If Kuechly Returns, Would This Soften The Blow Of Spaz 2012?
by Brian Favat on Nov 27, 2011 2:00 PM EST
in Boston College Football
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Brian: As you've probably heard by now, all indications are that Frank Spaziani will return as head coach of the Eagles in 2012. Fans are clearly frustrated that DeFilippo is digging in his heels here and backing his 2009 decision to hire Spaz.
But what if Spaz's return is enough to bring Montel Harris, Ifeanyi Momah, Kaleb Ramsey and ... Luke Kuechly back for next season? Thinking that Kuechly will return for his senior season seems like wishful thinking at this point, but stranger things have happened, right?
If BC gets all four of these players back for next season, would that soften the blow of having Spaz roaming the sidelines in 2012? Your thoughts?
Jeff: At the end of the day, I, like most fans, don't care what the name of our head coach is. I was to see Boston College win games. If Frank Spaziani continues to be the head coach, I question whether or not he will bring in the best players to help us win games. We know Spaz can develop players once he has them because of what he did while he was DC and the fact that the past two seasons, BC has finished the season much stronger than they started it. Next season, if Momah, Ramsey, Kuechly, and Harris are all back, we will be at least two and maybe three wins better in conference than we were this season which suddenly puts us at 5-3 or 6-2. Nothing wrong with going 6-2 in conference. Add to that some different non-conference scheduling and BC can 8-4 or 9-3.
For all intents and purposes, BC was 4-4 in conference this season. When it comes to evaluating whether or not to fire Spaz, you have to consider the Duke game a win. Now BC should be able to beat Duke to the point where it does not come down to a missed short FG at the end, but in a rebuilding year, as this turned out to be, I think it is fair to give Spaz the victory there.
If Harris and Kuechly are back, with how many freshman and sophomores played the majority of downs this season, there is absolutely no reason that BC can't be two wins better in 2012 in conference. Then, if BC had just played last years out of conference schedule, BC would have won 3 of those games. So if BC can get a year stronger and gain a year of experience combined with losing practically no one, getting back Harris, Ramsey and Momah, BC could be a lot better in terms of wins and losses since the schedule shakes out a lot differently as well. Next season we play Maine, Army and Notre Dame at home and Northwestern on the road in our out of conference schedule.
If Kuechly leaves, then there's a lot of questions to be answered. But if he returns, there's no way we are not significantly better.
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You guys do good work
but this article is off-base. It’s amazing to me how quickly people are talking themselves into next year being different. I for one have learned my lesson. Next year will probably be 6-6 with Spaz not even bothering to compete in 2 games and costing us another 1 or 2 with his conservative play calling and generally being unprepared. Having Luke back or not, that won’t change.
For Spaz developing players, I wholeheartedly disagree. Last year was 100% a function of the schedule and you’re crazy if you think otherwise. This year we beat two bad teams and a team that had given up after having a bowl game pulled away from it. Also, if you start the season with losses to a 6-6, 5-7, and 3-9 team, it’s not hard to seemingly get better.
Also, can we stop with the Duke is a win thing? Duke is awful and it should never have come down to the last field goal (as you said). We shouldn’t just brush past that. As for the FG itself, Spaz’s stubborn refusal to center the ball makes him just as responsible for the kick as Freese IMHO.
Last, even with all the stuff you talk about, that would put us at what, 7-5. Is that the goal? Should I be excited by that possibility? Come on now.
by 31southst on Nov 27, 2011 2:27 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
Schedule is just as tough, if not tougher than this year.
We lost at home against Duke, and trade that for a road trip to Georgia Tech? No thanks. Think we’ll be 6-6 … at (very) best.
Wins (2) – Army, Maine
Losses (6) – @ Northwestern, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, Clemson, @ Georgia Tech, @ Florida State
Toss Ups (4) – Miami, Maryland, @ Wake Forest, @ N.C. State
Editor, BC Interruption
Losses
I’m not ready to say @Northwestern or @GT are losses.. I would put both in the tossup column. You point about a 6-6 ceiling remains.
There’s no reason to think Spaz will have this team ready for Northwestern (again), and may again get sorely out-coached, out-prepared and out-conditioned by Fitzgerald. Plus it’s on the road, and Colter will have the entire fall camp to practice with the first team.
Similarly, I’m taking Paul Johnson at home over Spaz every day of the week.
Editor, BC Interruption
Duke as a W
Have to respectfully disagree here. Spaz doesn’t get a pass.
Here are the Eagles second half drives:
4 plays 19 yards, 01:35 BC PUNT
5 plays 17 yards, 02:36 BC PUNT
4 plays 10 yards, 01:17 BC PUNT
3 plays 8 yards, 01:20 BC PUNT
3 plays 0 yards, 00:24 BC PUNT
BC drive: 9 plays 74 yards, 01:41 BC FGA
Missed FG or no, offensive coordinator or no … BC basically went three-and-out the entire second half on offense against Duke’s defense. That’s more or less unacceptable.
Only Virginia Tech scored fewer points against Duke (14) and that game was on the road. Against Duke, BC was outscored by Miami (49 points), Stanford (44), Florida State (41), Georgia Tech (38), North Carolina (37), Virginia (31), Tulane (27), Florida International (27), Wake Forest (24) and Richmond (23 points).
Editor, BC Interruption
Yeah, Kuechly and his ability to keep us somewhat close
May have hurt us more than helped us.
My Twitter @totheights
What have you done with Brian Favat?
