not a huge deal for a football player (as opposed to a pitcher). I don't think it will impact Luke's decision either way.

Fire Spaz

I've held off on calling for Spaz's job for a variety of reasons. No longer. He needs to go. What's the point in keeping him? What are we building towards? What is he bringing to the table? The excuse makers can say BC's young or has a tough schedule or has had some bad luck with injuries, but none of that holds up to any scrutiny. We were beat by a young team with a sophomore QB from a private school that takes academics seriously. If Spaz is going 0-3 against Duke, Northwestern and Wake Forest at home, why are we even playing BCS-level football?

The defense -- Spaz's calling card -- is a shell of itself and is getting outsmarted each week.

For the 19th time in his tenure, BC has failed to score 20 or more points. Are we still blaming his guy Gary Tranquill for that? Or how about Kevin Rogers, who he ran off?

The players played hard. They deserve better. They deserve a coach with a plan, with some belief in them, who doesn't throw them under the bus, who can lead a staff, who can make them better, and most of all, who can manage a college football game.

I'll have second viewing thoughts and grades up late Sunday. I'll probably have more ranting on Spaz in between then and now. He wasn't given the job in 2006 for a reason and shouldn't have been given the job in 2009. Given his track record with football, I don't trust Gene Defilippo to handle this well, so maybe it is time others in the BC community take control of this situation.

2011 Position Previews: Defensive Backs

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.

I've read that NFL GMs don't like to draft Nick Saban's defensive backs because they never know if the guys are great or just so well coached that they appear great. BC suffers from a similar problem. Our DBs are so well coached and well schemed that no one really respects their individual talent.

It is a relatively simple formula. Our DBs have specific assignments. We play mostly zone coverage. They are drilled to keep their players infront of them. They read the QBs to make smart plays on the ball. And they all tend to be good tacklers. Spaz and McGovern deserve credit for this, but so does Mike Siravo. Under Siravo we've plugged in a series of players and rarely seen a dropoff in performance. [Criticism for Siravo's working as a recruiting coordinator is a different conversation for another time.]

For something so functional our fans tend to bemoan our defensive strategy. People kill the cushion that our DBs allow. It can be frustrating and against good QBs we get picked apart. I understand the frustration, but you cannot argue with the end results. We rarely allow big plays. We make bad QBs look really bad. We frustrate the other offense more often than we frustrate our own fans. But because we are not pressing coverage it often appears that our DBs are slow and not difference makers.

Even by BC standards, this year's crop of defensive backs is really lacking in star power. I expect that to change by season's end. Donnie Fletcher is our most experienced corner. He's played since day 1 and will play the field corner position this year. Fletcher tackles well and can make plays on bad passes. I expect an All-ACC season from him. CJ Jones and Jim Noel will fight for the other corner spot. Based on recent years, I think they will probably split snaps. True freshman Albert Louis-Jean is also expected to play as a freshman.

While the fundamental philosophies are shared, the BC safeties are asked to do some different things. They support the run and also have more freedom to leave their zones, either to help or pick off a pass. The Safeties are expected to be Okechukwu Okoroha and Dominick LeGrande. LeGrande has played all over at BC and been good in most spots. Okoroha came on late last year and was solid.

Other guys who could see time include Sean Sylvia, Dominique Williams, James McCaffrey, Ameer Richardson and Spenser Rositano. And don't expect the top guys to stay strictly in their corner or safety designation. Noel could move back to Safety and LeGrande has played corner in the past. My guess is that we'll play the best guys and interchange them.

As I write these previews I start wondering how the season will turn. In a way, I think the DBs capture the confusion. I think things will be very good. I think the talent is better than outsiders think. Yet I don't know if other factors (the schedule, the offense, Spaz) will undermine the DBs's (and team) end results.

Predictability is offensive

I haven't loved the play calling by Tranq, but felt the bigger problem on offense is lack of execution and using a grab bag of plays and offensive philosophy. But some are starting to feel that BC is entirely predictable and at this point our players are tipping plays:

The stop of the Eagles' Montel Harris was particularly pivotal on Saturday --- and Maryland saw the play coming.

"The guards were kind of giving away their stances the whole game, so the two guards were pretty heavy up front," linebacker Alex Wujciak said. "I think we knew they were going to run the ball. Coach [Don] Brown had an awesome call for it."

Long time reader Patrick M. has a sobering assessment of our offensive ineptitude. Here is his research (which was already posted on Eagle Action):

BC is 112th in the nation in total offense --- which happens to be the worst performance of any BCS-conference school. We are converting 26.7% of the time on third down. We have been absolutely shut down by the ND defense --- 81st in the country --- and the NC State defense, 47th in the country.

There's only one ACC team that is even close to BC for offensive ineptitude --- Maryland. Maryland has converted 28.9% of third downs this season...so, they're not much better than us, perhaps owing to the fact that they too have a freshman QB. In fact, they weren't better than us until yesterday when they converted 10 out of 19 3rd downs. That stat, of course, does not include the 2 out of 3 4th downs they converted; those two were on the same TD drive, and one was a 4th and 7, where we gave up a nearly uncontested 8 yard pass.

We have scored 14 touchdowns on offense this season. To pick a point of comparison, let's go with Dana Bible at NC State: they have scored 30 touchdowns. That is, the offensive coordinator that we wanted to run out of town has been more than twice as effective as Mr. Gary Tranquil.

