B-C-Mess

Tuned into NESN last night expecting to watch a Red Sox game I had already watched some time back. Instead, I got a basketball game I had already watched the night prior.

Or, not.

It certainly has been some time since Boston College dominated the local sporting discussion the way it does this week. First, we have the Eagles’ upset win over North Carolina on Sunday, a game in which nobody saw most of the final 1:17, thanks to a technical snafu on the part of Fox Sports Net, NESN, or whomever else each party wants to blame. And that game isn’t even getting the attention it should probably deserves, with folks more tied up in the Jeff Jagodzinski-Gene DeFilippo soap opera, one that continues to unfold into a glorious mess for the institution.

The basketball game was a tremendous victory for BC. Just plain, ol’ tremendous. Unfortunately for the Eagles and their win over the formerly ranked No. 1 Tar Heels, NESN went all Heidi on us and didn’t even have the decency to run Steve Harvey instead of the infomercials that populate their airwaves most of the day. The network apologized yesterday for the development and re-broadcast the game last night. There were also repeats of “Lost” on. To my knowledge, Evangeline Lilly wasn’t at Chapel Hill Sunday night. No-brainer.
Isn’t it ironic that NESN, which apparently is no longer aware of the dozens of other schools that populate New England, can’t properly deliver the one school it’s in bed with financially?
As if that weren’t enough to overshadow an historic win for Al Skinner’s crew, we’ve got this whole Jags-Jets-DeFilippo divorce triangle on our hands. Now look, we all understand how much the school means to BC athletic director DeFilippo, who lives and breathes all things Chestnut Hill. But he needs to understand this is the game, no matter what school we’re dealing with. I’m sure that a former NFL coach, like Jagodzinski, would never want to return to the league, particularly at the head coaching level. Not when years of aspiring to the Meineke Car Care Bowl await him here in Boston.
What? Jags is in it for himself, not Boston College? Shocked.
The man went to school at Wisconsin, and spent two seasons as the Eagles’ offensive coordinator in the late 90’s before moving on to Green Bay and Atlanta. Yet, Boston College simply assumes that once you’re on the Chestnut Hill campus, you’re automatically and forever smitten with your surroundings, like Main Street USA in some daily Disney fantasy land. You’ll want to dedicate your life to the Eagles. Maybe even kick in a bit of that inane $1.5 billion fund-raising effort the school is currently begging its alumni for.
Perhaps if you went there for four years, that aura certainly surrounds you. But for everybody else who went, you know, elsewhere, forcing that sense of superiority on others comes off as wildly smug.
DeFilippo isn’t even a BC graduate (Springfield, 1973), but his love for the school is undeniable. Still, what the man has to understand is that the school remains second-tier, in comparison to big-boy programs in the country. That’s no fault of BC’s own, and something the administration shouldn’t apologize for. After all, it is a bit more difficult to recruit when you tell the kids they actually have to go to (gasp!) class.
And if the likes of Florida and LSU sometimes are no match for the lure of the NFL, why should BC think it’s any different? Simply because they’re Boston College?
What DeFilippo needs to do now is sever ties with Jags, wish him luck with the Jets (a job, after all this, by the way, for which he’s considered a long shot) and go out and hire someone with a rah-rah BC background. He needs Jerry York with pigskin knowledge.
He needs someone who will lap up every shining word said about the school. Someone who will coach just good enough to get the school to its next Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl, but not well enough that more NFL teams will come calling down the road. After all, who else but someone whose heart is 100 percent all things BC is going to want this job now, knowing that the athletic department is going to frown on you possibly looking to further your career down the road?
If most college football jobs are considered a stepping stone to the NFL anyway, it’s ridiculous for BC to think it’s any different. But if it’s that kind of attitude that takes you to nine straight Continental Tire-type bowl games, then who are we to judge?