On the heels of Monday's Boston Metro article on the rapid decline of Boston College Athletics, Matt Burke is back with more after checking in with former head coach Tom O'Brien and former hoops standout John Bagley.
Here's Tom O'Brien:
"They're capable of making those types of choices to put them in a position to be better. But I thought we left the program in great shape."
And TOB on his move to N.C. State:
"The last two years have started to show some of the fruition of the work we've done," O'Brien said. "In the last two years, there are only two teams that have won more games than us in the ACC (Virginia Tech and Florida State). So are we on the right path? I'd say we are."
N.C. State has also played the most I-AA teams of any ACC program (5) over the past three seasons. So there's that, too. Old habits die hard, I guess.
Here's former Boston College point guard John Bagley's take on the situation.
"Things should not be going in the direction they're going," Bagley said. "Going to a prestigious college like Boston College that's built up a great legacy of athletics and memories, it's hard to believe that that doesn't exist anymore."
"My (affiliation with BC) today is very limited," Bagley said. "I don't know why things have changed in any capacity. I don't know if it was the players and I don't know what the cause of (the downward trend) is."
So Bagley doesn't really know what's going on, but apparently it's not good.
Finally, the Metro article cites a "source close to the athletics department that alleges that DeFilippo made it hard for Skinner to find work after canning him after the 2009-10 season.
"I know (DeFilippo) called over to St. John's and badmouthed (Skinner) and his staff. He certainly didn't make it easy for (Skinner) to get another job," one source said. "Gene has a lot of power. But you have an individual here where that power corrupted him. All of his hires have been disastrous."
Here's where Burke trips up a bit. I'm not a fan of these thinly-sourced accusations. Do I think that this claim is preposterous? Not really, no. The Skinner-DeFilippo divorce wasn't exactly Jim Irsay-Peyton Manning, and it's plausible that Gene made it somewhat difficult for Skinner to find work post-BC. But if you are gonna print something like this, you should be prepared to back it up.
Simiarly, Tom O'Brien had no comment to similar claims that DeFilippo "bad mouthed" O'Brien to N.C. State in 2006.
Looks like the Metro will continue to go hard at DeFilippo here. The timing isn't great -- where was all this back in October when the football program was 1-6? -- but it's long overdue. I doubt anything will come of this, but with increased media scrutiny -- even if it's only people reading this on the T on the way to work -- may lead to changes in the way DeFilippo runs the department or even a shakeup of the department's leadership.