SB Nation Boston: All Posts by Dave Shook

Boston College football sets sights on future with Frank Spaziani on way out

2012-11-25T13:01:42Z

MEREDITH, N.C. - In the end, you start to think about the beginning.

After Chase Rettig and the Boston College Eagles (2-10) completed an abysmal season with a fittingly abysmal 27-10 loss to the North Carolina State Wolfpack (7-5), I started thinking back to 2008 and the reaction that fans had when it was announced that longtime defensive coordinator Frank Spaziani was going to be the new head coach at Boston College.

The reaction from fans varied from "it's about time!" to "is this the best they could do?" and finally, "what in the world has BC done?", in that order from most to least popular.

Now, after what in all likelihood was the final game in the coaching career of the man affectionately known as "Spaz", it's funny to see how far the reaction has swung back the other way.

His in-game decision making, complete disregard for recruiting and "lots of smoke but no fire" treatment of players and coaches has made him a pariah at Boston College in ways that not even the doom and gloom segment of the Eagles fanbase could have predicted.

When asked whether or not he had earned another year as the head coach at BC, Spaz glumly responded, "It's not up to me". Sounding very much like a defeated man, he also dodged a question about whether or not he and new AD Brad Bates had already scheduled a meeting to discuss his future, indicating they almost certainly have.

The reality, of course, is that regardless of when the hammer drops, it is going to drop, and soon.

Though it would have been hard to believe it while watching QB Chase Rettig play arguably the worst game of his career today, throwing three interceptions and completing only 16 of 45 passes, this team was in the ACC Championship Game in each of the two seasons prior to Spaz's ascension to the head job. Since he took the reins though, it's been almost all bad.

A few of the highlights (or lowlights):

January 2009: Spaz hires the previously retired Gary Tranquill to be his offensive coordinator. Tranquill, known to North Carolina fans as Gary "Nyquill" leads the offense to two MISERABLE seasons, culminating in his termination in 2010.

October 2009: Spaz leads BC to its first loss to Notre Dame in nearly a decade, a 20-16 debacle in which QB Dave Shinskie threw three interceptions.

September-October 2010: The team loses five consecutive games including a humiliating home shutout loss to the Virginia Tech Hokies. It was the team's worst start in nearly two decades.

September 2011: BC opens the season with three straight losses, which include: a home loss to the Northwestern Wildcats in which Spaz says his team was out of shape, a blowout road loss to the Central Florida Knights (more on this in a moment) and a loss at home to the Duke Blue Devils (!!!), after which Spaz coined the phrase, "middle schmiddle" about centering the ball before a failed game winning field goal attempt.

September 2011 (cont.): At halftime of the aforementioned loss to Central Florida, Spaz and newly hired offensive coordinator Kevin Rogers are reportedly involved in a physical altercation which leaves Rogers with a bloody lip. Rogers "retires" due to a reported back issue the next day but quickly resurfaces the next season at Temple. Neither Rogers nor Spaz talk about the incident as the former signed a non-disclosure agreement on his way out the door in exchange for a hefty buyout.

November 2011: The Eagles become bowl in-eligible for the first time in over a decade as they lay down on national television, at home, against a Florida State Seminoles team that finished just 8-4 on the season. The team also loses to Notre Dame for the third consecutive year.

May 2012: After rehabbing an injured knee for nearly a year, Montel Harris, the team's all-time leading rusher, is dismissed from the team by Spaz for a "violation of team rules". The violation? Reportedly voicing his displeasure with the coaching staff and not being willing to play before his knee was 100%. Harris transfers to Temple and rushes for over 1,000 yards with the Owls.

October-November 2012: The Eagles lose a humiliating game to Army in the midst of a two win season that sees them beat only one FBS opponent. The team finishes in the bottom 25 percent nationally in both offense and defense.

The fact that those are only a few of the highlights from the head coaching tenure of Spaz should make it clear to even the most overwhelmingly pro-Spaz fan that the man was in over his head as a head coach at a major FBS program.

