2012 Boston College Spring Football Game: Evaluation

Boston College’s 2012 spring season is in the books, albeit on March 31. On Saturday afternoon, the 20th Annual Jay McGillis Spring Game took place at Alumni Stadium, and the offense prevailed, 68-58 (not that it really matters or that anyone understands how they arrived at that score).

The big story of the afternoon was how inconsistently starting quarterback Chase Rettig played. Several quarterbacks threw interceptions during the contest, but Rettig had a few of his own. His missing receivers and projection of a sluggish body language were not good signs at all.

On the other side, backup quarterback Josh Bordner played respectably for the most part. His big play of the day was a 66-yard touchdown bomb to Karim Zoungrana. His performance was not without its flaws, but the consensus appears to be that he was the “winner” out of all the quarterbacks.

This performance certainly has the potential to ignite a new quarterback controversy, because apparently BC had gone too many full seasons (1) without one. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good news that Bordner looked solid during the game, but when it comes to projecting this game out into the fall, I learned my lesson two years ago with Mike Marscovetra. In case you need a refresher course:

• Dave Shinskie (default starting quarterback) looked awful in 2010 spring game
• Mike Marscovetra (default backup) looked great
• In regular season, Shinskie still looked awful
• In regular season, Marscovetra looked like he had never seen a football before
• BC goes with Option C (“C” as in “Chase”) mid-season

Chase Rettig has started for the Eagles for a season and a half now, making him the most established guy we have. If BC goes to Bordner, we’re again shifting to a quarterback with no real experience as a starter. The fact that Rettig looked bad enough to potentially cost him his job is bad news regardless of how Bordner played. Rettig is the guy BC needs to succeed the most at the quarterback position – his successes are our successes, and his setbacks are our setbacks. It would be in the best interest of all parties involved for Rettig to shake it off and play well in preseason camp, and then continue to develop in the regular season; the downside is that he has to stew on this game until the home opener. Clearly, if he does not look like he has taken a step forward in September, then we have a serious problem.

Did the offense open up any under Martin? A little, from what I saw. Nevertheless, Boston College didn’t exactly resemble the Greatest Show on Turf, either. If I wasn’t looking for distinct differences between the old offensive regime and the new one, I probably wouldn’t have noticed many. Tight ends saw a little more activity, which is a definite plus. As for the quarterbacks in general, as pointed out by a number of Twitter folk at the game, the secondary they faced was in some cases very depleted and wide-open passes were in order. That still does not account for the high volume of interceptions thrown during the game, however, which were mostly due to bad passes.

With regards to the run game, Boston College definitely did not shy away from it. Rolandan Finch, once again BC’s top back thanks to injuries to Montel Harris and Andre Williams, definitely got his work in and had some nice runs. I admit, I was a little surprised that they kept running him towards the end of a meaningless game.

When all is said and done, I got mixed messages from this team today and determined that it was a decidedly average effort. At times, they made nice plays, but at others, it didn’t even look like football was being played. The whole game still must be taken with a Buick-sized crystal of salt. The regular season does not begin for five months, and Boston College fans should be careful not to jump to any definitive conclusions based on Saturday’s game. It is not particularly encouraging, however, that these guys have been practicing and participating in scrimmages again for weeks and there was still a lot of rust being shaken off.