Frank Spaziani & the Coaches Quit Against FSU

I hope we didn’t have any football recruits in the house last night.

The headline may seem like a bold statement, particularly to people who either don’t closely follow Boston College football or are such big apologists for it that they refuse to believe anything is wrong with this program, but it is the honest truth.

The more I dove into the numbers, box score, and play-by-play after the game, the worse I realized this game was. Sure, like a 38-7 loss isn’t bad enough, but it’s what wasn’t reflected in the score that is of the most concern: with the playcalling we saw, the coaches gave up, and not just at the end of the game.

They gave up with their gameplan before the game even began: last week, in a victory over Maryland and their third-worst run defense in the country, BC ran the ball 62 times, passed it 12, and got away with it. The Terps’ defensive line couldn’t stop your grandmother last week, let alone a talented back like Rolandan Finch who nearly had a record day. This week, Boston College came up against the #4 run defense in the country in Florida State. The Seminoles are in run defense this year what Boston College was last year, and it showed. So, brilliantly, Boston College comes out of the gate running on most downs, and it got them a grand total of one yard of offense in the first quarter. At this point, Boston College was still in the game, but trying something that wasn’t working.

A particularly curious moment came late in the first quarter. Boston College gets a bad break on a faulty snap and is now 21 yards away from the line to gain. The Eagles run it on the two successive plays of 2nd & 21 and 3rd & 21, gaining a net of zero yards in the process and leading them to punt on 4th & 21 from their own 19. BC punts it to the FSU 44, giving them very good starting field position, and FSU marches it right down the field for a touchdown to go up 14-0. Frank Spaziani and Dave Brock in particular, for reasons as yet unknown to me, decided to give up on that drive when they had 2nd & 21, not throwing the ball in either play and trying to gain huge run yardage against an FSU defense that rarely allowed it. The best-case scenario is that they’re idiots for thinking they’d get 21 yards on the ground in two plays, and the worst-case scenario is that they’re quitters.

Strangely enough, Spaz put Josh Bordner into the game, who played well for a couple minutes, and then took him back out. This desperation move may seem alright on the surface for trying to jump-start the team, but now one has to worry about the coaches giving up on Chase Rettig in the near future and/or making him the fall guy for the failure of the offense that they perpetrated with their lousy, paper-thin schemes that wouldn’t work in Division II.

In the second half, the game really began to get away from the Eagles, and Coach Spaz knew it. In fact, you can pinpoint the exact moment when Boston College threw in the towel: the start of the 4th quarter. Previously, to end the third quarter, Chase Rettig completed a 3rd & 8 pass to Colin Larmond for 10 yards and a first down. When the fourth began, however, Boston College started running the ball again play after play.

After Rettig threw an interception to Bjoern Werner to end that drive, the Eagles slowed the game down dramatically, behind by 31 points. BC started their next drive at their own 20 and made it as far as the FSU 43. It took them 7:01 to get there, because the Eagles ran the ball ELEVEN times on that drive, including on seven plays in a row. If you’re down 31 points and you’re running the ball/killing the clock with 10 minutes to play, you’ve quit.

It gets worse. At the end of that drive, BC had a 4th & 9 at the FSU 43. The outcome of the game was already assured, and your players were still playing for you, so what do you do, coach? You punt for a net of 20 yards, and accept the gratitude of Florida State for milking the clock and making their job a lot easier. All told, Boston College ran the ball 15 times against the Seminoles in the fourth quarter, and passed it only three. For the game, all of BC’s attention to the run game got them 94 yards — a far cry from the 372 they managed against Maryland.

I have watched plenty of football; not as much as some of you, but plenty. I am not sure I’ve seen a more gutless gameplan and set of ultra-conservative coaching decisions as I have tonight. The players, and I’ll get to them in a minute, were still trying. The coach, on the other hand, was not. He wanted the game to be over, so he gave up on drives, ran the ball, killed the clock, and punted in plus territory down over four touchdowns. It’s not like this is the first time he’s done this, either: how many times have we seen BC punt when they should go for it, take a knee when they should take a chance, or go to a cushiony prevent defense that inevitably fails? This is not a man who will rebuild our football program; this is a man who helped destroy it, and has completely given up. This is a man who gave up on his players when they, out of pride and self-respect, didn’t give up on him or their teammates.

Imagine that you are a BC football player who suited up last night. In fact, there may in fact be a few BC football players reading this for all I know. If not, here is the scenario: you know you are 2-6, but you’re playing a big-time opponent at home and you know you’re the national ESPN game. You know that a great many people are watching and you don’t want to let your fans down, your teammates down, or yourself down. You play hard against Florida State, as you always do.

Then you notice that, on 2nd & 21, with a few minutes to go in the first quarter, your team runs the ball. Then on 3rd & 21, they run it again. Through no fault of your teammate, Rolandan Finch, they keep running the ball and it’s not working. You punt and you don’t get a first down until late in the second quarter.

Florida State takes a lead, and they starting increasing that lead. Sure, the coach pulled out your leader, Chase Rettig, and put Josh Bordner into the game for a little change-of-pace, and then you start passing the ball a little bit. Then, the fourth quarter rolls around and FSU is up big. Your coach decides to go back to running the football at a 5-to-1 clip, and you’re not getting much of anything. They keep doing it, anyway. Time is steadily rolling off the clock and there is no sense of urgency. In your best drive of the fourth quarter, you inexplicably run over 7 minutes off the clock on one drive. You want to keep playing hard but you sense it slipping away. Then, at the end of that long, slow drive, down 38-7, you’re in Seminole territory with a 4th down. Rather than taking one more crack and seeing what happens, your coach decides to punt, as though to say “we’ve had enough.”

If you are this Boston College football player, how can you respect your coaches? How can you respect them when you play hard and they give up? How can you respect them when they publicly throw you under the bus for your in-game mistakes and blame everyone and everything but themselves for the losing? What kind of message does that send to you as a player that your coach throws in the towel while you’re still motivated to win and play well?

I cannot speak for any players, but I am a fan of eight years and a Boston College alum. My respect level is zero. For the players, on the other hand, my respect is infinite. I owe my support to them because they represent my school and they play hard. It isn’t their fault that the guys in headsets probably couldn’t run a falafel cart on 46th & Lex in New York City, let alone a BCS-conference football team.

The Florida State game will be remembered by some as a disgraceful loss that saw BC get embarrassed on national television. I will remember it as a bad loss, but another game where Coach Spaz and his assistants threw in the towel, leaving their players hanging out to dry.