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Mark Herzlich, the Boston College junior linebacker who was the ACC defensive player of the year in 2008, revealed Thursday that he has cancer.

Herzlich, who could have been a first-round NFL draft pick but chose instead to stay in school for his senior season in 2009, said that he found out this week he has Ewing's Sarcoma, a malignant tumor found in bone or soft tissue.

The ACC championship game has seen diminishing attendance from the 70,000 plus in the first game in 2005 down to a dismal sub-28,000 in 2008. The problem, it seems, has not been the fact that the ACC has been a collective morass of mediocrity that makes it less attractive for fans to want to make last-minute travel plans to the game. It has nothing to do with teams with smaller alumni bases like Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Boston College making appearances.

How about the fact that they have been held in Florida and only once has Florida State or Miami appear? Good luck getting the ACC to admit that was the expectation when they set it up for the first four games to be in Florida.

Last month Boston College drew a line in the sand with coach Jeff Jagodzinski, firing him because he interviewed for the vacant head coaching job with the New York Jets. Many people in and around college football thought the BC administration had gone too far, but the folks at Texas Tech liked what they saw.

Boston College Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo made a big show of firing Jeff Jagodzinski for not being loyal to BC by interviewing for the New York Jets job. The overriding message DeFilippo was sending was that he wanted someone who wanted to be at BC. That loyalty was an important characteristic at Boston College. Something that sets the school apart from other programs.

Apparently that characteristic only applies to those hired by BC. It does not mean the program will show the same loyalty demanded. Following the elevation of Frank Spaziani from defensive coordinator to the head coaching seat, three BC coaches have departed. Two of the three left feeling misled and frustrated with their treatment in the process.

A week after firing Jeff Jagodzinski for interviewing with the New York Jets, Boston College has found its next head coach: Longtime Eagles assistant Frank Spaziani, who served as Jagodzinski's defensive coordinator the last two years.

Spaziani, who has been at Boston College since 1997, is apparently being rewarded for his loyalty to the school -- loyalty that Boston College Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo thought Jagodzinski lacked.

Fact: Mark Herzlich is the best player Boston College currently has on its roster. Provided that nothing shady happens in the next year or so, you can pretty much rest assured he'll be off the board by the first round of the 2010 NFL draft. Really, he could have done the same this April, but much to the Eagles' non-chagrin, Herzlich will anchor the defense in an attempt to garner a third straight bid the ACC Championship Game/disappointing bowl bid once they lose.

And that's all well and good, but is Herzlich moonlighting as AD? He made a pretty adamant statement about who BC needs to tab as the next head coach, despite a coaching search that appears to getting pretty national with it as of late - and it's not so much of a shock that he's a Frank Spaziani guy, what with him being Herzlich's coach and the easiest, if not most appropriate hire.

So you're a moderately successful ACC program in a state where the college football prospects all wear skates and drop their Rs. You've just fired a guy for having the temerity to interview with an NFL team. You're about to hire your third head coach in four years and the last two left because your athletic department just can't get along with folks. Recruiting already sucks and is only going to get worse.

Meanwhile, Charlie Strong finally came out and said what everyone's whispered about for years: he can't get a job in the South because his wife is white. He's been a college coordinator for a decade. He's a college lifer. And he's probably not going anywhere anytime soon. You want a guy who will stick at BC. You want some positive press after this debacle. You want a guy who's proven over the past ten years that he's one of the best defensive minds in college football. You want Charlie Strong.

Or do you want to promote some guy named "Spaz"?

There's no comparison between the two: Strong's fifteen years younger -- BC DC Frank Spaziani is already 63! -- and has just as much coordinator experience. Both men became DCs in 1999 and have remained at that post since. Strong's defenses have, on average, been better. He's supposed to be a better recruiter. And, critically, he's not two years from social security. The only way you could possibly justify a Spaziani hire when Strong is sitting out there, superior in all ways, is by claiming "familiarity with the program."

That may or may not be racist -- I won't throw that bomb -- but if it transpires as rumored, it would definitely be stupid.

Jeff Jagodzinksi, the current head coach of Boston College's football team, is, according to the Boston Globe, about to get fired at a press conference today because he chose to interview with the New York Jets, despite the team's insistence that he would lose his job for such an action. Even if they do not actually can Jago, there's still going to be a press conference to "discuss [the] football team and its coach." Update: They did indeed fire Jagodzinski.

Jeff Jagodzinski will be fired as the Boston College football coach this morning in a meeting with athletic director Gene DeFillippo, according to sources close to the program.

After meeting with the New York Jets yesterday in New Jersey regarding their opening for a head coach, Jagodzinski called DeFilippo last night, setting up a face-to-face meeting this morning. They will finalize the details of his termination in the meeting. Jagodzinski has three years remaining on the contract.

This isn't that huge of a surprise, I suppose; you can only have so many publicly scrutinized people playing a game of chicken before someone gets in a wreck.

At the same time though, it was a pretty bold move on Jagodzinksi's part to pull on the interview if he wasn't completely confident he would get the job. That being said, Gene DiFilippo only comes off looking worse if the outcome is termination, so he should probably be able to land on his feet elsewhere soon enough if the Jets gig doesn't come through.

You were warned, Jeff Jagodzinski.

Athletic director Gene DeFilippo told you that if you interviewed for the New York Jets' vacant head coaching job, you would lose your current head coaching job at Boston College. You went ahead and interviewed with the Jets anyway.

So now this is going to happen:

Boston College coach Jeff Jagodzinski did indeed interview with the New York Jets and he will therefore not be retained by the school, two people close to the situation told ESPN's Joe Schad on Tuesday.
...
DeFilippo, sources say, thought that Jagodzinski was "disloyal" by not speaking with him before scheduling the Jets interview. One source said on Tuesday that Jagodzinski's decision to follow through on the interview made his fate "a done deal."

The hottest new trend of 2008 and 2009 appears to be a diseased athletic department. See: West Virginia, Rich Rodriguez, and Bill Stewart or Auburn, Tommy Tuberville, and Gene Chizik. You can add Boston College to the list, too, as they've declared they'll fire Jeff Jagodzinski if he dares to interview with the Jets.

In a word: bats. Jagodzinski has been good, not great in his two years as BC's head coach. He's highly unlikely to get an NFL head coaching gig off the back of a Music City Bowl loss. But he's been successful enough for Boston College to hope there's some later date at which he'll have the resume for an NFL head job. So you're basically firing a guy good enough to get interviewed by the NFL but not good enough to get hired, which is the exact profile of coach you should be looking for at a school like Boston College.

Add in the strange departure of Tom O'Brien, who made an at-best lateral move to NC State for no apparent reason, and you've got the makings of a power-mad or incompetent athletic director with no idea how to maintain stability at his program. One incident is strange. Two is a trend.

How are you going to hire a promising replacement when you've just fired a coach for daring to interview somewhere else? How are you going to recruit when you're on your third coach in four years and the previous two left suddenly? You won't, and you can't.

Congratulations, Gene DiFilippo: you've managed out-dumb the rest of the country in a year in which a special teams coach from Mayberry and a 5-19 Iowa State coach were hired.