CHESTNUT HILL –  It was a save situation that even Jonathan Papelbon might have taken a pass on, but Frank Spaziani was up for the challenge.

Named head coach of the BC football team Jan. 13 after a tumultuous week for the fired Jeff Jagodzinski, Spaziani was not greeted with a honeymoon. Instead, the 61-year-old coach was left staring at a daunting, two-week window to convince all 16 recruits committed to BC that despite reports to the contrary the football program was indeed alive and well at the Heights. Wednesday, on national signing day, Spaziani took to the podium at the Yawkey Center to unveil the fruits of a two week road trip from Conway, NH, to Lithia, FL and countless towns in between.

The good news? Spaziani accomplished what he set out to do and officially inked all 16 players. The bad news? Most recruiting analysts rank this year’s BC recruiting class as mediocre at best. Mike Farrell, a national recruiting analyst who focuses on the ACC for the Web site Rivals.com is one of those guys. You have to scroll all the way down to No. 70 to find BC on Rivals’ team recruiting rankings, tucked right between No. 69 Akron and No. 71 Boise State. The ACC rankings are worse. Rivals ranks BC dead last, just behind Wake Forest and three spots behind perennial football juggernaut Duke.

“This has been a rough year for them no question,” said Farrell. “It was already going to be a rough year before the coaching change and then that happened a week after the dead period in recruiting. There were just too many things working against them this year.”

With the continuity and stability of the program the biggest concern in most recruits’ minds, Spaziani joked that he made his rounds while holding up a Jeff Jagodzinski mask. In reality, he just put on the same old familiar hat that he wore for some 17 years  as a recruiter at Penn State, Navy, Virginia and in his first two years at B.C.

After “sitting in the back of the (recruiting) meetings,” the last several years as the defensive coordinator at B.C., Spaziani said he enjoyed getting back into the living rooms and kitchens. His only regret, perhaps, was that it was all condensed into the frantic two-week period that often saw him visit four homes in a single day.

“I forgot how much I enjoyed it,” said Spaziani. “We just went on the road and we felt that we had to be committed to those players that were committed to us. We kept all of them. Where I think (the coaching change) did have a little bit of an effect was on a couple of guys who were choosing between us and somebody else. We might have gotten a couple of those other guys if we did not have that situation.”

Even with the most stable coaching staff the inherent challenges BC faces in luring not only the three-star guys, but the five-star types as well to Chestnut Hill are considerable Farrell says and he puts the school’s geography, academic standards, and its facilities right at the top of the list.

“It’s a whole combination of things, really. You look in all New England and there’s probably 30 Division 1A players and probably 15 of those guys are really not that good,” he points out. “Take a single state like New Jersey and you double that number.

“So you’re looking to find kids who don’t mind playing far from home, kids who are smart and care about academics, and kids who don’t mind playing in front of only 45,000 fans.”

And let’s face it, that 45,000 figure is being fairly generous on many a fall Saturday at the Heights. That being said, Farrell feels that Spaziani did well to hang on to the hand that he was dealt and that moving forward that the affable coach teamed with a very capable recruiting coordinator in Mike Siravo will get the job done.

Breaking down the Class of 2013

The unquestioned star of the class appears to be Dillon Quinn, a 6-foot-6 295-pound monster of a defensive tackle out of Trinity Pawling prep school in New York. Quinn is ranked as the 10th best defensive lineman on the board by Rivals and is the only four-star recruit committed to the Eagles. He’s also freakishly strong. How does a 520-pound bench press grab you?

“He is physically ready to play right now and might be the strongest kid in the country,” said Farrell who first saw Quinn at a showcase at Rutgers. “He kind of emerged out of nowhere. He just showed up a camp at Rutgers and dominated everybody from the first day.  After that his stock just soared. With them losing Raji, he’s a guy that can step right in on that defense.”

Quinn was one of the first to verbally commit to the Eagles last April, but when the coaching change happened he took a second look around and reportedly came awfully close to bolting for Maryland with Cincinnati in the mix as well.

“There was some paranoia, but we live on paranoia,” said Spaziani with a smile of the rumors that ran rampant on the Internet from one recruiting site to the next. “I went down there and he said he was fine, but then he wasn’t fine. I think people hear that there is something up and just start feeding on whatever they hear. I think he just needed some reassuring.”

Another bright spot is a pair of 5-foot-10, three-star running backs in Roland Finch out of Louisville and Virginia Beach’s Sterlin Phifer .

“I think both running backs have pretty good speed and both are strong and physical runners,” said Farrell. “I think that if they go back to more of their old style of really trying to run the ball both will fit pretty well into that system.”

Farrell also thought the Eagles got a pair of pretty good linebackers in Cincinnati’s Luke Kuechly (6-3, 220) and Hartford’s Andre Lawrence (6-1, 196). Both received three stars from Rivals, the same ranking that ACC Defensive Player of the Year Mark Herzlich received a couple years back.

With a lot of youth at the quarterback spot where freshmen Dominique Davis and Justin Tuggle figure to be the top two on the depth chart, respectively, BC inked another signal caller in 6-foot-3 Michael Marscovetra out of New Jersey.

Farrell feels that there’s plenty of upside with Marscovetra, but says that Eagles fans should not expect to see it on display this fall.

“He was at the BC camp and he was the best quarterback there,” said Farrell of the prospect who was rated as the top QB in New Jersey. “He’s a tall kid who can move around back there.  The big issue with him is that he is still learning when to throw the ball away. He makes a lot of bad decisions and subsequently threw a lot of interceptions. He’ll definitely be a guy who they redshirt.”

If there is a sleeper on the list Farrell says you have to look no further than the imposing 6-foot-3, 295-pound frame of defensive tackle Conor O’Neal out of Lithia, FL.

“He’s only a two-star guy, but he’s someone who has really emerged late and who has really come on,” he said. “In a way, he’s a lot like B.J. Raji. Raji really emerged late and at the end it came down to just BC and Wisconsin for him, I think that was about it.”

One of the top additions to next year’s team may be the one guy who needs no directions to Alumni Field -- Everett defensive back Jim Noel.  The four-year standout for the Crimson Tide has officially committed to B.C., but as yesterday the school was still waiting on his paper work. Like Quinn, the 6-foot-3, 180-pound three-star prospect was said to be reconsidering when Jagodzinski left. He was reportedly facing a full court press from both Penn State and Maryland, but is expected to be in the Eagles’ fold any day now.

“When they get him that will probably put them ahead of Wake Forest and to somewhere in the 60s on our lists,” said Farrell. “He’s going to probably be a safety in college and because of the depth they have back there they will have the luxury of redshirting him.”

In fact, of the 17 recruits Farrell expects as little as four to be on the field on Saturdays this fall at the Heights. He says Quinn is a given and he wouldn’t rule out O’Neal either. He also says one of the two running backs will make it to add some depth to the position. Also look for kicker Nate Freese of Strongville, Ohio to vie to take over the kicking duties with the graduation of Steve Aponavicius.

Bob Albright covers Boston College athletics for WEEI.com.