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The Ultimate BC Football Game (Old Guy Edition) 1970-99: Chlebek/Henning Bracket Championship: #3 - Alabama - 1984 vs #6 - Houston - 1985

Halfway through round 2 now and we have our first Tournament semi-final set, as #1 seed - Notre Dame - 1993 will meet the #4 seed - Texas - 1976, who defeated the #5 seed Penn State - 1983, 75% to 25% to win the Joe Yukica Bracket Championship.

Next up is the Chlebek/Henning Championship between the #3 seed, the 38-31 win at Legion Field in 1984 against Alabama, meeting the 1985 Cotton Bowl win over the University of Houston seeded sixth. This winner will then tackle the Jack Bicknell Bracket winner, either 1984 Miami or 1992 Penn State.

Voting runs through August 5 at 11:55 PM.

The last coach we have to look at is Dan Henning who arrived at BC in 1994 replacing Tom Coughlin. Henning was 52 at the time, but seemed like an old man from the day he walked in the door. If Coughlin was the drill Sargent, Henning seemed more like the Day Camp Director. His background was almost exclusively as a position coach or offensive coordinator at the NFL level and he brought that persona of expecting 18-22 year old kids to act as professionals to the job...and we know that's rarely a good thing.

His first team in 94 pulled off the win at home against Notre Dame and finished with the Aloha Bowl win over Kansas State covered as well in our Old Guy Edition, but there was clearly slippage in the approach to the game and the mental and physical discipline that Coughlin had demanded waned over time. It was a bit like Spaz reaping the benefits of what TOB and Jags had put in place, knowing that ultimately it would fall apart because he didn't have the makeup to be a head coach.

By 1995 the Coughlin factor had worn off completely and the inmates were clearly running the asylum. BC slipped to 4-8 including one of the most heinous losses in program history, the 49-7 ass whoopin' at home vs Army, whose only other wins that season would come against Lehigh, Colgate, Bucknell and Navy. It was incompetence at its zenith.

1996 didn't get any better and following a 45-17 loss at Alumni to Syracuse, it was revealed that some BC players had actually bet against themselves in that game. 13 players were suspended and 6 permanently dismissed from school and Henning's fate became sealed. To Henning's credit, he acted very responsibly and didn't try to hide any of it from anybody, but he had completely lost control of the team. The team would lose 4 of its final 5 that season and Henning would be replaced by Tom O'Brien.

Someone I genuinely think was liked, but obviously not respected, the program never showed the improvement offensively you would have figured an NFL coordinator would have brought. After leaving BC it was back to the pros where Henning served as offensive coordinator for the Bills, Panthers and Dolphins before retiring after the 2010 season.