A JERSEY GUY: Time for BC To Make A Move on Schiano
The news filtered out Sunday afternoon. Former Rutgers coach Greg Schiano had turned down an 8-year, $4 million dollar a year offer to return to his old school to breath life into a football program that was on life support.
This was less than 24 hours after Boston College had gone belly-up again in a 40-7 loss at Notre Dame, dropping the Eagles to 5-6 s and sealing another mediocre season for Coach Steve Addazio.
Connection? Not visibly.
But yes, there is very much a linkage here with Schiano and the Eagles, who have never climbed beyond 7 wins in Addazio's seven seasons at The Heights.
Schiano's, who turned Rutgers into a winning program in his first stop with the Scarlet Knights, last college job was at Ohio State last season, where he was on Urbam Meyer's staff. Coincidently, during Schiano's stay in Columbus, the assistant athletic director in charge of football for the Buckeyes was Martin Jarmond, who is the current athletic director at Boston College.
The two men know each other and have worked with each other. All they needed was an opportunity to make things work in larger roles.
Techinically, there isn't any yet.
Addazio has one more game left this season (at Pittsburgh) and is signed with BC through the 2022 season. But in seven seasoms at BC, there has been no sign of progress in BC football. And there are few signs that things will be much better next season or the season beyond that, if the upper tiers of the BC administration care about advancing to the next level in football.
Schiano would be the spark that could ignite a fire at The Heights. His personality overwhelms a room, a program He also has connections with the Patriots and Bill Belichick. In fact, Belichick hired Schiano as his new defensive coordinator last spring, before Schiano opted out to spend a year of family time with his wife and children who were finishing high school.
It all fits and with Rutgers now out of the picture, it is an option that Jarmond and BC have---if they choose to use it.
There was no outward signs of major activity at BC on Sunday. It is Thanksgiving week and outwardly Addazio still has a job and the BC way is to finish an athletic season and evaluate the performances of the players and coaches.
That will be done after the game against Pitt on Saturday. But no matter what happens, it should not be a deciding factor. The best BC can do is finish 6-6, play a team like Michigan State in a day after Christmas bowl game in Detroit and hope for another 7-6
If BC is truly serious about football, that should not be enough.
What they should do is pull the plug on this program and hire Greg Schiano and do it sooner rather than later.