Now, to be fair, some of the responsibility of this debacle also belongs to the longtime friend of Coach Spaz and recently "retired" (he was fired, regardless of what the title of the press release says) Athletic Director, Gene DeFilippo.

DeFilippo was the man who hired Spaz over any number of more qualified candidates in 2009, gave him an unfathomable contract extension in December of 2010, a move that will have BC paying him off until 2015 and then pronounced him to be the best coach that BC has had in 15 years following the 2011 season.

When DeFilippo was ousted back in September of this year, the writing was on the wall that change within the Yawkey Center was forthcoming. When new AD Brad Bates said that he would evaluate the program after the season, Spaz might as well have retired on the spot.

Once his dismissal is official, the final numbers on the head coaching career of Frank Spaziani will look like this: 22-29 overall record, 0-4 vs. Notre Dame, 0-2 in bowl games, zero wins vs. the Top 25, an absolutely demoralized fanbase and a massive rebuilding job for his successor.

The last one is the most important thing here.

Nobody doubts that BC has continued to recruit hard working kids who define the phrase "student athlete". However, there are a fair number of players that took the field today against the Wolfpack who simply did not belong on an ACC field.

Previous coaches at Boston College, such as Tom O'Brien and to a smaller degree, Jeff Jagodzinski, were able to find kids who could both succeed in the classroom as well as on the football field. Spaz has been unable, or unwilling, to put in that time and effort to do the same. Thus, largely devoid of ACC talent, whoever agrees to be the next head coach at Boston College will have a long way to go to rebuild the program to its previous heights (no pun intended) as an ACC contender.

Folks expecting the Eagles to chase coaches like Jon Gruden can stop that daydreaming right now. This is not a team that simply needs someone to come in and coach the talent that's already here. This is a team that needs a coach that is willing to put in the work on the recruiting trail and in the community to build BC for the long term. To put it bluntly, the school needs to hire "the right coach" and not just the biggest name it can find.

This is not to say that BC isn't capable of making a home run hire to replace Spaz, they most certainly are. However, this would require the school to open up the purse strings more than they have in recent years for coaches (Spaz makes/made a relatively paltry $1.1 million, the lowest in the ACC, but still far too much). The magic number to draw a name hire that would also be "the right fit" would probably be somewhere in the range of $2 million or as high as $2.5 million.

Who could they land with a salary like that? Glad you asked!

In no particular order, here are the three (realistic) coaches that I would most like to see roaming the sidelines of the Coliseum in Los Angeles when the Eagles open up against the USC Trojans in September of 2013:

1) Dave Doeren. Currently the Head Coach at Northern Illinois, Doeren has been a rousing success in his short tenure. The Huskies won their first MAC Championship last season and are in position to do it again. Known as a good recruiter and, so far, good in-game coach (defense is his specialty), Doeren has major college experience with both Kansas and Wisconsin as a position coach and coordinator. He's also relatively young at 40 years old and makes a shade under 400k coaching the Huskies.

2) Bob Diaco. The young defensive coordinator at Notre Dame is known as one of the best recruiters in the country and looking at the unbelievable amount of talent he's helped acquire in South Bend, it's hard to argue. Diaco is devoid of any head coaching experience at the college level, but fits the bill for BC in the sense that he's accustomed to the high standards placed on recruits, knows the midwest recruiting territory (a BC staple) and helps lead one of the best defenses in America. Coaching acumen is obviously questionable because of the lack of experience, but the potential positives far outweigh the unknown.

3) Pete Carmichael, Jr. Probably the biggest longshot of the three candidates, Carmichael would be a dream hire for BC fans because of his local ties (born in Massachusetts, played at Boston College, previously coached in New England, etc.). He'd be the ideal candidate for rallying the fanbase and generating excitement. Carmichael is currently the offensive coordinator with the New Orleans Saints where, behind quarterback Drew Brees, the Saints have won a Super Bowl and have been one of the top offenses in the NFL for the last four or five years. The reason Carmichael would seemingly be a longshot would be because of his potential candidacy for head coaching jobs in the NFL this upcoming offseason. Also, with the Saints season nowhere near over, it would be at least a few weeks before BC would be able to talk to him and the school might not be willing to wait that long. Carmichael has yet to be a head coach at any level and has only minimal experience as a college coach.

