Joe Who? and The Start of Predictions

My posting schedule makes it nearly impossible to break news but the big one broke over the weekend, we got ourself a new QB and he's not too shabby. Chase Rettig who has been marked as one of the fastest risers in the 2010 class committed to BC over Lane Kiffin and the Vols as well as marked interest from USC. I have 2 feelings on this. First, for no good reason, I feel more confident that Rettig will actually come to BC. If you look way back in my old posts you'll see that I was uneasy on Boisture's commitment until he had his little "my word is oak" moment and even the Globe ran an article on him. This time however, I don't feel as uneasy, maybe its because this guy already had other big time offers I don't know. Those big time offers also lead me to my second point on Rettig, when we recruited Boisture he was only getting interest from fringe great team, Those teams that crack the top 25 occasionally but never really show up to the big bowl games. True, Tennessee has been the dregs of the SEC, but they have been great within recent memory (National Championship 1o years ago, competing for SEC title pretty much every year and generally show up in the preseason top 25). Rettig was also getting attention from USC, who like them or hate them have a very good program. As far as evaluating QB talent goes you can't knock Pete Carroll's staff. So if they were looking at a relatively unheralded guy (if you don't have at least 4*s don't even bother going to a USC camp) you have to get the feeling hes a little under the radar.

Alright enough gushing, back to reality. First up Heather Dinich actually saying something positive about BC, granted it's probably off the mark but whatever. Dinich seems to feel that Shinskie will be better than expected, she then continues to say that BC has the worst QB situation in the ACC. Here's my take, Shinskie is a wild card he could be pretty good, honestly I think Spaz and Co. took a flyer looking to get help wherever they could. This isn't a knock on Tuggle, he struggled in the spring and Shinskie has a real boom or bust potential. My feeling with Dinich is that she writes for the semi-casual fan. The guy that knew we signed a 25 yr old but then shrugged it off as a Depth Chart booster. I think the competition really comes down to Shinskie or Tuggle, which is why I'm surprised he seems to be at the top of a lot of depth charts.

In other news I picked up NCAAF 2010 yesterday and spent 2 hours copying my evaluation of players over from the custom teambuilder (I could have just downloaded it if the internet connection worked at my apartment). I then went about setting up the depth chart and I found myself with some interesting situations.
#1 QB battle: My evaluation had Tuggle and Shinskie both as a 79 overall, but very different styles. Tuggle is a quick scrambler with poor accuracy and awareness while Shinskie moves slower than Tennant but has a rocket arm with decent accuracy but also poor awareness.(for Tuggle I worked off what I saw at the spring game and practice notes and for Shinskie I worked off 7 year old scouting reports and the fact that he hasn't played in 7 years). To be honest I may have been optimistic with both 79 overall? but whatever. Shinskie got the nod in my book even though I prefer to play the game itself with mobile QBs. I gave Shinskie the nod because the RB situation is great and I wanted to have a solid arm when I actually throw.
#2 RB battle: the out of the box ratings for Harris and Haden are 89 and 88 respectively and the only thing I changed were Hadens speed and injury resist (up and down respectively) and Harris Break tackle (he just keeps going). Harris got the nod from the game to be the starter and I did the same. The only thing you have to be conscious of is to rotate even when Harris isn't tired. I got in the habit of pounding with Harris and flying outside with Haden.
#3 LB: To be honest not a great situation. I keep hearing mixed things about McLaughlin being back or not but I left him in. According to EA Wil Thompson can't play MLB leaving so hes out at ROLB, DiSanzo got the starting nod though 77 overall (I might have been generous there but he played well in the spring) and Luke Kuechly heads up the LOLB spot in Herzlich's absence (I bumped Mark to a 99 overall, though not intentionally, I intended to have him around 96, I then redshirted him to keep him available for next year) I gave Kuechly a 79 because he came in as a 4* (Quinn got the same treatment)and thats how the game generally evaluates 4* players (77-80). Dominick LeGrande got the nod as a backup, though it will be interesting to see if he stays @ LB or switches back to Safety.

