For so long, all we have had to talk about here are bad things that have happened in Boston College sports in the last few years. Aside from the occasional hockey championship, it’s been football this and losing that, rebuilding here and Spaz there.

This is the time when we finally get to discuss and highlight some of the best things that have happened this past year, and there were plenty. Things seem to finally be heading in the right direction, so this list may be harder to choose one year from now, but there is more than enough to celebrate from this year.

#5
March 16, 2013: Women’s hockey makes third-straight Frozen Four

Making the Frozen Four is a big deal, whether it’s in men’s hockey or women’s hockey. Getting to three in a row is a sign that your program is in the national elite.

Boston College women’s hockey did that in March when they beat Harvard in the national quarterfinals. The Eagles had another great season, rising as high as #2 in the national polls and earning one of the top four seeds in the 2013 NCAA Tournament.

Unfortunately, BC’s season ended against Minnesota in the national semifinals, but just getting to the Frozen Four was another big accomplishment for this talented team and program on the rise.

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Although there is a sense that the tide is turning in Boston College sports these days, there were still more than a few sour moments from which to choose during the 2012-13 school year.

Even some Eagles sports one would not expect to have lousy events did, but you know what they say: take the good with the bad and all that.

Dishonorable Mention
December 4, 2012: Boston College basketball loses fifth-straight game to Harvard

Being embarrassed by the Harvard Crimson on our own home court is becoming old hat around here. It is so common, in fact, that it only gets a dishonorable mention.

In early December, the Eagles lost by 16 points to the Crimson at Conte Forum, making it five losses in a row to the Ivy school from Cambridge.

One thing we know for certain is that BC will not lose another home game to Harvard in 2013-14: the game will be on the road next time.

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Steve Addazio and his new coaching staff strike again on the recruiting trail.

Once more, the Boston College Eagles football recruiting trail has run through its own backyard in eastern Massachusetts, and they’ve come away with one of their biggest commitments yet. On Friday, Connor Strachan, a four-star inside linebacker from down the road in Needham was the latest to join the Boston College recruiting class of 2014. The commitment has been confirmed by Rivals.

Strachan is considered by Rivals to be the 15th-best inside linebacker for the 2014 class. Approaching his senior season at St. Sebastian’s, Strachan is 6-0 and 240 pounds, and has a measured 40-yard dash time of an impressive 4.47 seconds.

His other FBS offers came from UConn, UMass, Wake Forest, Syracuse, and Virginia.

Boston College’s 2014 recruiting class is already up to nine names, and they continue to add quality with that quantity. Strachan is the fourth Massachusetts native to commit to play at BC in this particular class, with others still on the target list.

Both Rivals and 24/7 Sports have had this 2014 recruiting class for the Eagles rated in the top 30 nationally. It was notably good before Strachan joined, but with a four-star recruit added to the mix, Addazio’s first full recruiting class at Boston College is shaping up to be a strong one.

Jeremy Brevard-US PRESSWIRE

So ends another season of sports at Boston College. This week, we will take a journey through the year that was and set the stage for the year that is to come.

Especially keeping in mind that the first part in the year-in-review series is Boston College Eagles football, two themes to keep in mind are change and growth. It was not until after the final snap that the team saw either one, but 2012-13 was very eventful in a variety of different ways.

Preseason

Before the 2012 Eagles football season began, only those wearing the most deeply-tinted maroon and gold shades harbored any sort of optimism. Even after Gene DeFilippo announced his upcoming retirement on August 17, short-term hope for a turnaround in the team’s fortunes was very limited amongst the fans.

The events of Friday, August 17 cannot be overlooked, however. DeFilippo’s departure from Boston College gave those who had any investment in the football program their first sense in years that a window might be opening. Under Frank Spaziani, Boston College football became deathly stale, disrespected, and most unfortunately, a losing program. What made matters worse was the fact that DeFilippo constantly went to bat for his head coach, even to the extent that he publicly dismissed the concerns of the fans and donors.

On August 16, 2012, the prevailing sentiment was that Spaziani might survive even another bad season given the support of the athletic director. On August 17, there was a real sense that there might be change coming to the football team soon, even if the new season was not going to be a good one.

Spaziani’s days were indeed numbered.

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On Monday, the Atlantic Coast Conference announced its bowl game tie-ins for the upcoming 2013 season. With an expanded 14-game conference, there are eight in which the ACC teams would be sought, including the Orange Bowl, and a ninth which could become available depending upon other factors including having nine bowl-eligible teams.

