Boston College fires Addazio
Boston College fired coach Steve Addazio on Sunday after seven seasons in which the Eagles never surpassed seven wins, a person with knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press.
The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision had not been announced.
Addazio was 44-44 since taking over in 2013, reaching bowl eligibility for the sixth time in seven years after beating Pittsburgh 26-19 on Saturday. The 60-year-old coach spent much of his postgame news conference talking about the program’s future, insisting, “It’s not about me.”
“All I cared about was getting this team to six wins and getting another month with them. And then watching what I watched,” he said after celebrating with his players in the locker room. “That was the greatest gift that I got. You want to talk about me? That was a great gift.”
Addazio lamented the loss of quarterback Anthony Brown and linebackers John Lamont and Isaiah McDuffie, and spoke — in a familiar theme for him over the years — about the program’s youth. The Eagles have 62 players who are redshirt sophomores or younger.
“You know what I’m excited about? I’ve got a really good football team,” he said. “We’ve got most everybody coming back. This is going to be one hell of a football team moving forward. And we’ve got another month to tweak it and turn it and coach it and develop it. That is so exciting. I think this can be something special.”
Asked if he thought he was safe for another season, Addazio said, “It’s not about me. I’m fine.”
“I care about being with our guys. That’s the most important thing there is,” he said. “It’s not about me. It’s about them.”
The firing was first reported by Yahoo.com.
Addazio had worked as an assistant at Notre Dame and with the Florida teams that won the national championships in 2006 and 2008 before getting his first head coaching job at Temple in 2011. He stuck around just two years, leading the Owls to 9-4 and 4-7 records, before taking over a 2-10 team in Chestnut Hill He quickly restored the Eagles to respectability.
But respectability is all they ever got.
BC won seven games in five of his first six seasons, but he could never get the Eagles back to the level they reached in the early 2000s, when they were often ranked in the AP Top 25 and occasionally playing for a conference championship. This year, they lost to Kansas — a team that hadn’t beaten a Power 5 opponent on the road in 11 years — and needed to beat Pitt in the final regular-season game to qualify for a bowl berth.