Aside from Ryan, BC wouldn't even be a bowl team...even in the ACC. Ryan needs to go to a team where he can sit a year, learn the speed of the Pro game and put on some weight. Green Bay maybe?
The guy is 6'5", strong arm, smart, good pocket awareness and has shown solid leadership skills. What else do you want?
Your assessment of Ryan is good. He's got lots of tools and moxie, and is unpolished as you would expect a college QB to be on an NFL scale. A good coach could really develop Ryan into an excellent NFL QB.
However, BC isn't just a 1 man band. BC has lost when they have played bad defense, and won when they've played good defense this season. Look at the VTech game. The O was abysmal for almost the entire game, but VTech only scored 10 points. Similar deal with the defense keeping BC within reach of winning the game against Clemson.
BC has been in bowl games every year since 1999 and returned a lot of starters from a team that went 10-3 in 2006. I don't think there's any way that saying they'd miss a bowl game if Ryan was out is accurate. No chance at a BCS game? Yes, that is likely, but they could make it to their standard ACC #3-4-5 type game.
ACC Championship Game December 1, 2007. Go Eagles!
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