Not so "Special Teams" at BC

With his second field goal of the afternoon, Sandro Sciortino lifted Boston College to a 27-25 over Notre Dame on Saturday. In effect, his 26-yard field goal with 38 seconds remaining in the game won the contest for the Eagles. Thus, on the surface it appears that the special teams actually won the game for BC...

Of course, the special teams were the reason Sandro even had to march out to the Notre Dame 16 yard line with less than a minute to play this past weekend. Even Sandro’s game-winning field goal required holder Mike Fassel to adeptly place a poorly-snapped ball.

After five consecutive successful punts by Jeff Gomulinski, the snapper bug hit the BC punt team again with 12:50 left in the fourth quarter. Leading 24-12, Dan Berglund, in his second game chucking the pigskin to the Eagle punter, skipped the snap and Gomulinski picked it up and was tackled in an attempt to run for the first down. From my vantage point, it appeared that a quick decision to punt could have given Gomulinski enough time to get an adequate kick off safely. On the next play, Notre Dame closed the gap to 24-19 on Brady Quinn’s pass to Maurice StovalThen, with just 3:34 remaining, Nate Schiccatano blocked a Gomulinski punt and Carlos Campbell returned it 25 yards for a touchdown. The extra point gave the Irish the lead at 25-24. This time, Berglund’s snap reached Gomulinski with perfect accuracy, but it may have been the slowest snap I have ever seen.

Some of the blame for the near debacle must rest on the shoulders on Dan Berglund. However, one must wonder what the fourth-string quarterback was doing as the long snapper. Sure, Boston College has had a plethora of special teams’ problems this season, especially with the long snapping, but whose idea was it to line up a 6-3, 213 pound redshirt freshman quarterback up against starting linebackers and defensive lineman attempting to get to his equally green punter?

Following Saturday’s victory, Tom O’Brien noted that he plans to give several players the opportunity to win the permanent long snapper position. Two weeks ago, junior tight end David Kashetta held the dishonorable position against Temple. He only snapped once, but did not have a problem in delivering the ball to Jeff Gomulinski. However, O’Brien and special teams coach Jerry Petercuskie decided to abandon Kashetta and throw Berglund to the wolves the past two weeks.

The early depth chart for Saturday’s game against Pittsburgh has Berglund atop Kashetta for the long snapping duties once again. With the Panthers’ offensive fire power, the Eagles cannot afford to have any snapping difficulties to give them any easy scores.

Any BC students with football experience (need not be since Pop Warner) who believe that they could throw a ball between their legs about 15 yards, please call 617-552-SNAP, or 2-SNAP from on-campus, to set up an immediate interview and tryout.

On a side note, why is Nathaniel Hasselbeck still returning punts for Boston College? Following the Ball State game, Tom O’Brien said that he was allowing William Blackmon to ease back into the duties so as not to aggravate his shoulder injury, but that Willie B. was too dangerous not to send back to await punts.

Now, a month later, Will Blackmon lined up as a gunner blocker against Notre Dame, but Hasselbeck continued to return punts. O’Brien stated that he wanted to allow Blackmon to focus on neutralizing the gunners, but how can you put your most dangerous athlete on the field for punt returns and not have him returning? Nate has performed admirably as the new punt returner, but Will is just too talented to keep him out of where he could be most dangerous.