Q&A With Eagle In Atlanta

One of Boston College's more well known bloggers, Eagle in Atlanta, got in touch with me this week about doing a Q&A leading up to the Boston College game.

You can find my answers to his questions here and his answers to my questions below:

Dave Shinskie looked like he'd wrapped up the quarterback position heading into the Virginia Tech matchup but struggled mightily in that game. Mike Marscovetra came on in relief and went 10-for-16 with two touchdown passes. Is the quarterback position still up for grabs this late into the season? If so, who's your preferred choice?

The QB situation is definitely up for grabs. The coaching staff really likes Marscovetra, but being an 18-year-old true freshman is different from being a 25-year-old baseball refugee. I think they went with Shinskie because of his maturity and arm strength. Those qualities should have helped him in an environment like Lane Stadium. However, he has not played well on the road so far in his career.

I expect Shinskie to start this weekend and he deserves the chance. He looked very good in the Wake and FSU games. He moves well for a pocket passer and has a good release and good touch. I think Shinskie's biggest challenge is football smarts at this point. He hasn't played in a while and certainly not at this level. He admitted that VT's schemes confused him. Now that he is back at BC and facing a less intimidating D, we will see if last week was just a rough day or a sign of things to come.

I expect Marscovetra to play too, but in a more limited capacity.

Since we're comparing coaches, what's your take on The 'Stache (Frank Spaziani) and the job he's done so far? Is there any bitterness still about the way things went down with Jeff Jagodzinski and GDF? How have those wounds healed thus far?

I am trying to give Spaz the benefit of the doubt. I didn't like the hire at the time and his game management has been spotty so far (in my opinion). We had pathetic offensive performances against Clemson and Virginia Tech and nearly blew home games to Wake and FSU after establishing early leads. But he is 4-2 and has the team in contention. If he keeps winning there will be less to complain about.

Most BC fans have already forgotten Jags. The ones who follow these sorts of things closely remained divided. The people with bitterness towards our AD for firing Jags are a vocal minority. Those Gene critics will probably not go away unless Spaz -- Gene's handpicked guy -- wins big.

ESPN's Gameday was on-site in Boston two weeks ago. Were you able to be in attendance? If not, what was your reaction when Mark Herzlich announced that the cancer was all but gone?

I was not in Boston for GameDay. As you can guess from the name of the blog, I don't get to that many BC home games. I did go to the Clemson game and will be going to the Maryland game later this season.

Obviously the whole BC community was thrilled with Mark's prognosis. Word had leaked through a few different sources that his scans were good so the announcement on GameDay was not a total surprise. Yet BC fans couldn't have asked for a better day or a better representative of the school.

Give me your prediction for Saturday's match up.

I am really torn. I know TOB. And while he has many faults and choked when he had the chance to take BC to the next level, there are two types of games that he always seems to respond to. One is the rivalry game. He knows that he appeases the masses with those wins (so you can expect to beat UNC as long as he is there). The other game he always managed to win was the stop the bleeding game. This type of game is a little harder to describe but the jist is that any time his butt was on the line or things were falling apart, he'd get a much needed win. All that is subjective, but consistent with TOB's performance.

On the other side of the field you have Spaz. He needs this win too and supposedly has been prepping for this game since the minute that schedules were announced. Because Spaz has put so much emphasis on this game, I think he better win. Losing would cause him a lot of pain in the AD's office and among the fanbase.

I think we are in for another high scoring affair with BC pulling away in the 4th quarter 38-28.

Both he and I are expecting a lot of offense in this weekend's game. I predicted a score of 34-31, State. That means, of course, that the game will surely end in a 6-9 slugfest.