There will almost certainly be many more candidates that will pop up on the radar over the next few weeks, but these would be my top three heading into the opening round so to speak.

Ultimately, the depth of the damage done by Frank Spaziani's tenure as head coach probably won't be known until we find out what type of coach BC can land, what the immediate future looks as far as recruiting is concerned and where BC lands in the next game of conference musical chairs, but it's clear that damage has been done.

From the declining ticket sales to the decline in donations to the schools fundraising arm, the Flynn Fund to the schools attractiveness to potential new conferences and to general fan morale, BC athletics is in perhaps its darkest place since the infamous gambling scandal rocked the school and the football program back in 1996.

The ball is now in Bates' court. This hire will, more than likely, make or break his tenure at BC. For his sake and for the sake of the future of football at Boston College, to bring this program back into the light, he needs to knock this out of the park.

Let the search begin.

Dave Shook is a special contributor to SB Nation Boston. Twitter: @DShookCSL.

CBS Sports Predicts Patriots Will Go Undefeated In Regular Season

2012-07-28T02:47:57Z

The New England Patriots have been the most dominant team in the NFL over the last 10+ years, they've won Super Bowls, they've had players win MVP's, and they've broken almost every offensive record possible, but the one thing they've been unable to is complete the holy grail: a perfect season. CBS Sports, during their projections for the upcoming season, thinks the Pats will at the very least run the table during the regular season.

Via CBS Sports:

Will guard Logan Mankins return to top-notch form after a less-than-stellar season? Can Gronkowski stay healthy? What kind of impact will an influx of new receivers have? Even with those queries unanswered for now, there's not much doubt that Belichick will find a way to solve those problems. And with old offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels back for a second stint, there's a good chance that the offense only will improve. Which is a legitimately frightening thought.

Whoa. Let's not get carried away here.

As the article notes, the team was an Eli Manning drive away from winning the Super Bowl, but they were also the owners of one of the worst defenses I've ever had the misfortune to watch and a chip shot field goal away from not even being in the Super Bowl. While they did take some steps to fix the defense through the draft, particularly the front seven, they didn't do much to remedy the main problem: the secondary. We'll still have to watch Devin "the human turnstile" McCourty get burned by every receiver imaginable week in and week out, along with a host of other overwhelmed players.

Until the secondary issue is resolved, consider me skeptical that a team with that poor a defense will stumble into the Super Bowl again. Nobody is that lucky.

Patriots Set Attendance Record At Training Camp

2012-07-28T00:41:35Z

The New England Patriots have been in camp for the last few days as they prepare for the upcoming season and, hopefully, another run at the Super Bowl with Tom Brady as the quarterback. In recent years, training camp sessions have attracted more and more fans hoping to get an early glimpse of the team, at a fraction of the cost (read: zero cost). But today (most of this week in fact) was especially impressive.

Via Mike Reiss' Twitter:

@MikeReiss Patriots announce today's training camp crowd at 13,654. New single-session record. Breaks yesterday's mark.

That is A LOT of people to watch the team work out and go through drills at half speed with no pads.

It's a testament to the way that football has surpassed baseball as the penultimate sport in the Boston area (don't tell that to the folks on Yawkey Way though) and that is thanks in large part to Coach Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft who have built a dynasty in Foxborough. Having Brady, three Super Bowls and the potential to be in the mix pretty much every year doesn't hurt either.

Ben Cherington: Sox Not Going To Be Sellers At Deadline

2012-07-27T16:49:43Z

The Boston Red Sox are mired in last place in the American League East, but the bigger problem is that outrage is rapidly turning to apathy among fans of the ball club. Tickets to Fenway Park, once a big time commodity, can now be had for less than 15 bucks on the secondary market, a trend that endangers the ~~hallowed~~ hollow sell-out streak.