Brian:
Are you okay? Are you being held hostage by Bladshun and GDF?
Only coercion would cause you to write such a post.
We demand “proof of life” before we’ll believe you’re safe.
by Leonard E Sienko Jr on Nov 27, 2011 2:52 PM EST reply actions
Jeff, we all love ya, but I respectfully disagree with almost everything you said.
First, I do care who the coach is. Some guys are winners and some are losers. Spaz is a defeatist, ill-prepared, blame-averse loser who has a losing record against FBS competition all-time. I don’t care what Gene says, I believe what I see and I’ve seen a team massively underachieve the last two seasons.
Second, unfortunately, BC wasn’t beating much anyone of note. BC was winning a lot of low-scoring games on the backs of the D against mediocre teams and have lost to just about every good team they’ve faced since 2009. It’s more important to me how BC is doing against the better programs on our schedule like FSU, Clemson, VT, and ND, and we’re 1-11 against them under Spaz. The “1” (over Clemson) was last season when the Tigers were down. Fattening up on bad teams and squeaking into a bowl doesn’t do anything for me; I want to see us be the best by beating the best. Three years running, we can’t.
Third, anything is possible, but IMO looking at 8-4 or 9-3 (5-3 or 6-2 in the conference) next year is fantasy. 6-2 would require BC to beat at least one of VT, Clemson, or FSU. All three of those teams kicked our asses this year.
Fourth, I completely disagree that it’s “fair to give Spaz the win” over Duke. BC played a terrible game against that bad Duke team and honestly didn’t deserve to win. It never should have had to come down to Freese’s leg. Him making the kick wouldn’t have made me feel any better about how the game went; BC made Renfree look like Dan Marino and did zip on offense in the 2nd half.
Finally, we’ve all been saying “there’s no way we won’t be better next year because of x, y, and z improving and a, b, and c being a year older.” I fell for it in 2010 and this year, I’m not falling for it a third time. In 2012 they have to prove it to me before I believe it.
Soaring to Glory: On the #FireSpaz bandwagon before it was cool
Correction
2-10…apparently we beat FSU in 2009 and I have no recollection of the game at all.
Soaring to Glory: On the #FireSpaz bandwagon before it was cool
by SoaringtoGlory on Nov 27, 2011 3:00 PM EST up reply actions
Emotional W
College GameDay on campus and Mark Herzlich declared cancer free.
Though if you ask Florida State fans, the only reason BC won that game was because of the massively under-performing teams of Bobby Bowden towards the end of his career.
Editor, BC Interruption
He’s 0-8 against teams ranked in the AP Top 25. An equally appropriate statistic.
Editor, BC Interruption
Brian didn't ask if I wanted Spaz back
If all the mentioned players come back do I think we win 8 games, yes. Spaz or no Spaz. Do I think all those players will be back? No. Do I therefore think we’ll win 8? No.
We ended up playing all fresh and sophs this season. All these recruits chose to play for Spaz. There won’t be a long list of players leaving the program in the offseason as the there has in the transition seasons.
Spaz does not deserve to keep his job, but I would not fire him over the kicker missing a 27 yarder against Duke. I’d site only beating UMass and kinda Duke before beating Maryland this season. UCF is not even bowl eligible and we dot destroyed by them. NW would not have been bowl eligible if we had beaten them. Wake Forest also would not have been bowl eligible if we had just beaten them at home.
This team did finish the season winning two games against bowl eligible teams so things could have been worse. There is reason to be optimistic about next season. Most coaches are given 4 or 5 years to be evaluated. There is a reason for that.
4-5 years is true
but most coaches don’t replace a team that has won their division two years in a row and had been to 10 plus bowls in a row. Spaz did not inherit a bad team like most coaches do.
Spaz has also been with the program since 1997. I think a shorter leash can sometimes be warranted in these situations where a coordinator is promoted internally to HC (which, by the way, don’t seem to work out more often than not …)
Editor, BC Interruption
Though Jeff did mention he may not have been clear here, and still supports #FireSpaz, so we cool. We cool …
Editor, BC Interruption
Lipstick on a pig
Now BC should be able to beat Duke to the point where it does not come down to a missed short FG at the end, but in a rebuilding year, as this turned out to be, I think it is fair to give Spaz the victory there.
C’mon we sucked. Spaz sucked. Nothing will change except the excuses and outright lies by GDF
by eagleosprey on Nov 27, 2011 4:16 PM EST via mobile reply actions
Can we all divert our donations to a “Keep Luke at BC” fund?
by DCash on Nov 27, 2011 5:30 PM EST via mobile reply actions
Spaz since 1997
OMG Brian, I just saw this (though obviously we’ve debated this point in PMs before). Would you stop with the “Spaz has been here since 1997” stuff? Ok, 2 takes on that. First, he was here since 1997 as the DC, NOT the HC. So he was responsible for the defense, period Hmm, how’d that go? Um, the defense was solid throughout that period, and had several years where it was among the best in the country (pts allowed). Secondly, you usually trot this out as a retort to the “Spaz inherited a mess” argument (no he didn’t, he’s been here since 1997). Ok, then I guess he gets partial credit for the best 10 yrs of BC football ever…right? Hmm, that’s imp I would think. You just can’t it both ways Brian.
Bottom line: he wasn’t the HC until 2009, so he wasn’t IN CHARGE, and thus DIDN’T CONTROL everything that happened from 1997-2006, or from 2007-2009. It’s a losing, i.e. irrelevant, point Brian. What he controlled in that period was extremely effective.
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