TobaccoRoadEagle {l Wrote}:i've asked this question before and never gotten a very good answer. why does donahue get a pass going into season #4 but spaz couldn't get one going into season 2, 3 or 4?
don't get me wrong, i hated spaz with the passion similar to huang's love of anime but why was he held to a different standard than beeker?
Nobody should have to explain this to you. It's pretty obvious after you look at all of the facts. To explain it fully could easily be a long essay. I'm too lazy and I've got work to do tonight so I'll do some bullet points:
-Spaz inherited a team that went to back-to-back ACC Championships so he was expected to keep them competitive. No rebuild required. He failed.
-Donahue inherited a team with a losing record, no recruits the previous year and then the recruits coming in bailed after Skinner left. The ones originally coming in weren't really great anyway. Two years of no recruits plus inheriting a team that had a losing record is what we call a rebuild (unlike Spaziani).
-BC is a football school and actually used to have decent attendance by both students and alumni. BC has a much more accomplished history in football than in basketball (Heisman (Flutie), several bowls in a row, Matty Ice, 1940, 1993, BC-ND rivalry, etc.)
-Basketball competes with 300 other schools and each school only needs 7 or 8 decent players to be competitive. Football only has 60-something BCS schools and the non-BCS schools struggle to stay competitive. It should be easier for BC to be in the top half of all FBS teams and therefore go to a Bowl.
-Spaz was old and never had been a head coach and nobody wanted him.
-Donahue had been a head coach and led Cornell to three straight Ivy titles (never done before in their history) and then went to the Sweet 16. Skinner couldn't even go farther than that with all of his ACC
talent.
-The trend for Spaz was down all four years.
-The trend for Donahue is a little more tricky, but if you followed things closely, then you knew there would be a drop off after year 1 and the rebuild would begin in year 2. They were bad in year 2, as expected, and then they improved last year. More improvement will come this year. Therefore the trend is up.
-Spaz recruiting was terrible
-Donahue's recruiting has been suspect lately, but he has brought in somebody who might be the best player to ever put on a BC uniform (Hanlan) and Gatorade Player of the Year from Cali (Anderson) and some nice supporting players - Rahon, Clifford (when healthy) and Odio (yes, Odio). These three freshmen may prove to be good players as well. This time last year, tw wanted Daniels over Hanlan in the starting lineup. Not trying to call out tw, but just trying to demonstrate that we don't know what these freshmen can do yet. Unfortunately we won't know about Hicks until next year. And he is supposed to be the best one.
-Spaz was an excuse making machine with a defeatist attitude who almost cried at halftime.
-Donahue, for the most part, doesn't seem to play that card. He has ambition and believes in his system.
from either side but the above is at best questionable.