With the trade deadline approaching, General Manager Ben Cherington went on WEEI to tell fans that the team is not going to give up on this year.

Via WEEI:

"When we look at where we are in the standings, I guess particularly the teams that are right ahead of us in the wild card chase, we don't believe that any of those teams are better than us, or necessarily more talented than us. So in that sense we're not of the mindset of giving in on anything."

Well, obviously he's not going to say "we suck, we're packing it in", but his entire conversation comes across as pandering to a fanbase that is rapidly reaching "we don't care" status. The club is wildly unlikable, the effort on most nights has ranged from minimal to non-existant, and to be blunt, they just aren't that good.

Essentially, the entire interview can be translated into "please don't stop buying tickets!"

Celtics Offseason 2012: Celtics Schedule Released

2012-07-26T23:27:35Z

The Boston Celtics will begin their 2012-2013 campaign on October 30 when they re-visit the scene of their heartbreaking Game Seven loss to the Miami Heat in last years Eastern Conference Finals according to the schedule that the NBA released Thursday night.

In addition to that high profile match-up on opening night, the Celtics will again be playing on Christmas Day, this time in Brooklyn against the new look Nets. Some other highlights on the schedule include: The Los Angeles Lakers making their only visit of the season to Boston on February 7th, and Ray Allen returning to Boston as a member of the Heat for the first time on March 18th. In addition, the C's will be featured on national television 26 times during the 2012-2013 season, including a Sunday afternoon tilt on ABC against the defending Western Conference Champion Oklahoma City Thunder on March 10.

The annual post All-Star break trip to the West Coast looks especially brutal this year, with the team scheduled to play five games in seven nights against the Denver Nuggets, Lakers, Phoenix Suns, Portland Trailblazers, and Utah Jazz.

To see the entire schedule, click here.

For more Boston Celtics offseason coverage, visit our team page and our team blog,CelticsBlog.

Boston College Basketball Draws Baylor In Charleston Classic

2012-07-26T19:50:29Z

The college basketball season is still several months away, but dates, opponents, and pre-season tournament brackets are already starting to leak out. Boston College was scheduled to take part in the Charleston Classic in late November, but their first round opponent was unknown, until today.

Via the Charleston Classic Website

The 2012 Charleston Classic presented by Foster Grant, an eight-team men’s college basketball tournament, will feature 12 games over the three days. Each team will compete in one game per day, advancing through a bracket-tournament format.

Tournament highlights:

In ESPN.com’s early men’s preseason top 25 poll, Baylor is ranked No. 11 and will face Boston College in first-round action at 3 p.m. on ESPNU

Ouch. Good luck with that.In addition to having to square off against a team that reached the Elite Eight last year, before falling to eventual National Champion, Kentucky, the game will have some additional intrigue for Boston College fans.

Baylor point guard Brady Heslip, who was originally committed to BC prior to the firing of Al Skinner, was not highly thought of by new coach Steve Donahue who encouraged him to transfer. Now Heslip will get the opportunity to show the Eagles what they passed on.

The other six teams in the field are: Auburn, Charleston, Colorado, Dayton, Murray State, and St. John's and play begins November 15.

UMass Football Preseason 2012: Minutemen Picked Last In MAC East Poll

2012-07-26T01:05:17Z

The UMass Minutemen were voted to finish last in the MAC Conference Eastern Division in the preseason poll.

The Ohio Bobcats were picked to win the 2012 Marathon MAC Football Championship in the 2012 Mid-American Conference Football Preseason Poll. Ohio and Toledo were chosen to win the East and West Divisions, respectively. UMass received a total of 23 points, and was picked to land in the cellar of the East Division in the poll.

The poll was announced at the conference's annual Football Media Day in Detroit. Members of the media contingent voted in the poll.