We have gotten 103 first downs this season, a little more than 14 per game. Thankfully, that doesn't make us the worst BCS conference team --- only second worse, as Vanderbilt is even more futile. Of course, I'm not sure we should be comparing the ACC Atlantic defenses to those of the SEC, but that's a more subjective matter. Maryland has only gained 104 first downs this year --- although that did not stop them from marching out to a 24-7 lead.

So, if you thought you were watching a historically poor BC performance this season --- you are. I have not tracked back to the 1995 and 1996 D.H. seasons, and those (judging by the scores in our media guide) had a similar level of offensive ineptitude. But we are undoubtedly watching the worst offensive performance in more than 15 years ---- and quite likely in more than 20.

Finally, and scarily, BC's groupings might be tipping off the other team. Also from Eric Hoffses at Eagle Action:

Each game I personally chart each and every play noting whether it was a run or passing play and what type of personnel package was in the game. In the 2nd half I noticed something disturbing---Maryland cornerbacks were turned towards the line of scrimmage with their backs to the sidelines on 1st downs when they saw anything but 11 personnel on the field. I thought to myself that this was pretty gutsy. However after analyzing some data I can see why the cornerbacks were lined up like that.

First, let's look at 1st down play calling. I took every first down play, regardless if the play was negated by a penalty or not to see if there were any trends. Out of 28 1st down play calls, BC had 18 running plays and 10 passing plays. Granted one of the running plays was actually a play action pass call that Rettig had to escape the pocket and run out of, but it might have been more effective to see that run to pass ratio closer to 50/50. Also, those statistics might be skewed a little bit since BC was forced to pass so much in the 4th quarter.

My problem was less with the ratio of runs to passes on 1st down, but more with how they came. The Eagles started the game by running on 8 1st downs in a row. With Harris running pretty effectively wouldn't that have been the perfect time for a play action pass?

Perhaps the most troubling thing to me though is how predictable the Eagles were with their personnel packages. Out of Rettig's 33 pass attempts, all but one was run with 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE) on the field. The one pass play not run with 11 personnel, came out of 12 personnel (1RB 2 TE). In 12 personnel BC had 1 pass attempt and 8 rushing attempts. Out of 21(2 RB, 1 TE) personnel the Eagles had 3 rush attempts, out of 22 (2 RB 2 TE) personnel they had 6 rush attempts, and out of 23 personnel they had 2 rush attempts.

So let's break all of this down. When BC did not have 11 personnel on the field they had 1 pass attempt and 19 rushing attempts. If I can notice that do you think the Maryland defensive coaches did?

Still think talent is the main issue here?

No excuses

I know that many of you read this blog and purposely avoid the message board bickering. As you can imagine there is plenty of debate as far as what's wrong with our team and who is to blame. I know I am considered anti-Spaz. I like to consider myself more pro-BC but regardless I strongly dislike lame excuses. The Ws and Ls on this season's record will belong to Frank Spaziani. Not TOB. Not Jags. Not Gene. Not the empty seats at Alumni. It is his and his staff's job to take the pieces and players they have and make a gameplan accordingly. Every excuse is hollow. Let's review:

Recruiting: Excuse: We are suffering from the poor recruiting of TOB and Jags. Reality: Spaz and Bill McGovern were both part of staffs that recruited and evaluated every player on this roster. Mike Siravo has been the recruiting coordinator for four years. 80% of the players on the roster committed while Spaz, McGovern, Siravo, Ben Sirmans, Ryan Day and Jeff Comissiong were on the staff. These are their players. Any supposed "gaps" could and should have been rectified long ago.

Second Year Head Coach: Excuse: Spaz is only in his second year. Most first time head coaches get more leeway. Reality: Spaz is not your typical second year head coach. He was a longtime assistant who was promoted in part because he provided continuity from our winning years. That continuity means there shouldn't be such drastic drop in execution. If we had hired an outsider the expectations would be different.

The QBs are the problem: Excuse: We are just hitting a rough patch and if we had even a halfway decent QB some of these games might have been different. Reality: this team won enough with poor QB play last year. Dave Shinskie has not been good. But the staff tabbed him the starter and have yet to devise a functional offense around him or the other options.

This season has been a long time coming: Excuse: BC has had big problems for a long time. They've been masked by a few good players like Matt Ryan and a down ACC. Spaz is just fixing things now. Reality: that is hogwash. Many seasons teeter on the brink between great and disaster. Good coaches do the things along the way to make things better.

Florida State will be a real test. They are the best team we will face this year but are also a decent matchup for us. If Spaz can rally the troops, we may make a good run to close the season. However, if the 'Noles crush us, it could send the season spiraling out of control.

Game Theory and Spaz

Unlike baseball where nearly everything has been decided, Game Theory in football is still very complex and in flux. However, there are little things here and there that we know make a difference. Perhaps it is time for Spaz to adjust some of his theories and practices with the hopes that it will change the final outcome. One area that I think needs to change is deferring after winning the coin toss. The theory in this strategy is that if you consistently receive the kickoff to start the second half, that over the course of the season you will have extra possessions. I am all for extra possessions when an offense is functional. In BC's current situation each possession is just extending the pain. Beside this is what we've accomplished with those second half possessions.

Kent State: 12 plays, 75 yards, TD
Notre Dame: 5 plays, 9 yards, punt
NC State: 3 plays, -3 yards, punt

My simple alternative is that BC should receive the opening kickoff whenever we can. This way we increase the chance of scoring first. We can start establishing a tempo for the game early. We can start to limit both teams' possessions. We can start to play field position game early. This mentality doesn't lead to exciting football but it makes much more sense to go conservative in a 0-0 game than when you are down by three scores.