Easier Than Grenada: A BC-Army Recap

timstwrt: should we recap now, or wait for the AD announcement?
i have a ton to say about the army game

percDM: i followed much of the game through gametracker on my phone because my girlfriend's friend was getting married and apparently the lovely couple wanted to punish their guests by scheduling a fall wedding. even so, i know that spaz did a terrible job and that the game was awful for the program. tell me why it was even worse that i think it was.

timstwrt: well, i think it was terrific for the program
because there's no way he can keep his job
and i was actually pretty happy for army
btw, everyone should try to see a game there....the atmosphere is great, and the area is gorgeous

but the cadets got a huge kick out of winning, and army deserved to win by a lot more
we were only in the game because of one huge run by us and two unforced fumbles by them
all of that said

what a complete fucking embarrassment by the coaching staff
i tweeted a photo of spaz all by himself on the sidelines, which is how he spent most of the game
other people nearby were pointing out how detached he seemed
when he inserted himself into the proceedings, it was only to fuck things up...there were three egregious mistakes down the stretch that were entirely avoidable:

1) punting from army's 40, which prompted a rare actual "boo!" from my perch behind the BC sidelines
army lost to stony brook last week, and we're so scared of them that we're punting from their 40?
so that our defense, which was gassed from chasing army players all around 595 YARDS of field could get out there?

2) army has first down inside our ten with about two minutes left, we're up 31-27. spaz correctly calls timeouts after first and second down, then inexplicably waits seven seconds before calling the final timeout after third down
in this case, he had somehow stumbled into the right strategy, and still managed to screw it up. at this point, i started to think that maybe spaz became a double agent at some point, and his mission is to destroy BC football from within, a suspicion confirmed by....

3) after we got a fourth down stop at the goal line, the first time we defended the edge correctly on the triple option, we ran the ball up the middle three times. (THIS ISN"T EVEN THE FUCKUP), then, on fourth and three from our own 8, spaz takes forever sending the punt team out on the field

it was long enough that this exchange happened:
my dad: what are they doing?
me: i have no idea, i mean, they have to punt.
(FIFTEEN SECONDS PASS)
punt team scrambles onto the field, delay of game BC, punt from the back of the end zone, i buy an army t-shirt and enlist.

this isn't even to speak of the fact that the defense was completely unprepared to defend the only kind of offense that army runs
it was comical to watch the defensive ends crash the triple option every time, shocked by the pitch that went right past them
they rushed for 515 yards, and our safeties were fifteen yards from the line of scrimmage in the fourth quarter

percDM: i saw it was also army's most effective passing game of the season
there is nothing right with the bc defense
since i wasn't there, i have no idea how the offense actually looked
it seems to me that rettig didn't throw enough
i know williams had a 99 yard td run
but bc only scored 7 points in the second half, right?

timstwrt: yeah....williams had the one run, which should have been accepted like the unexpected gift that it was.
instead, the coaches seemed to think that he had suddenly turned into ray rice
rettig didn't look sharp, and he wasn't helped by a couple drops

percDM: army got to rettig more than i expected
was that on the line, or rettig?

timstwrt: uh, both? i think that the line had some issues early, and rettig seemed surprised to be facing a decent rush from a team that had lost to stony brook 23-3, and never adjusted

percDM: was that the worst performance you've seen by a bc football team?

timstwrt: i mean, definitely. we were completely outclassed by a bad army team. i can't think of a comparable loss. there were a lot of BC fans there, exchanging depressed embarrassed looks as we filed out of michie stadium.
i'm not sure if the team has quit on spaziani, but i'm absolutely sure he's quit on them.

percDM: i think he quit on them last year
all he talks about is the need to execute

timstwrt: to coach like that and then point the finger at the players afterwards, saying it's "their team"? you're a bum, frank.

percDM: yeah, he pretends like them not making plays is entirely on them
as if coaching fundamentals and having a good gameplan aren't important
and of course, as if game management isn't important

timstwrt: i no longer expect us to win any of our remaining games
the defense is just completely lost

percDM: no, we can't expect to win any, but we might win 1 or 2
rettig will have to throw the ball 40 to 50 times if we are even going to have a chance to win a game
what other coaches have destroyed a college football program like spaz has destroyed bc's?

timstwrt: faust was worse, and ND had further to fall

percDM: true

timstwrt: jerry sandusky

percDM: i'm not convinced
penn st is going to win more games than bc this year
in fact, i think penn st will be relevant in college football before bc will be again

timstwrt: john l. smith destroyed michigan state and arkansas, so he's probably the winner

percDM: yeah, john l. smith is a terrible coach
i guess our hope is that spaz is our john l. smith
a good coach could turn this program around fairly quickly
i'm going to be far more interested in the head coaching search than the the athletics director search that just concluded with the hiring of brad bates
i don't have much of an opinion on bates
i guess i like that he was at miami of ohio where hockey was important
and that he has a football background. he played and was a graduate assistant at michigan
and then he has experience at vanderbilt, which is a smaller school with high academic standards that competes in a bcs conference
even if vanderbilt sort of "competes" in the sec

timstwrt: he's got kind of a stupid haircut for a middle-aged man. i'm not sure how i feel about a 52-year-old who's rocking matthew pery's haircut from the first season of friends.
that's the extent of my feeling on him for today. football has exhausted my reservoir of give-a-fucks

percDM: for some people, you don't get to decide your haircut
he may be one of those guys

timstwrt: i don't have any idea what that means

percDM: the hairline recedes a certain way, you are stuck with just one move

timstwrt: i think there are other moves available here: http://www.nmnathletics.com/fls/26100/old_site/genrel/auto_action/570593.jpg

percDM: haha, fair enough

timstwrt: until he sends spaziani to elba, i don't care about him.

percDM: and we think that won't be until the final game, right?

timstwrt: if he does it in-season, i'll be hopeful for the future

percDM: he would have won a lot of fans if it did it during this initial press conference
timstwrt: spaziani doesn't even want to be there. he's begging to be fired. be a hero, brad. save him, save us, damn the man, save the empire.

percDM: so, really, our first complaint about bates, after the haircut, is that he hasn't already fired spaz

timstwrt: this isn't the MAC, pal
....because the MAC has better football teams

percDM: even though we know almost nothing about bates, i'm taking this as the the sliver of hope in these sad times
because i need something to hold onto

timstwrt: you have that luxury. you have the luxury of not having seen what i've seen.
there's no hope until spaziani is sent off to the nursing home, to play the most conservative chess games anyone's ever seen.
just pawns moving back and forth forever

percDM: that's funny, but you don't really know how chess is played, do you?

timstwrt: there are pawns, right?

percDM: there are, but they're the only pieces you can't move back and forth

timstwrt: i play chess like frank spaziani coaches football.
boom, full circle, print it.