2012 National Champions Honored In Boston (BCEagles.com)
Following a 2011-12 season in which Boston College hockey captured its third national championship in five years, the team visited Boston City Hall and the Massachusetts State House on Wednesday.

2012 NCAA Basketball Recruiting: Kyle Smyth Chooses Seton Hall Over Boston College As Transfer Destination (SB Nation Boston)
The Boston College Eagles lost a recruiting battle to the Seton Hall Pirates on Wednesday. Jeff Goodman of CBS Sports reports that Iona guard Kyle Smyth chose Seton Hall over Boston College as his transfer destination.

Most important game: Boston College (ESPN ACC Blog)
The Canes have to replace 12 starters, including their quarterback, and BC will have home-field advantage. A win over Miami could snowball into a 3-0 start heading into the Clemson game, as wins over Maine and Northwestern aren’t unfathomable before BC heads into the bye week. BC was able to beat Miami last year on the road in the season finale, but in order for the Eagles’ November games to mean anything, they’ve got to get off to a better start in ACC play.

United Way teams with NYG at Gridiron Gala (Giants.com)
Sponsored by the New York Jets, the Super Bowl XLVI champion New York Giants, and United Way of New York City, the event will honor current players Brandon Moore and Chris Snee with the Hometown Hero award to recognize their service to the community and retired NY Giant Harry Carson with the MVP Award, which recognizes his lifetime achievement.

Florida Panther Player Ratings: Scott Clemmensen (The Rat Trick)
Clemmensen will become a free agent in July. With a young Jacob Markstrom playing great in San Antonio, we may not see Clemmensen next season in a Panther uniform. If that becomes the case, Clem will be a solid goaltender for another team and they will know that. He is a sweet guy, always being generous to the fans. Whether it is signing something, taking a picture or just chatting with a fan, he takes the time to do it. He is a player that is looked up to with the upmost respect and I think this season was his best season in a while playing goalie.

After Regaining Minutes, Kreider Capitalizes (NYTimes.com)
"The last thing I want to do is settle in," Kreider said. "I don’t want to get complacent, especially at this level. If I get complacent, next thing I know I’m minus 2 and giving Ovechkin a one-timer in the slot. I have to stay extremely mentally focused."

Chris Kreider skates from Boston College right into NY Rangers' Stanley Cup chase (NY Daily News)
"It is," Kreider’s college coach Jerry York was saying here Tuesday morning, "like a college baseball player who doesn’t just go straight to the big leagues, he goes straight to the World Series. It’s the kind of thing that changes the athletic landscape a little bit."

As the signing period ends for 2012 recruits and transfers today, this recruit committed to BC back in October. His name is Joe Rahon. Let's take a deeper look into Joe and what he brings to BC.

Notables: Point Guard/Shooting Guard

Physically: 6'1", 175 pounds

Hometown: Del Mar, California

Ratings: ESPN: 80 Grade, Rivals: 3 Stars, Scout: 3 Stars

Other Schools Involved: Georgetown, Oregon, San Diego State, USC, Washington State

What he brings to BC: BC generally views Joe Rahon as a shooting guard, but he can play a little point as well. He's known as a very good shooter (his brother is a sharpshooter for San Diego State) but he also has a little quickness for a guy his size. He fits Donahue's system perfectly. He likely will start his career as a backup 2 behind Lonnie Jackson, but his versatility, great toughness, and shooting are all valuable. He's also a very good defender.

Bottom Line: Rahon should be a solid role player for Steve Donahue in the coming years.

Next up, we will profile BC's other recruit, Olivier Hanlan.

Yesterday the must read blog Pre-Snap Read continued it's countdown of college football programs heading into the 2012 season. Boston College heard it's name called by author Paul Myerberg very early this year at #101. Last year PSR had BC come in at #62, and re ranked at the end of the season at #91, which shows what Myerberg thinks of the state of BC football in 2012 . BC is rated behind Troy (the college, not the mythological Greek province) and two spots above Duke, and only one spot ahead of North Texas.

There were two articles written yesterday and both warrant discussion here at BC, not only because they are excellent reads and bring up some great points, but also because Myerberg sings BCI's praises at the end of his article. In his posts he reviews the 2011 season (Low point: all the losses, high point the end of the season), while taking a look Let's take a look at some of the salient points that Myerberg made in his recent posts:

To start off Myerberg absolutely slams the BC administration for their unabashed support of their embattled coach. Usually I would condense what Myerberg wrote, but this has said alot of what many upset BC fans have clamored about:

There is a disconnect from reality. This is clear when listening to athletic director Gene DeFilippo, who says things like, "I'm really excited about the future of Boston College football," and "[Frank Spaziani] is the best coach that we've had in the 15 years that we've been here," and "our future here is very, very bright." Anyone who has witnessed the Eagles' rapid decline can attest otherwise: Boston College's future - with the program and athletic department as currently constituted - is strikingly bleak; Spaziani may be the only coach DeFilippo has seen in each of his 15 years with the university, and he may be the best defensive coordinator B.C. has had since Tom O'Brien remade the program, but no, to call him the "best coach" since 1997 ignores our own two eyes and those helpful items called facts, which state otherwise. The reality of this situation is that everything that was done has been undone, everything that was achieved has been forgotten, and Boston College football as it was is no longer Boston College football as it is. Excited about the future? Please.

