College football shenanigans

SPORTING GOODS

I've never been much of a fan of Boston College athletics for the simple reason that the college tries to pass itself off as just a notch below Harvard academically while simultaneously accepting marginal students for its football and basketball teams. Duke and Georgetown are comparable, it seems to me.

At any rate, for many years, the Eagles could have their way with Connecticut athletes, scooping them up because UConn's comparable teams were so lackluster. The NFL All-Pro Bill Romanowski from Rockville comes to mind. Those days, of course, are now gone, and the Eagles seem to be pretty peeved about it, resorting to some pretty slimy recruiting tactics.

Michael Nebrich was the first player to commit to UConn's 2011 recruiting class. But that didn't prevent a Boston College assistant coach from sending an e-mail to Nebrich asking the 6-foot-1, 190-pound quarterback to attend a one-day skills clinic. The BC assistant also told Nebrich there would be a new UConn coaching staff by January ... "I got an e-mail from one of the BC assistant coaches who wasn't too happy about my commitment," Nebrich said Wednesday morning. "He told me stuff like the UConn coaching staff isn't going to be there in January. I called up Coach [Joe] Moorhead [UConn's offensive coordinator] and Coach Edsall and told them about it and asked them and they told me that was absolutely ridiculous and reassured me they'd be there."

I suppose the episode is a testimony to UConn's progress in the realm of NCAA D-I football, but it's pretty underhanded, nevertheless.