Monthly Archives: December 2012

No Boise, no more Big East football

Date: December 31, 2012

Author: Mark

Categories: Blau's Blog, College Football

When the official announcement came, Big East commissioner Mike Aresco was on a plane to New Orleans, where he will watch Big East champion Louisville face Florida in the Sugar Bowl on Wednesday night.

Once again, Aresco will have to deal with a defection, rather than an addition, as Boise State chose Plan B, which was not to join the Big East football conference next July as scheduled. Instead, the Broncos will stay with the Mountain West in all sports.

Which begs an ongoing question for Aresco and the Big East. What’s next?

Skinner needs to get another chance

Date: December 30, 2012

Author: Mark

Categories: College Basketball, Unnecessary Gruffness

Comments: 28 Replies

It is still way too early in the college basketball season to be talking about jobs that will open for next season. But here’s a name that should be on almost every list.

Al Skinner.

One of the more mind-boggling non-moves of the past few years has been the decision by people at Rutgers, Brown, Rhode Island, SMU, Clemson and St. John’s NOT TO hire Skinner after he was fired by former Boston College Director of Athletics Gene DeFilippo in the spring of 2010.

I’ve heard the criticism of a coach who didn’t work hard enough, didn’t communicate with the campus community enough, played a dull grade of basketball and was a bad recruiter.

Please.

Rutgers, like BC, doesn’t know how to win

Date: December 29, 2012

Author: Mark

Categories: A Jersey Guy Takes Note of the World

Comments: 8 Replies

Things a Jerseyguy noted this week: The more I watch Rutgers, the more I see Boston College. Here’s why. Good school, competing in a high-profile league with a moderate measure of success, but nothing great, which means no championships and an attitude of playing not to lose, rather than, no matter what happens, we will win the game.

The Scarlet Knights did it in November when they self destructed in the second half against Louisville, costing Rutgers its first ever (and probably only) BCS bowl berth. And they did it again on Friday night in the Russell Athletic Bowl, blowing a 10-0 lead against Virginia Tech and then losing to the Hokies, 13-10, in overtime.

It is not a stretch to say that Rutgers could have been 11–1 and preparing for an Orange Bowl bid. Instead they will finish 9-3 with a 3-game losing streak in games that counted the most.

Back in the days when Boston College was a perennial 8 and 9 win team going to bowl games, the Eagles had almost the same profile.

College Nostradamus: Bama wins, more Big Ten expansion

Date: December 28, 2012

Author: Mark

Categories: Blau's Blog, College Football

Comments: 21 Replies

With the end of the year only days away, it is time to take out our Nostradamus file and project what the future of college football will be in the year 2013.

We’ll tackle subjects, rather than use a hard time line, which admittedly allows more time for things to happen.

Recess is ending for BC football

Date: December 27, 2012

Author: Mark

Categories: BC Report, Blau's Blog

Comments: 4 Replies

Steve Addazio is spending the week finalizing the deal on his new $1.4 million home in the Needham area. Ryan Day is spending a few days with family and friends in New Hampshire. Don Brown is making the move north from Connecticut with visions of blitzes and sacks and quarterbacks on their backs in his head. Billy McGovern is adjusting to a downsized role as the Eagles linebacker coach. Chase Rettig is home in California, pondering another coaching change with perhaps a change in offensive philosophy as well. Josh Bordner is back in Maryland, wondering what a new year will bring with the coach who recruited him in charge of an offense that would seem to be ideally suited for his talents.

Yes, it is relatively quiet at Boston College this week as we move away from the disaster in so many ways that was 2012.

But by next Wednesday when all leaves and family gatherings will officially and unofficially end, the Boston College football program will be up and running–and you can use that word in so many ways–towards what Addazio, BC’s new football coach, hopes will be not only a turnaround, but breakthrough season.

A playoff system which would work

Date: December 26, 2012

Author: Mark

Categories: Blau's Blog, College Football

Comments: 9 Replies

Let the build up for the Alabama vs. Notre Dame BCS national championship game begin. That game will dwarf all the other BCS match-ups: Florida State-Northern Illinois in the Orange Bowl,

Florida vs. Louisville in the Sugar Bowl, Kansas State vs. Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl and Wisconsin vs. Stanford in the Rose Bowl.

The BCS, in its current format, will be around for another season and then we will have a four-team playoff, which will end some arguments, but create others.

It is a first step. Since this is the holiday season, I thought it might be fun to project what a 4-team and an 8-team (the next step) playoff would look like using this season’s BCS rankings.

It’s a better system which would work. Here’s how.

Big East will make more moves after holidays

Date: December 23, 2012

Author: Mark

Categories: Blau's Blog

Comments: 41 Replies

With Christmas upon us, the college world will take a 48 hour break to hatch the next conspiracy theory as well as make preparations for the new year.

This is what we see happening, presumably in chronological order.

BC and PC play an old fashioned rivalry game

Date: December 22, 2012

Author: Mark

Categories: Blau's Blog, College Basketball

Comments: 3 Replies

It was a look-back-to-the-future type of game. Two schools with a history of playing each other, each at similar stages of rebuilding. Only two in-state schools (Rhode Island and Brown) have faced Providence more than Boston College. Saturday’s game was the 107th meeting between the two schools in a rivalry which dates back to 1942.

In the good old days of a decade ago, Providence vs. Boston College was part of the fabric of college basketball in New England. Just like a BC-UConn or a BC-Syracuse meeting would raise the intensity in a place which has jokingly been labeled the Conte Morgue for most games other than when Duke or North Carolina is part of the match-up.

Those days, of course, are gone as conference expansion and reconfiguration, fed more by greed than any other factor, wiped out things such as rivalries based on geography rather than television market ratings.

Last hurrah for Boeheim?

Date: December 22, 2012

Author: Mark

Categories: A Jersey Guy Takes Note of the World

Comments: 1 Reply

Things a Jerseyguy noted this week: No one has said anything officially yet, but I would take the odds that Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim will NOT coach a game in the ACC. Boeheim grew up as a Big East guy at Cuse and the feeling here is that he will opt to step away at the end of this season rather than take two-hour bus trips from Charlotte to play a game at Clemson in February.

Col hoops reg season: Does anyone care?

Date: December 20, 2012

Author: Mark

Categories: Blau's Blog, College Basketball

Comments: 3 Replies

It was just a note in passing over the weekend. A television ratings note at that.

But it should make everyone in Indianapolis at the NCAA and throughout the world of college basketball pause and reflect on the world as they know it.

Television ratings for the New Mexico Bowl:: Nevada vs. Arizona 1.9.

Television ratings for the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl:Utah State vs. Toledo, 1.8

Television ratings for Butler’s upset of No. 1 Indiana: 1.5.

The issue here is not football vs. basketball in popularity. That battle is long over. Football wins every time.