From there PSR goes on to talk about the players and positions. Myerberg explains that Chase Rettig's ability to grasp Doug Martin's offense will be crucial to a successful season. Myerberg's second post talks about how Martin and BC's ability to grasp his offense will be the key to a successful 2012 season:

There’s a reason this hire qualifies as Spaziani’s best since he was promoted into the top spot in 2009 – if we don’t count promoting linebackers coach Bill McGovern to defensive coordinator, which was an absolute no-brainer. The B.C. offense is and has been broken; if nothing else, Martin has the ability to turn this ship around.

His offense will look familiar. Martin’s system is extremely familiar to the one run by Steve Logan at B.C. from 2007-8; Martin was an assistant at E.C.U. during Logan’s entire 11-year run with the program. It’s not a coincidence that the Eagles have bottomed out since Logan left following the 2008 season – after Spaziani was hired – but in Martin, perhaps the Eagles will begin moving the ball like they did under Logan’s watch.

He mentions that one of the most intriguing matchups will be whether Emmett Cleary or John Wetzel will get the nod at left tackle. He then goes on to talk about his worries for the BC defense, especially the secondary. His key to the defense? Kaleb Ramsey. Don't know if I agree with that, because outstanding linebacker play has managed to overshadow weak DL play in the past, if Kevin Pierre-Louis, Steele Divitto and Sean Duggan can play at a high level they could be the players to watch.

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Scheduling trouble up ahead. According to CBS Sports Brett McMurphy, the ACC's Atlantic Division will play an extra home game in odd numbered years.

"Swofford: ACC 9 game ACC schedule when Pitt/SU join; Atlantic will have 5 home games in odd yrs; Coastal 5 home games in even yrs"

As we noted a few weeks ago, this is not good news for Boston College, particularly when it comes to the 2014 slate of games. If the schedule stays the way it is today, the Eagles would have just five home games in 2014 -- a home date with USC, a road game at UMass in Foxborough and a neutral site contest against Army at Yankee Stadium to go with just four ACC home games and five road games.

If having just five home games in a season isn't bad enough, the fact that one of those four ACC home games will be on a Friday night makes the 2014 schedule an epic fail. To recap, that's at most four Saturday home games (three ACC games and USC), at least one Friday night ACC home game, five ACC road games, a game at Gillette Stadium and a game at Yankee Stadium. Yikes.

The worst part is there isn't much room to move games around to make things work. The program isn't going to get out of the USC series, just inked its three-game deal with UMass and cancelling on Army and an opportunity to play in a major alumni center seems un-patriotic.

Ironically, this scheduling decision was made to cater to the two ACC programs which can't leave the conference soon enough. At this point, our only hope of getting a half-decent schedule in 2014 is if Florida State and friends bolt, allowing the conference to either re-format the future scheduling model or redraw the conference's divisional lines.

Brian: Florida State has got everyone talking conference expansion and realignment. FSU, you'll remember, was the conference's second expansion program after Georgia Tech made the ACC an eight team league in 1978. Miami and Virginia Tech joined in 2004, while BC made the conference an even dozen for the 2005 season. Syracuse and Pittsburgh are slated to become programs 13 and 14 in 2014 (or earlier).

Given there is a large, vocal contingent of Florida State fans that want to join the Big 12 like, yesterday, I thought it would be interesting to rewind the tape and replay the ACC's expansion plan. With a catch.

Since this is a Boston College blog, we'll lump BC in with the original seven ACC members -- Clemson, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, N.C. State, Virginia and Wake Forest. That's a total of eight programs to start. Given that starting set of eight, which programs would you have added to the conference? And how many teams you adding? 2? 4? 6? 8?

Jeff: The ideal number of teams in a conference is 12. This meets that important NCAA requirement to have a Championship Game for football and more than 12 leads to not playing each team frequently enough. So that leaves us looking for four teams. I would like the conference to make a little more sense geographically and with the given eight, the conference starts with Clemson as the furthest south team and BC as the furthest north team.

The current 4 ACC teams left out are Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Miami and Florida State. I am going to leave out the two Florida teams and Georgia Tech in order to help the geographic footprint of the league. Virginia Tech is a natural next best fit so I would send them the next invitation. Then to not leave Clemson all by itself below North Carolina, I invite the University of South Carolina next. Then I look to help out BC by inviting future member Syracuse. That gives the ACC 11 teams, 6 in the Carolinas and 5 north of there. Pitt, Rutgers and UConn might get a little bit of consideration but the next team to add is obvious - Penn State. Three of the four added schools are not very good in basketball, but all four are solid in football either historically or recently. In basketball there would be no divisions just as the ACC is set up now and in football there would be a north and south division which would look like this.

North Division
Boston College Eagles
Maryland Terrapins
Penn St. Nittany Lions
Syracuse Orange
Virginia Cavaliers
Virginia Tech Hokies

South Division
Clemson Tigers
Duke Blue Devils
North Carolina Tar Heels
N.C. State Wolfpack
South Carolina Gamecocks
Wake Forest Demon Deacons

You might think I am crazy for not inviting Florida State but with the addition Penn State and South Carolina, the TV deal would likely be slightly more lucrative than the ACC's recently signed agreement. The league would be losing the 20th (Florida State), 41st (Miami) and 49th (Georgia Tech) most valuable college football programs according the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, the ACC would be gaining the 13th (Penn State), 19th (South Carolina) and 66th ranked programs. The three new schools are valued at $743 million while the 3 schools the conference would be losing are only valued at $497 million. Sounds like a good trade to me and it would certainly be a league that would make more sense for BC since we would be trading two schools in Florida for one in New York and one in Pennsylvania.

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