The non-BCS games would all take place between December 27 and New Year’s Eve. They are:

Military Bowl, Dec. 27
Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl*, Dec. 27
Russell Athletic Bowl, Dec. 28
Belk Bowl, Dec. 28
Music City Bowl, Dec. 30
AdvoCare V100 Bowl, Dec. 31
Hyundai Sun Bowl, Dec. 31
Chick-fil-A Bowl, Dec. 31

The 2014 Orange Bowl will occur on January 3. The Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl is a conditional, non-primary ACC bowl and the conference will only appear there if the Pac-12 or BYU cannot appear, and if the conference has an extra bowl-eligible team.

It is too soon to shove Boston College into one of these games based upon the downward trend of the last few years, though becoming eligible at 6-6 is not out of the realm of possibility. The Orange Bowl in a rebuilding year would be a fantasy, Hitler will be ice fishing in Hell before BC gets voluntarily invited to the Chick-fil-A Bowl with how our fanbase travels, and the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl is unlikely to see an ACC opponent, but most of the others are distinct possibilities if the Eagles pick up four extra wins.

Now, don’t go booking your flight to El Paso on New Year’s Eve or get ready to Belk it up a few days after Christmas. There is much to be done in the short term, even though it remains an immediate goal of Steve Addazio and his team. It’s fun to think about this sort of thing but in the event that the Eagles can get into one of these games, it should be something that the fans and players truly appreciate, if only based on the last few years of disappointment.

That eighth commitment in this class was Christian Lezzer, an inside linebacker from central Pennsylvania who was considered a strong Eagle lean before his making it official. His other FBS offers were Arizona, Temple, and Kent State. Lezzer returned on an unofficial visit to the Heights this weekend and gave the coaching staff his verbal commitment.

Unlike many 17 year olds one sees these days, Lezzer has his own fully-functional website at ChristianLezzer.com. The site gives his measurements at 6-foot-1 and 212 pounds while claiming a 4.63-second 40 time.

Lezzer joins a class which includes fellow linebacker Kevin Cohee, as well as OL Jon Baker, DE Harold Landry, RB Marcus Outlow, athlete Thaddius Smith, QB Darius Wade, and DB Isaac Yiadom. Including Lezzer’s commitment, Rivals currently ranks the Eagles’ 2014 recruiting class as 26th-best in the nation, while 24/7 Sports moves Boston College up into the top 20.

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Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow. TIM TEBOW!

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s recap Steve Addazio’s Tuesday morning and afternoon at ESPN in Bristol, CT. The new Boston College football head coach was at the studios on a variety of different shows and other media to talk about the program. Unfortunately, he got quite a few questions about the former New York Jets clipboard-holder and quasi-Wildcat back whom he coached at Florida, but sprinkled in there were some good words about Boston College.

Coach Addazio began his day with an appearance on The Mike & Mike Show. (audio link)

Then, amongst other things, he did a segment on SportsCenter in the morning (video at link), and did another segment at 2:40pm. Further, another one of his appearances was with Colin Cowherd, of which there is presently no audio.

Most of what we got out of Addazio was in his brief chat on SportsNation. A few highlights of that chat:

DK: Not too long ago, BC was competing for ACC championships. Where do you think you can take the program, and how long do you think the program needs to get back to that level?

Addazio: We can take the program as high as it can go. We can compete for ACC titles and a national level. How long that takes, I don’t know. You’re developing a team chemistry. There’s no clock on that. This is a fast paced business. Our goal is to get bowl eligible and get as many wins as we can.

He later reiterated that their present goals for the 2013 season are to win the season opener and get BC bowl-eligible.

Erik: Will you be introducing any new gameday “traditions” at BC, for your players or the fans?

Addazio: We’re going to take our names off of the back of the jerseys, so we stand as one. The department is looking for additional ways to engage all of our fans….and win.

Kyle: Do you feel Boston College can play at a Stanford level in terms of athletic performance with similar academic focuses?

Addazio: Absolutely. We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again.

Addazio also indicated that he is “completely hands on” at all stages of player recruitment, that BC Athletics is indeed discussing the idea of an indoor practice facility as a long-term goal, and that he expects and hopes the incoming freshmen to be able to contribute in 2013 because of depth issues.

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If one consults Google Maps, they will see that the driving time from Boston College to Bristol, Connecticut is about two hours, give or take a few minutes. That’s the sort of trek on which BC head football coach Steve Addazio will embark on Tuesday, doing a full panel of events on ESPN media.

Boston College Athletics announced Addazio’s schedule:

Addazio will begin the day with Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg on the Mike & Mike radio show, is also scheduled to appear on ESPN’s First Take, SportsCenter and College Football Live, and will join ESPN.com for a live chat.

