The social media and message board discussion following last week’s opening loss had a consistent theme: “Fire Hafley.” I am not there yet. My blinders are off, but I see nothing productive from firing him midseason. Let him, his staff and team do what they set out to do. My hunch is that if he stops the bleeding and scrapes together a winning season, he will be safe. Should he be though?
I like Hafley as a person and representative of the school. But now even an apologist like me has to admit he has a limited upside. Great coaches don’t lose like this and this often (in Year 4 especially). Do you let a nice guy stick around if he is squeaking out seven wins? We let a jerk like Addazio keep coaching for seven years.
In this era of college football, you should probably be quick to fire. The rosters churn faster than ever, so you can’t wait for a guy to build his team in the traditional way. The new need is for a coach who can put a staff and roster together year to year and out perform his competition.
The timing on this debate is somewhat surreal since one of the most likely Hafley replacements will be on the other sideline this weekend. And if Holy Cross wins, there will be many who want to fire Hafley and hire Chesney on the spot.
What’s on my mind (not totally related to this game)
We should play Holy Cross annually and in all sports. The true rivalry was dead long before I arrived at the Heights, but I appreciate it still means something to many people. And I think to this day, there are plenty of students who have friends and family at each school. BC is going to have schedule filler, FCS games for years to come. Might as well make them interesting to some, instead of playing some random school that we have never heard about.
1. Catch the damn ball. The QBs were bad, but the WRs, TEs and RBs did them no favors when it came to the passing game. They need to clean up their skills (why are guys trying arm catches?) and help out.
2. No more Oline penalties. The good news: the Oline controlled their opponents. Bad news: they still made a ton of mistakes and dumb penalties.
— Hafley is 16-20 against the spread
Even with the historic breaks in the series we still have played more games against Holy Cross (83 games) than any other current opponent, including Syracuse.
Colorado-Nebraska. I don’t know if Coach Prime can keep it up, but I am always cheering for quick turnarounds. It gives me hope.
One QB. The old adage remains true: if you have two quarterbacks you have none.
It is close late. My fear is that if it is tight, our guys will make mistakes and hand the game to Holy Cross.
BC takes care of business, looks better and puts more points on the board.