For Boston, For Boston, We Sink Our Season Down the Drain

Pinheads or Patriots? College Special
(Originally posted January 9, 2009)

Tell a Boston College fan that their athletic program will have a headline on the ESPN web page. Tell them. Really, give it a whirl. Someone that goes to BC games drunk and barely pays attention will probably say, "You're damn right! BC RULES!" Someone who actually enjoys BC athletics and follows actual sports is probably smart enough to say, "Nah. You're full of it...Wait, really? And it's not hockey finals season?"

This is not to diminish the accomplishments of Boston College at all. I love BC athletics. I've had football season tickets for five straight years, and Coach Jerry York once invited me into the locker room to meet the players for my support of the hockey team. But those experiences gave me perspective on how all of the city feels about the major college program in the area. BC has a weak and disloyal fan-base that cares more for the Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots. The week leading up to the Gaylords Hotel Music City Bowl (yeah, I know, I know), WBZ News highlighted the three big stories in Boston sports at the time : the Patriots season ending, the Celtics winning, and that Red Sox spring training was just 43 days away.

Yet this week, I opened the ESPN homepage to find not one, but TWO headlines featuring BC on the main page. Eagles basketball defeated #1 ranked North Carolina, and football head coach Jeff Jagodzinski was coveting thy neighbor's head coaching job. A rather bittersweet combination.

I'm sure most of the nation has heard more than they care to listen about this situation with Coach Jags interviewing for the New York Jets vacancy, resulting in his job being threatened, and then terminated. If you'd like the position of an Eagle's fan, I can give you two. One is that of the aforementioned tailgating drunkard, who will spit on Coach Jags' name and curse the day they ever tried to pronounce his name. (Reasonable fans are, understandably, upset as well.) My position?

Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo needs help. Not just coaching help, but psychological help. He lost a great college coach in Tom O'Brien just two years ago. Coach Jags came in and gave BC football its best season in history with O'Brien's leftovers, got the team ranked #2 in the country for a couple weeks, then made quarterback Matt Ryan into a Heisman candidate and the first quarterback picked in the draft. And Gene gets jealous that Jags is making googly eyes across the street? He's lucky to be able to say that Boston College can get GREAT coaches. New England should be bull that BC gave Giants coach Tom Coughlin his start.

Jagodzinski had his own reputation to look out for. If you never saw the man, imagine a basket-full of puppies riding a rainbow all the way to Disney World. He's happier than that. He undoubtedly was optimistic about his first head coaching job, ready to make BC even better than it already was. And he did. But then he started recruiting.

BC is a great football school. It gets very good athletes, and makes many of them better. But it does not get great athletes to start with. No matter how great a coach may be, names of an institution carry much more weight. Those pearly whites Jeff flashed would never lure a good running back away from USC, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, or just about any other top 20 team.

Quarterback Chris Crane, who was hated at the start of the season by fans, but sorely missed after he went down with a broken collarbone, is graduating. Freshman QB Dominique Davis successfully ended BC's bowl game win streak, which had been the longest in the nation. The Eagles defense was one of the top rated in the country, but the majority of the players were seniors, with Mark Herzlich and B.J. Raji expected to go in the first round of the NFL Draft. Though he had two heralded years, Jags knew the honeymoon was over, and he was going to get crushed with his poor recruiting classes. He was going to lose next season. A lot. His coaching reputation would be sullied, and there was nothing he could do about it. BC's name just couldn't pull in the players he needed.

I'm not happy he's gone. But loyalty means little in today's job market. I've heard a lot of people say "Well, this is how sports are, coaches jump ship all the time," and that's no defense. The fact is, ALL JOBS are like that these days, not just coaching. Dennis and Callahan can rip Jags a new one on WEEI for leaving, but the fact is that if ESPN came looking for a couple new hosts for SportsCenter, I doubt they'd turn down the interview because of their contracts to an AM radio station in Boston. I may have a good relationship with my boss, but if there's a job with more prestige, more money, and my current job will hurt my reputation if I keep it, I'd take a risk too. Coach a college program that's looking like it will go under, or take the shot at an NFL Head Coaching job that actually had a winning record? As an American living in a capitalist world, can you blame Jagodzinski? Hell, it's a win-win for him too, because BC still has to pay him.

DeFilippo should have realized that only a handful of good candidates would jump at this job. BC does not have the financial support to buy out a contract, while still picking up a good coach. I'll call it now that Frank Spaziani, current defensive coordinator will get the job. Because he'll be cheap, loyal, and probably deserved the job in the first place. But if Gene DeFilippo thinks firing the head coach in the middle of recruiting season made him look more like a man, then fit the man for his bigger jock strap. But how do you feel now Gene? How do you feel? Right. Now. Like an idiot? Like an already screwed program just shot itself in the foot? Is a newly appointed, former defensive coordinator, going to be able to convince a high school quarterback that BC can develop him into a star? Jags could say that, touting Matty Ice in his resume, and it didn't hurt he led Brett Favre as an offensive coordinator. But unless you pick a washed-up former success like Denny Green that's completely desperate for a job, nobody will do better. You should have just trusted that he wouldn't get the job, and continue on with the season. But alas, Frank Spaziani should end up with a promotion.

If I could sum up why this was a bad idea by BC, it would be one sentiment: When a recruit can't pronounce a head coach's name, Jeff Jags sounds like a much cooler nickname than Franky Spaz.