Maybe We Shouldn’t Have Fired Steve Addazio?

Sep 26, 2022 - 2:35 PM

Boston College v Clemson" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cB66Q47o_0h6904y-JuaVwmgOnU=/0x93:3000x1781/1920x1080/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71416625/1183673497.0.jpg" />

Noncompetitive.

That’s the one word to describe Boston College’s effort against Florida State this weekend at a sold out Doak Campbell Stadium. From the word “Go,” the Eagles were embarrassed and in no way belonged on the same field as the Seminoles. In our BC Interruption game chat, before kickoff, someone asked how long we would have any hope, and then answered their own question with “probably zero minutes.” Not sixty seconds later, Trey Benson was sprinting down the field for 93 yards. Prescient.

While I watched the Eagles get pantsed on national television — every minute of it, like a true masochist — I tried to keep things positive by enjoying my usual dose of schadenfreude: checking in on the UConn football score. As the BCI resident Nutmegger, I feel like if my tax dollars are going to be burned in that dumpster fire I might as well warm my heart with the flames. But it didn’t quite have the same comforting effect this week. The problem? “Wildly overmatched New England football program gets launched into the sun by a quality ACC side after giving up 31 points before halftime” doesn’t give enough information to tell which game you’re talking about.

One third of the way through the Boston College football season and there is no confidence whatsoever that the Eagles will comfortably take down the worst football team in the FBS. BC has either underperformed badly against bad teams or have gotten nuked by someone in the ACC in every game thus far. And so here we are in year three of the Jeff Hafley era, and the question has to be asked... Is it possible that BC made a mistake in firing Steve Addazio?

The Eagles are looking at going 0-8 in the ACC in year three for the second straight coach. But this 0-8 feels like it might somehow be worse. Looking back at the ACC slate from 2015, at least BC didn’t get embarrassed every week. While in many of those games it didn’t feel like the Eagles were going to have any shot to win once they went down by a couple scores, there was never really a point where Addazio’s team got utterly massacred they way they did this week against Florida State. Hell, BC was only down 7 at halftime against Clemson that year.

The most unacceptable problem with this year’s Boston College team is how poorly the offensive line has played. That’s embarrassing to a school that wants to call itself O-Line U. Steve Addazio, for all his faults, was one of the best O-Line guys the BC program has ever had — one only need to look at what Andre Williams and AJ Dillon here to see that. Yes, Boston College lost a bunch of top guys from last year’s team off the offensive line and there have been injuries on top of that. But any football aficionado knows that the line wins football games, not the skill players. Is there any doubt that Steve Addazio, Certified Grand Dude of Offensive Lines, wouldn’t have prepared for this situation?

Now, poor OL play isn’t going to give up 31 points to Florida State before halftime, but that somehow makes the problem worse. Jeff Hafley is a Defense guy, and that hasn’t in any way been a strength this season, either.

It’s far too early to be calling for Jeff Hafley’s head — don’t listen to folks calling for the man to be fired at this point. But so far his track record is almost identical to Addazio’s three years in. It’s not unreasonable to ask whether there is a limit to how good BC can be, and whether Addazio was actually working out just fine. We all made fun of Seven Win Steve, but we would kill for a seven win season these days. Maybe seven wins is all we can aspire to in this modern world of Power 5 college football. Maybe Steve Addazio was a perfectly fine option for the job.