The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Boston College fires coach Addazio
BOSTON — Boston College fired coach Steve Addazio after seven seasons in which the Eagles never surpassed seven wins.
Wide receivers coach Rich Gunnell will serve as interim coach, athletic director Martin Jarmond said in a statement on Sunday afternoon, a day after BC beat Pittsburgh to achieve bowl eligibility for the sixth time in seven years under Addazio.
“He inherited a program that had a down stretch and led us to six bowl games while recruiting highcharacter studentathletes that represented BC the right way,” Jarmond said. “Our studentathletes have been pillars of the community and in the classroom and that’s a credit to Steve and his staff.”
Addazio, who graduated from Central Connecticut and coach at Cheshire High School, was 4444 since taking over in 2013, earning a bowlqualifying sixth win with the 2619 victory over Pittsburgh. The 60yearold 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 94 and 47 records, before taking over a 210 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 Addazio’s 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 regularseason game to qualify for a bowl berth.