Snakes In My Pants

Once again, for the third time in two weeks, the damned sports media just refuses to agree with Friar Mike Cruiser on the worthlessness of the Boston College Eagles.

First, Rivals.com listed BC as the #2 overachieving college football program and said we (I get to use the first person plural because I actually went there) have “usurped Notre Dame as the dominant Catholic program in college football”. Then College Football News named Boston College head football coach Jeff Jagodzinsky as the #1 “New Star” coach in college football. And now Sporting News put Matt Ryan on the cover and said he has “everything you want in an NFL QB”.

Clearly sportswriters need to start checking with Friar Mike before they form opinions. I think a sternly-worded letter is in order. Just who do these journalists think they are? Obviously they are fools who didn’t have the good sense to go to the University of Notre Dame Providence College and root for Notre Dame.

Have I mentioned recently that the president of the Super Bowl Champion New York Giants is a Boston College alumnus?

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, Act 5 scene 1

College Football News has named Boston College head football coach Jeff Jagodzinsky as the #1 “New Star” coach in college football.

Read it all..

From the list of overachievers: #2 Boston College, which isn’t located in a prime recruiting area, is in a colder climate than any of the other teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference and has high academic and admission standards. But it has at least eight victories in each of the past five seasons…. We keep hearing that southern-based programs have an advantage. Yet the northern-most school in the south-heavy ACC has challenged for championships even though New England won’t rival Florida when it comes to producing prospects. BC also has usurped Notre Dame as the dominant Catholic program in college football, quite an accomplishment in itself. The Eagles are 47-17 over the past five years, and they’ve won their bowl in each of those years. In that span, BC has non-conference victories over Penn State (twice), BYU (twice) and Notre Dame (three times).

From the list of underachievers: #4 Notre Dame: Outstanding facilities, a nationwide fan base and its own TV deal. So how is it the Irish are coming off a three-win season? Yeah, the Irish won 10 in ‘06 and nine in ‘05, but then they were beaten handily in bowls by Ohio State and LSU. In South Bend, two losing seasons in the past five, a .500 finish in ‘04 and a 33-28 record since 2003 is akin to a straight-A student getting a “D” on a report card. That’s astonishingly poor for a program that posted no fewer than nine victories a year from 1988-93 and is the most celebrated in college football history. Read it all..

Friar “Cruiser” Mike mentioned Jim O’Brien in his list of possible next coaches at Providence. Here’s the latest from SI.com: The Ohio Supreme Court declined to hear Ohio State’s appeal of the case it lost against former coach Jim O’Brien, who stands to gain $2.7 million to $3 million from the university. O’Brien, a raspy-voiced Brooklyn native, coached St. Bonaventure and his alma mater, Boston College, before coming to Ohio State in 1997. He led the Buckeyes for seven years, going 133-88 (although the NCAA later ruled that using an ineligible player left his mark at 51-57). His sanctions expire next month and he can go back to coaching if he wishes.

Jon Solomon of the Birmingham News analyzed the utility of recruiting rankings as a predictor of teams’ future success and noted: “If recruiting rankings told the entire story, Miami and Florida State should have been top-10 teams, as their Rivals.com five-year ratings suggest. Instead, in the past two years, the Hurricanes have a 12-13 record and the Seminoles are 14-12. … Among those teams that made it but should not have based on five-year recruiting rankings: No. 4 Missouri (35.2 five-year average ranking), No. 6 West Virginia (39.8), No. 7 Kansas (45.2), No. 9 Virginia Tech (28.6) and No. 10 Boston College (36.0).

The complete article “Recruiting success doesn’t always lead to on-field success” is here: http://www.al.com/sports/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/sports/1202289408283100.xml&coll=2

I hate to agree with Lou Holtz, but as he observed, Coach Coughlin is the dangerous master of the upset. Interesting that he and Bill Belichick are longtime friends. I guess the world of football is like politics. Over time you end up on the same and opposite sides of your friends as circumstances change.

As a guy who grew up in Massachusetts when the Pats were hapless and hopeless, it was tough to see them miss the opportunity to join the Dolphins with an historic perfect season. And for Pats fans, while the wounds are still fresh, you have to give Coughlin his due. He took a lot of crap from a lot of people about a lot of things. At least we Boston fans can enjoy watching New York fans and sportswriters have to eat crow on this one.