Despite their showing in the preseason poll, the Minutemen had two players land on Phil Steele's Preseason All-Conference Team. The college football guru announced the All-MAC team on Wednesday.

Offensive tackle Nick Speller and linebacker Perry McIntyre made Steele's second team All-MAC squad. Entering his senior season, McIntyre recorded 116 total tackles, 6.5 sacks and 11.5 tackles for a loss last season. Speller, a red shirt senior, transferred from Syracuse where he picked up All-Freshman honors in 2009.

For more on the UMass Minutemen and the MAC, visit Hustle Belt.

Boston College Football Preseason: 2012: All-ACC Preseason Teams Announced

2012-07-25T23:15:04Z

The 2012 Preseason All-ACC Teams were announced. Boston College had four players finish in the top five in voting for their positions.

The Boston College Eagles did not land any players on the 2012 Preseason All-ACC team. Boston College was the only ACC team to not garner any representatives on the all conference team. The Eagles did have four players finish in the top five of voting in their respective positions: tight end Chris Pantale (3rd) offensive tackle Emmett Cleary (4th), linebacker Kevin Pierre-Louis (5th) and kicker Nate Freese (4th).

Here are the All-ACC teams:

Offense

Pos. Name (Votes) Ht Wt Class Hometown

WR Conner Vernon, Duke (41) 6-2 195 Senior Miami, Fla.

WR Sammy Watkins, Clemson (68) 6-1 200 Sophomore Fort Myers, Fla.

TE Matt Furstenburg, Maryland (35) 6-4 245 Senior Flemington, N.J.

T James Hurst, North Carolina (48) 6-7 300 Junior Plainfield, Ind.

T Oday Aboushi, Virginia (29) 6-6 310 Senior Brooklyn, N.Y.

G Omoregie Uzzi, Georgia Tech (57) 6-3 300 Senior Lithonia, Ga.

G Jonathan Cooper, North Carolina (55) 6-3 295 Senior Wilmington, N.C.

C Dalton Freeman, Clemson (58) 6-3 285 Senior Pelion, S.C.

QB Tajh Boyd, Clemson (29) 6-1 225 Junior Hampton, Va.

RB Giovani Bernard, North Carolina (60) 5-10 205 Sophomore Davie, Fla.

RB Andre Ellington, Clemson (53) 5-10 190 Senior Moncks Corner, S.C.

Defense

Pos. Name (Votes) Ht Wt Class Hometown

DE Brandon Jenkins, Florida State (59) 6-3 265 Senior Tallahassee, Fla.

DE James Gayle, Virginia Tech (31) 6-4 250 Junior Hampton, Va.

DT Joe Vellano, Maryland (58) 6-1 285 Senior Rexford, N.Y.

DT Nikita Whitlock, Wake Forest (33) 5-11 260 Junior Wylie, Texas

LB Kevin Reddick, North Carolina (49) 6-3 240 Senior New Bern, N.C.

LB Bruce Taylor, Virginia Tech (42) 6-2 253 Senior Riceboro, Ga.

LB Steve Greer, Virginia (32) 6-2 225 Senior Solon, Ohio

CB David Amerson, NC State (63) 6-3 194 Junior Greensboro, N.C.

CB Kyle Fuller, Virginia Tech (25) 6-0 181 Junior Baltimore, Md.

S Lamarcus Joyner, Florida State (45) 5-8 204 Junior Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

S Earl Wolff, NC State (30) 6-0 207 Senior Raeford, N.C.

Specialists

Pos. Name (Votes) Ht Wt Class Hometown

PK Dustin Hopkins, Florida State (54) 6-2 190 Senior Houston, Texas

P Dalton Botts, Miami (65) 6-3 198 Senior Taft, Calif.

SP Greg Reid, Florida State (35) 5-8 186 Senior Valdosta, Ga.

Boston College will begin their 2012 season against ACC foe Miami on Sept. 1 at 3:30 p.m. at Alumni Stadium.

For more on the Eagles, visit our blog BC Interruption.