History question: How did Chlebek go 7-4 in 1980?

[OCs_Inner_Eagle]

I started following BC football with Doug Flutie when I was a kid. I have a faint memory of the excitement surrounding the Texas upset, the 1978 disaster, and Holy Cross beating BC twice (I was a HC fan at the time).

I went through old editions of the Heights to see what they said about the 0-11 season as it happened. According to the Heights coverage, the BC community was excited about Chlebek. That's probably due to his ND pedigree and then being named MAC coach of the year for going 8-3 at Eastern Michigan. There even seemed to be some preseason sneering from players and coaches about Yukica's shortcomings and how talk of how well the team was jelling under Chlebek. Oops.

Amazing that BC reversed itself on firing Chlebek because of the players' support. What I don't get is how he managed to go 7-4 in 1980, with an upset of John Elway's Stanford team and holding #3 Pitt to 14 points in an 8-point loss.

Was BC really starting to come back even before Doug Flutie arrived? It doesn't seem like the Veer started "Veering". The defense seems to have been fairly good, and John Cooper seemed to be a very good kicker. So was that the formula, to stay close and squeeze out wins against a fairly weak schedule?

[MF73-Eleazar]

Who were the QBs during the Chlebek yrs? Wasn't Matty Ice's uncle one of them or something?

[Eaglekeeper]

Bill Flynn could never get over going 0-11 including the loss to Temple in the Japan Bowl! I believe BC would not come up with the money to hire George Welsh at that time.

Go Eagles!

[OCs_Inner_Eagle]

John Loughery, Matt Ryan’s cousin, was the sophomore QB in 1980. His gettIng hurt early in the 1980 season kicked off the events leading to Flutie’s ascension.

I can imagine Flynn resented ChlebeI. What a mess that must have been.