Here’s a guy who coaches a 5′10″ unheard-of barely recruited quarterback — who everyone but BC and Brown passed on — to the Heisman Trophy. He then goes on to pull off one of the most famous upsets in college football history. I have to admit, I wasn’t happy when that win jumped him to the top of Jacksonville’s recruiting list and they took him from us, but then the Jaguars ended up the most successful expansion team in NFL history. And now he can add yesterday’s historic upset to his resume. Not bad. Now if only he had gone to BC instead of Syracuse (where he played with Larry Csonka, btw. Scott, maybe you can take solace in your fellow alumnus’ success?)

FYI, the preliminary ratings for last night’s game look like it might be the most watched live event in television history.

http://www.courant.com/sports/other/hc-edsall0131.artjan31,0,1167144.story

There is an excellent article in Newsday about one of the reasons that Coach Coughlin is legendary at BC. Here is an excerpt:

“America is … locked into this image of [Tom Coughlin] as a hard-boiled boss whose heart rarely flutters. … Jay McGillis [is] the player Coughlin will never forget. … He played safety for Boston College in 1991, Coughlin’s first year as [head] coach at the school… Jay was Coughlin’s kind of player because he squeezed every bit of ability he had. He was 5-9 and weighed less than Michael Strahan’s wallet, yet he put his body on the line for his school and his coach. He constantly tried to compensate for size and strength with eagerness…. Not only did Jay McGillis survive Coughlin’s system, he thrived in it and forced Coughlin to keep him on the field. There was a point, however, midway through that sophomore season, after the Syracuse game, when he came home with flu-like symptoms. Everyone thought it was mono. Or the mumps. Jay McGillis kept playing football while awaiting the results of a routine test, which arrived just before Thanksgiving: Leukemia. The doctors said it wasn’t good. He needed a bone-marrow transplant. Then that didn’t help. He needed more tests and soon, prayers. He also needed a good pep talk now and then, and that was the easy part, finding a donor for that. Coughlin was at his hospital bedside, almost constantly, doing what he does best: coaching….There are at least four days out of the year when the McGillis family phone will ring at the crack of dawn. One is Thanksgiving, the other Christmas. One is Oct. 17, Jay’s birthday, and July 3, his death. Each time, the soft voice of a hard-line coach will be on the other line. ‘It’s been 15 years, and he’s constantly checking on us,” Pat McGillis said. “He could’ve forgotten all about Jay and our family. He’s a busy man. He has his own family. I just heard from him last Saturday. He says, ‘I’ve been thinking about the virtues that Jay possessed.’ He’s getting ready for the Super Bowl, and he’s calling us.’ The Tom Coughlin Jay Fund, formed by the coach, is designed to help families cope financially and spiritually when a child is diagnosed with cancer. It’s not designed to make the public think twice about the image of a football coach who comes across tough, although one family thinks it should.”  There is also a Boston Herald story on the same subject. Read it all..

There is a great article about Tom Coughlin in USA Today.

In it, Lou Holtz recalls “”All the fans and all the media were talking about games in the past,” Holtz said on the telephone this week. “I was scared to death of Boston College. You could tell Tom Coughlin was a tough coach. I remember watching him against Penn State — and I have a world of respect for Joe Paterno — and it was like watching twin teams.”

There is a lot of insight in it about Tom Coughlin’s style. He is a living legend at BC. Read it all..

The NCAA reports that TV ratings for bowl games — even the pre-Christmas bowls — were higher than ever this year.

“With more than 1.7 million combined fans attending a bowl game and close to another combined 129 million households tuning in to watch the bowl games on television, bowl payouts ran an estimated $225 million in 2007-08 and have totaled $1.6 billion over the last nine seasons. Over the next ten years, bowls are projected to pay $2.4 billion to the teams and conferences in the Football Bowl Subdivision who participate.” An estimated $1.3 billion poured into the community coffers from travel and tourism to the 32 bowl games.

This year, Joe Paterno won his NCAA record 23rd bowl game in his 500th game on the sidelines … Boston College won their eighth straight bowl to continue the longest bowl-winning streak in the nation … the SEC’s seven bowl wins (7-2 overall) was an all-time high for any conference in NCAA history….LSU recorded its largest weekly sale of licensed football merchandise in history.