Boston College Athletics
Spaziani's Plan Is To Attack
August 31, 1999 | Football
Aug. 28, 1999
by Jack Clary
The showpiece of this year's Boston College football team is its defense.
There is no better indication than a glance at the cover of the football media guide which features four starters--Chris Hovan, Mike Willetts, George White and Pedro Cirino--on the cover.
Professional scouts are licking their chops and anxiously waiting to see if what they believe to be true will actually come to pass--a treasure trove of defensive talent that some day soon will play on Sunday.
So are BC fans--and most of all, so is new defensive coordinator Frank Spaziani.
Spaziani, who spent the previous two seasons at Boston College as backfield coach, has reworked the defense and turned it into an attacking, swarming group of talented players that he believes can set the tempo for every game and relieve the pressure on an offense that was rocked by graduation at its skilled positions and needs time to reset itself and become fully competent.
"Our aim is to force the opposing offense to make the adjustments to what we are doing, not the other way around which is so often the case," Spaziani said. "I believe we have the players to make that happen."
In addition to Hovan, a 6-3, 290-pound left tackle, Willetts, 6-4, 281 who plays next to him at right tackle, and the safeties, White (strong) and Cirino (weak), he also cited middle line backer Frank Chamberlin and right defensive end Adam Newman as the keys to his plan. Each of them is a senior so each of them has enough game experience and knowledge to adopt to the new philosophy.
Spaziani characterizes the six this sway:
Hovan: "He's a great football player. He's talented. He has it all. He's as good a defensive tackle as there is anywhere in college football today."
Willetts: "Mike plays in Hovan's shadow but he's is right up there with him. He's strong and quick and there's no doubt that he could start for any college team in the country."
Cirino: "Pedro's explosive, really tough. He loves to play football and he shows it every time he goes on the field, in practice or in a game. He's done real well considering that he's had three defensive coordinators at BC and three different philosophies. I just wish he was starting out now."
Newman: "Adam has shown tremendous improvement. He has all the physical tools and also is a great student of the game. He is a dominant player, with a great work ethic and team player who has the potential to get even better."
Chamberlin: "Frank is like a clone of Newman. He has great confidence in his skills and in what we ask him to do. He studied over the summer and came to camp fully prepared. He looks like he really enjoys playing and nothing seems to faze him."
White: "George is extremely talented but he's always willing to listen, to work and to apply what he's taught to his game."
"All six of them are very aggressive players by nature, they go all the time. They're dedicated to beating down an offense. This is the perfect mindset for a defensive player," Spaz continued. "Defense the way I believe it should be played must be aggressive to be successful. Therefore, you must have aggressive people to do the work, people who want to always be on the attack on Saturday afternoon, from the moment they get off the bus at the stadium until they get back on it again at the end of the day.
"I believe we have the people to carry this out because of their experience and the way they like to play the game. The experience factor is necessary because the quicker you can recognize what is happening, the quicker you can get after it with an aggressive style of play."
Spaziani played defensive end at Penn State for Joe Paterno for three seasons, and coached for 16 seasons at Navy and Virginia for ardent Paterno disciple George Welsh (and with head coach Tom O'Brien), and he actually became convinced of the efficacy of his approach to defensive football during five seasons as defensive coordinator of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League before he came to BC. His teams went to the Grey Cup, the CFL championship game, three times during that span so it is hard to argue with success. He also was defensive coordinator at Virginia for six seasons before going to the CFL, during which time the Cavaliers went to three bowl games.
"I found that a defense can't survive in the wide-open style of the Canadian League unless it is aggressive," Spaziani noted. "You let an offense dictate to you up there with a longer and wider field, bigger end zones, 12 players to a side, men on motion all over the place, and you're dead.
"It became very apparent that if a defense sits back and tries to react to what an offense does, then the offense most likely will do what it wants. But if you attack it in the same manner in which it attacks a defense, then you can force it to react and change on the move, and offenses don't, by nature, do that too well. In the CFL, we had to attack and I became a believer of what can happen with that style of play.
"We'll do that here."
Of course, it all sounds so easy and simple when he lays out his plan but the BC defense also is an evolving unit that at first, had to back up to go forward, when it changed coordinators--and hence, changed its philosophy.
"We did most of the changing in spring practice as far as putting in our new concepts," he said. "I had to teach them what we would do and then they had to learn it and make it work. We were still evolving as pre-season practice went on but the defense has come a long way. What really helped was the way they took to this new style. I was really pleased with their response, not that I expected anything different because there is a great work ethic among the players. That, and the fact that it fit their football personalities, really helped get this across."
That's good because with the season starting on Sept. 4, there will be little time to add more material. From now on, what the defense does will be adopted to the styles of each opponent and the work the defensive unit does for that opponent will, for the most part, center around polishing what it already knows.
When it comes to Baylor, there is also some double jeopardy. The Bears won't have much to go on from the past because Spaziani has changed the Eagles approach. On the flip side, Baylor also brings along a whole new approach because they have a new coach, Kevin Steele, and a new staff. Hence, there is not much information to fall back on. Spaziani and his defensive coaches have been forced to go hither and yon to try and gather enough information on the backgrounds of the new coaching staff that will give them some kind of picture as to what the Eagles defense can expect.
"Kevin spent a lot of time at Nebraska so he knows that style very well. He also coached with the Carolina Panthers of the NFL and undoubtedly took some NFL style offense with him, particularly in the passing game. His offensive coordinator came from Northwestern so we have to expect some of what they did and Tommie Frazier, his running backs coach who was a great quarterback at Nebraska a few years ago, will add his touches.
"Whatever they do now will be new to us at the start so all we can do is do what we do best and then make any necessary changes to keep us going. But that is often true with every season opener. You must be ready for anything and also be able to handle anything. How quickly you can adjust and get guys together is the key."
(Jack Clary is a regular contributor to Boston college programs.)