The outcome: granted it is against FCS East (aka Northeastern) but playing with 5min quarters on the regular difficulty the score was 76-0. Offensively Haden had 238 yards and 3 TDs off of 7 runs (2 were long runs from garbage time options with Tuggle though) Harris had about 150 on 13 attempts with 2 touchdowns Shinskie had a 613.8 passer rating because he went 5 for 5 for something like 240 yards and 3 touchdowns. Tuggle had an interception (because I accidentally left him in after I ran a couple options in the first half then made a very bad bootleg throw) but added on a rushing touchdown in garbage time. Defensively DeLeon Gause had 2 int, one returned for a TD, there were 4 forced fumbles. McLaughlin was an absolute beast and Jeff Smith ran a punt return back for a TD. There was a missed 2 point in garbage time because of a clipping call after the Smith return.

and Fantasy Scheduler's Week 11
Who we play: North Carolina
Who we should play: Miami
I like the UNC game but the Miami matchup is a bit of a rivalry because of the Flutie game. Miami also used to be the toast of the Coastal and I believe is the only ACC team with a National Championship in the past decade (well FSU in 99 but Miami was 01)

A little News and Some fun

Sounds like I'm not the only one less than convinced that Shinskie will be the solution as ATLEagle, Eagle Access and Couplebeers all seem less optimistic following that new hope high. My optimist side has me saying that Shinskie probably has the best skill set and only needs to catch up with reading coverage, something Tuggle struggled with anyways. My realist side tells me that a guy that hasn't seen a cover 2 in 6 years is not going to be able to pick it up over the summer. So heres my way too early, way too uneducated projection. Justin Tuggle will be our starter but Shinskie will have a couple of snaps per game where he could really fire off some bombs just like Vandy and GT did against us last year.

In other news couplebeers posted that Boisture is currently taking summer classes so taht he can graduate in the winter and enroll @ BC in January. I don't know where he got his info, he's as bad at posting links as I am but this could be a sign for Boisture as starting QB in the fall of 2010. Then again we could have a Haden/Harris situation where Haden was anointed as the savior of BC's running game and then Harris ran truck all over the ACC last year. But thats other news.

HD over @ ESPN just did a little exercise called fantasy scheduling and she picked one game that she would love to see. I decided I would take this and carry it out over our entire schedule. Feel free to fire back your own feelings the rules are any ACC team has to be a team from the same division (no nonconfrence or non-division opponents) so here we go (I'll release one every few days
Week 1:

Who we play: Northeastern
Who we should play: Holy Cross
Back before the Holy War with Notre Dame there was the Holy War with Holy Cross. This was literally THE game of the year back in the day. The old Alumni field was too small to hold the crowds for this game so a number of games had to be held at Braves field or the barely 5 year old Fenway park back in 1916. Holy Cross was also the only team to beat the 1940 BC "Team of Destiny" which went undefeated into their last game against a relatively weak Holy Cross team. Unfortunately the rivalry was retired in 1986 after Holy Cross went the 1AA route (now FCS) and BC won the last 17 of 20 games. We play an FCS school every year, why not make it one people can really get into. I live near Holy Cross and have a number of friends there and I know a number of the guys on the football team everyone at Holy Cross still sees BC as a rival and recounts the days when they used to paint the Eagle on Linden Lane purple. Sure we'll have to shell out some bucks to play them but really wouldn't you rather it went back into the Jesuit pot and not to Northeastern?

A QB contender and our Future @ QB

As most have realized already BC received another 2009 commit in David Shinksie, the 25 yr old former pro baseball player hung up the baseball cleats for some football cleats. In terms of experience within the last 6 years Shinskie is at the back of the class but in terms of potential Shinskie is at the front. He should be in shape from playing baseball and even if he hasn't been lifting like a football player he is still supposed to have a real cannon of an arm. We'll see what happens with this experiment but if Shinskie were to get a redshirt (and I understand his eligibility) he would be 30 when hes a redshirt senior. The man is actually a year older than Matt Ryan.(but for camparison's sake BYU standout and current NFL backup John Beck was 27 when he graduated).
Future of the program Joe Boisture was in the news this weekend as he went to the Nike Football Combine in Illinois. He stood out and warmed up throughout the day and there were no negative knocks on him. QB MVP went to some 6-1 Whitmer character. I really want to embrace Boisture as the next Matt Ryan but I keep getting the feeling that Boisture is going to prove to be an average prospect as the year goes on. I'll wait until the Elite 11 camp to really delve into this though because that has a tendency to deliver more info on QBs.
Although it is important to keep in mind that BC seems to have some of the best player development in the history of football. (Silva was a 2* prospect, Dunbar a 3* Running back prospect, Raji a 2*, Ryan doesn't count because he was hurt his Junior year) and we also seem to fail with some of the "elite prospects" (Toal 5* was always hurt, Callendar 4* never really took off, McMichael 4* was always hurt, Robinson 4* never proved to be an elite player)