Again it's that time of year again, when we have nothing to talk about but polls and rankings. And whom better to write about then our friends at Athlon Sports, the site that is physically unable to put BC out of the bottom 25% of anything. Last week they looked at coaching jobs using the following criteria: "Which program provides the most support? Which program has access to the best players? Which program has proven it can succeed at a high level over time?".
Boston College finished 12th out of 14 teams, beating out Syracuse and Wake Forest. Hard to argue given what we have seen out of the program the past 6 years. True Steve Addazio has turned the program around after Frank Spaziani ran it and the fan support into the ground, but are things really all that much better? Attendance still needs to improve, recruiting is still not where it was pre-2008, and facilities continue to lag behind (no indoor practice facility etc.).
I still think 12th is low in the grand scheme of things. Duke right now is a hot team, David Cutcliffe has done miracles with that program, but historically they should be no where the program Boston College is. If you are going to bash BC for their fan base, than why is Miami ranked 4th? That program is a gigantic clusterbleep right now, with no fan support whatsoever and performing poorly on the field which they admit in the comments (and yet one of their panelists voted them #1!). My biggest gripe about this type of rankings has to be that the voters haphazardly throw around criteria, and then selectively use it whenever it fits their arguments.
Two of the voters actually had the Eagles as high as 9, which probably corresponds with the amount of voters that work north of the Mason-Dixon line (another inherent bias in all of these polls). In the comments for each team I also take umbrage with their point about BC recruiting: "There isn't enough talent in the Northeast to keep BC competitive with the Florida State's of the world and luring players North from down South is easier said than done." Ok first of all, there is plenty of talent in BC's recruiting areas in the North to be competitive, and to say we only target the Northeast is a little shortsighted. Look at our starters for next year Darius Wade (Delaware), Jon Hilliman (New Jersey), Thadd Smith (Pennsylvania). Secondly BC has done a pretty solid job of finding talent in the South: Myles Willis (Georgia), Harold Landry (North Carolina), and recently BC has a slew of recruits from Florida.
It's hard to argue with the top two choices in this poll, of course being Florida State and Clemson. They have proven to be the cream of the crop in the ACC with elite facilities, and recruiting that is as good if not better than their SEC counterparts. However the rest of this poll is a little suspect for me. Boston College is certainly not a Tier 1 coaching job in the ACC, but I think there are arguments to be made that they are higher than #12.