Frank Spaziani, Do The Honorable Thing And Resign

Danny Wild-US PRESSWIRE

Frank Spaziani, you got more time as head coach of the Boston College Eagles football team than I would have preferred. You got more time as head coach than you deserved. You have failed, and it’s time for you to go. I ask you to do the right thing by your employer, by your players, and by the fans: step aside.

Whether you like it or not, you are going to get fired when a new athletic director takes over. He or she might not even wait until the 2012 season is over, because when you’re losing games to Army and hopping on the 2-10 Express, you have not earned the right to coach a game longer.

In your fourth season as this team’s coach, you have a losing overall record. You inherited a team that won 48 games in the five years before you took over, and did not have a year where BC won fewer than nine. Our win total has declined from eight, to seven, to four, and possibly to less this year. In fact, if the Eagles keep playing the way they are, they will go below four wins this season. BC has started 1-4 in consecutive years. The trend of decline is absolutely undeniable.

This is all laid at your feet, and the former athletic director who hired you. Both of you are not destroying the football program, because that implies that it is in the act of happening. No, you already have destroyed the football program. Gene DeFilippo greatly harmed his legacy at this school because of the last few years, and you have all but ruined yours. He gave you the keys to the program, knowing that you were not the best candidate available, and you crashed it.

There are some fans who like to lay the blame at the feet of the players, but again, it comes back to you. These kids did not recruit themselves. You did. A college coach is like the general manager of a team as well as head coach. You picked them, you put them on the field, and you did not coach them adequately. On every level, the failure is yours.

You have been heralded in the past as a defensive mind, but your defense just allowed almost 600 yards to a team that was 0-4. Florida State will get that many next weekend without breaking a sweat. In just two years, this defense has declined to previously unforeseen lows, and is legitimately one of the worst defenses in a BCS conference. This is a disgrace to Boston College football, and you are at the helm.

You are an abysmal in-game coach. Your teams do not make adjustments and routinely get handed their lunch by the other team. Other teams exploit Boston College’s weaknesses while you stand on the sideline, looking like you’re waiting for an Express Bus to the Ruby Tuesday in Watertown. You are a self-protecting defeatist who would much sooner throw his own players onto the train tracks than assume any responsibility for the play of the team, despite the fact that you are in your fourth year as head coach and this is the team and scheme you chose.

In any given game, there are extreme highs and lows (read: inconsistency), lacking fundamentals, and poor execution. Your teams have never had a killer instinct and would rather punt the ball down 30 in enemy territory than take a bold chance. Boston College football no longer plays with any urgency. All of this is on coaching.

Coach Spaziani, your tenure here is over. I know it, you know it, and the BC fans know it. You are not going to turn this thing around, because you are literally incapable of it. You are far out of your depth, but in fairness to you, your buddy Gene gave you a nice promotion, so like any red-blooded American looking for an extra buck, you took advantage. You won, but Boston College lost.

You have set this football program back by years. It is a shell of what it used to be, and that is thanks to your incompetence and mismanagement.

Every minute you draw a salary from my alma mater is unfair to the players who deserve far better. Every paycheck you cash from my alma mater is stealing from it. Every game you coach for my alma mater is a potential embarrassment for the young men in maroon and gold uniforms and all of the alumni who stand by this team.

I understand that you are making a hefty, seven-figure sum from Boston College. That is not easy to turn down, but if you are at all interested in retaining a sliver of dignity, then do the right thing and resign as head football coach. We all deserve better, and it would save you the ignominy of being fired and leaving Boston College a disgrace. For once, demonstrate that you are capable of taking responsibility and walk away. You have done enough damage here.