FanPost

For Addazio, fence-building is in full swing

Darren McCollester


Steve Addazio is no Frank Spaziani, that much is clear. Since Addazio's hire in December of 2012, his passion and excitement for the game of football has reverberated through The Heights, a stark contrast to Spaz's less-energetic (for lack of a better term) demeanor. Personality traits aside, Addazio has particularly excelled in something Spaz could never seem to pull the trigger on: Massachusetts recruiting. As we are beginning to find out, it is all part of "building the fence. " It is certainly an interesting way to describe recruiting: building a fence. However, it makes complete sense.

I talked to a Boston College football commit the other day who said that "building a fence" was something that the former Temple head man emphasized during the recruiting process.

"He (Addazio) talked about building a "fence" around Massachusetts to bring homegrown talent to BC."

The coach has certainly "gathered the supplies" and the building process is well underway. Out of 28 commits in this year's class, eight are from "The Bay State." For you math geeks out there, that averages to about 29 percent. Is that a huge number? To be honest, not really. However, when you consider the four Massachusetts commits that pledged their allegiance to the Eagles during 2012 (Spaziani's final year at the post), double is perfectly acceptable. Even the 2013 class, which only had two players from Massachusetts was half of what Spaziani was able to accumulate in his final year at Boston College.

Also take into consideration that the 2013 class was not completely Addazio's as some of the players recruited were Spaz's.

For all intents and purposes, the 2014 class is officially Addazio's, and he has stayed true to his word with his fence-building mantra.Eight recruits come from Massachusetts which is one less than both the 2011 and 2012 classes combined. 2015 looks even brighter Massachusetts-wise as six recruits (so far) have committed to BC. This breaks down to four players on the offensive side of the ball and two on the defensive side of the ball (thanks to 247Sports.com for the numbers:)

Offensive:

TE Jake Burt (***)

TE Chris Garrison (***)

OG Chris Lindstrom (***)

OG Aaron Montero (***)

Defensive:

CB Lukas Denis (***)

CB Davon Jones (***)

Alright enough with the fancy numbers and analysis. You may be asking yourself: What the heck are you getting at? The Addazio administration has really stayed true to their word and put an emphasis on Massachusetts recruiting, something that was lost on the previous administration. It never used to be this way, but Massachusetts is beginning to become a football state recruiting-wise. If you disagree with me on that, that's fine but that fact of the matter is that more attention is being paid to the locals.

Who knows? The next Heisman winner might be right in our backyard. I'm getting a little too ahead of myself.