If you plan to watch or DVR all of the television portions of this day, you might come away a little bit disappointed, because it’s likely Addazio will go in with a “stump speech” and use it when he goes from point to point. In other words, he’ll probably say roughly the same things in each interview, depending on who’s asking the questions. As you’ll see in a moment, that may not necessarily be a bad thing.

Now, you may find this all perfectly harmless or even a bit of fun. There is, however, a greater purpose to this and it should not be missed or undervalued. Addazio has ESPN, the biggest sports force in the world, at his disposal for some very valuable chunks of programming time. He can use that to pitch the program to those who may be interested in playing for Boston College and to the college football world in general.

We’ve seen so far that Addazio’s reputation as being adept at recruiting is well-earned. On a variety of ESPN fora today, Addazio can make his recruiting speech and sell Boston College football as a program on the upswing. Across all of these shows, he is going to have a large audience to sell it.

Boston College football’s Twitter account, @BCFootballNews, will have live updates on Addazio’s appearance schedule over the course of the day on Tuesday.

Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports

The 2013 NFL Draft has concluded at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, and for the first time in eight years, no Boston College Eagles football player was selected. This shutout ends a streak of seven years in a row for BC; in five of those years, the Eagles had a player drafted in the first round.

This also marks only the second time since 1979 that Boston College has been excluded from an NFL Draft.

Boston College’s more notable pro prospects this year, including offensive linemen John Wetzel and Emmett Cleary, will likely get invited to NFL training camps this summer as undrafted free agents.

Story Update: 8:45pm ET
Most of Boston College’s NFL draft prospects have been signed as undrafted free agents.

• LB Nick Clancy has signed with the Atlanta Falcons.
• OT Emmett Cleary has signed with the Indianapolis Colts.
• TE Chris Pantale has signed with the New York Jets.
• OT John Wetzel has signed with the Oakland Raiders.

Debby Wong-USA TODAY Sports

The general consensus out there in National Football League territory — a sentiment which the editor-in-chief of this website shares — is that the 2013 NFL Draft stinks. This is one of the more underwhelming draft crops we’ve seen in a long while, and those who know a lot more about football than I do seem to agree.

Certainly, there are good players in the draft, but very, very few of college football’s elite, household-name players are in the mix this time around. Let’s be honest: with all due respect to the Chippewas, when the top pick in the draft might be an offensive lineman from Central Michigan, that’s a telltale sign of what we’ve got.

If you’re an NFL fan, the mediocrity permeating this draft will probably give you just cause to find something else to watch this weekend, but if you’re a Boston College Eagles football fan, there are reasons for some guarded optimism. We have known for a few weeks now that two of our offensive linemen, Emmett Cleary and John Wetzel, have a somewhat realistic chance of being taken at the tail end of the draft. Not to say that our players are bad in any way, because if they were, they wouldn’t be in the NFL Draft conversation, but the underwhelming nature of this crop may have helped them stand out a little more and work their way up these draft boards. Granted, we’re only talking mock drafts, but Cleary and Wetzel have gotten noticed, and since we know them both to be capable football players, they’ve both improved their standing relative to the rest of the field. Score one (or two) for BC football.

Of course, there’s bad news. While the 2013 NFL Draft is more or less an affront to humanity, the 2014 NFL Draft could be potentially loaded. If Johnny Manziel and Teddy Bridgewater come out early, it’s going to be a very strong class. That’s not necessarily a good thing for one Mr. Chase Rettig, Boston College quarterback.

Rettig is at least in the position of having been noticed: CBS Sports currently ranks him as the #23 quarterback available. That’s all well and good, and he can certainly improve upon his standing with a fine senior season, but looking at the list of names above him, and considering that others may be added, it remains highly unknown just how much upward mobility Rettig might have. A lot depends on how he plays in 2013, but compared to some of the other quarterbacks who will be in the draft in 2014? National champions, maybe a Heisman winner, quarterbacks who have played in BCS bowls, and the list goes on. Unfortunately, with only one year remaining in school, Rettig’s resume is a little too thin to stack up with the upper echelon of the competition. One thing is for sure: he’s going to have to have a hell of a senior season.

Right now, our focus is seeing as many Eagles drafted this weekend as possible, even if that only means one. The rest will almost surely get invites to NFL camps, anyway, so don’t feel too bad for them. If you’re looking to 2014, then yes, you may very well see your BC quarterback get picked if he has his best season in 2013. He just might be a victim of that draft looking quite strong, while our men on the draft board this weekend are helped by theirs being weak.