The Jags Issue

There has been much talk in the Blog-o-sphere about Jags, his hire, TOB's fire, and how he will do. I tend to be of the opinion that he will show us very quickly where he stands, but I do find it interesting that most other people feel that he is too raw to take BC all the way. This is reflected in the fact that BC has the Pre-season ACC Player of the Year as our QB (and a "Jet-Black Darkhorse" Heisman Candidate according to) and the most returning starters of any ACC team that finished in the top half of the conference last season, yet most polls have us at BEST third in our own Division. Why is this? Let me try and show you some examples...

First comes the fact that on ESPN's ranking of programs, we are a measly 23. I understand thats the top 25 still, but with a pretty stacked team, I consider this a bit of a no-respect vote. Considering we are returning the majority of our starters from a top 20 team last season and many higher ranked teams have lost a lot more, it burns.

Secondly see this post by UVaSportsFanatic, who usually does a pretty good job with his previews, but his is quite a standard opinion of our team:

10 Fearless Predictions

1. Boston College will be the biggest disappointment – The ACC media picked BC second in the Atlantic Division, behind only FSU. Sure they have preseason ACC player of the year in Matt Ryan and a lot of experience back on both sides of the ball, but the Eagles also have road dates with Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Clemson and Maryland in the ACC and Notre Dame out-of-conference. I chalked them up 0-5 away from home, which is a deep hole to crawl out of in the stacked Atlantic Division.

see the rest of his post here. I can only account for this kind of lack of faith due to the coaching change. What is heralded on the Heights as a new regime destined for success is lambasted conference wide.

ACC Nation has also put Jags into question, he says:

Jeff Jagodzinski, Boston College: I don’t like the idea of putting a first-year coach on this list, but not too many first-year coaches walk into a situation like Jags has done. This team has a bulk of its starters back and could compete for an ACC title. Now, can the new guy avoid screwing that up?

Just do a Google search and go to any reputable ACC blog (or for that matter use my linklist on the left-hand side. You will see disrespect all around. I hope for our sake the Jags knows how to fight when backed into a corner, because it looks like he is going to have the same-old same-old media hatred for BC Football targeting him again this year.