Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Practice Dog Days and other links

These are the toughest practices now. The energy and freshness of opening camp is gone and the games are still far off. This is the chance for players to impress, but BC also risks injury on every play. We won't hear much in the next few weeks either. Addazio wants to control details coming out, so some of the regulars writers and bloggers have been asked to cut back on their specificity (regarding depth, reps, etc.). I know Addazio is not the first coach to do this, but I think he is making a mistake. If your season is so dependent on what a future opponent might gleam from twitter or a practice write up, then you have bigger issues.  A coach should be focused on preparation and execution. Don't waste time with the media.

Last week I speculated on what the new NCAA rules might do to college hockey. Joseph Gravellese took the issue further with a strong post at BCI.

This isn't BC specific, but it is a very good article about college recruiting. The coaches own up to how low their actual hit rates are in scouting. The biggest challenges are maturity and puberty. 

15 comments:

mod34b said...

"Addazio wants to control details coming out, so some of the regulars writers and bloggers have been asked to cut back on their specificity (regarding depth, reps, etc.)"

Oh my, Dazz wants to censor the tiny slice of media that is interested in BC. How could that be good for BC football, leaving aside how silly it is for a major university to permit blatant censorship.

BC actually Asked writers to cut back?

Not good

Matt said...

Atl I am normally in complete agreement with you even when I don't comment saying so, but here I strongly disagree with both you and mod34b regarding controlling media.

You don't want opponents to gameplan against us, especially if we have trick plays in the arsenal. As you mention, this is nothing new and other schools are doing it so why should we risk giving opponents a competitive edge? Yes, we should be focusing on other issues, but I don't think there is any tradeoff here.

Thomas said...

If any of these "media" ever want to further their careers and cover an NFL team one day, they would know better than to report on the specifics of practice. There are unwritten rules of covering sports teams; this is one of them. Addazio really shouldn't even have to say anything.

SaturdaysOnShea said...

Was listening to the radio yesterday and they were talking about how no one knows who QB1 at Alabama is. Greg McElroy was one of the guys talking and saying how Saban won't hint even to him.

I don't think we need to be too concerned. This year is going to be a new offense that most of our opponents haven't seen BC run, I think Addazio is wise to keep his cards close.

Joseph said...

"Oh my, Dazz wants to censor the tiny slice of media that is interested in BC. How could that be good for BC football, leaving aside how silly it is for a major university to permit blatant censorship."

"blatant", eh? "censor", eh? exaggerate, eh?

eagle1331 said...

My guess is that this more so applies to taking pictures or videos and posting them on the twitter machine, as well as mentioning "so and so" is with the 1st or 2nd team no in practice, or "player x" looks rough at CB. We have 3 very different QBs on our depth chart as 1,2, and 3 and weak spots could definitely be exposed in these 140 character random messages. We saw how bad our defense looked against Arizona, we don't need to help anyone out, or have a reporter help anyone out..

When I worked for the team (TOB - roughly 10 years ago), the only cameras allowed at camp in August were professional ones, not cell phones. This rule makes a lot of sense given the time and everything you see bloggers posting during practice and scrimmages, even with media time limited during these "dog days."

mod34b said...

Joseph, I have not heard from you in sometime -- I wished it stayed that way.

FYI:

"Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other such entities. Governments, private organizations and individuals may engage in censorship."

Joseph said...

M34. Yeah, you have been rather unobjectionable for quite a while. But, then suddenly we see the silly pontificating side. Notice that no one has agreed with you.

According to your definition of censorship, there has to be suppression. How is a request "suppression". Try again.

mod34b said...

Joseph. You are dumb.

Lenny Sienko said...

Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose-- “The more it changes, the more it’s the same thing."

I can remember our very first BC online Bulletin Board being asked to cease posting about what was happening at Fall practice. Other teams admitted that they had been following posts on the bulletin board as a new type of scouting an opponent.

This was pre TOB, who decided that practices would be closed to the public.

I was pleased to see Daz reopen practice. Not so pleased to see control issue come up.

Joseph said...

No, I am just deaf. With the BS stuff about a reasonable request from the team, you certainly displayed a fair amount of intellectual laziness.

Daz was doing his job. Simple. Easy to understand for all but you.

Joseph said...

No, I am just deaf. With the BS stuff about a reasonable request from the team, you certainly displayed a fair amount of intellectual laziness.

Daz was doing his job. Simple. Easy to understand for all but you.

eagleboston said...

Must be August. Everyone is arguing about nothing.

Hoib said...

I think it's pretty hard to keep secrets these days, w/ technology, social media, and so forth. So why bother. I don't think it's likely that we morph into a pass happy team as a surprise tactic. Daz pretty much tells anyone who'll listen we are going to run it down your throat, so why bother w/ the secrecy?

Joseph said...

Agree that everyone knows that Daz will use the run, but I hope that he is able to have a few wrinkles that may be interesting. No point in telling the world about everything. We always know that our competition will eventually find out about our stuff, but we believe in making it hard.