Spring Rewind: Beware Of The Big Dogs

The most viral moment of Boston College's annual spring game came early in the second quarter while the top units battled one another. The first team offense, playing for Team Boston, already had a big play touchdown against the top defensive players who dressed for Team Eagles, and a second drive brought Team Boston down to the goal line for an opportunity to turn the Jay McGillis Memorial Spring Game into a multi-score advantage.

To score the touchdown, offensive coordinator John McNulty called for a Wildcat formation, but instead of lining up a running back or wide receiver as the pistol quarterback, he called for offensive lineman Christian Mahogany to receive the snap. The 335-pound hulk immediately trucked downhill and plowed directly into the end zone to give Team Boston a two-touchdown lead before gathering his fellow offensive linemen for a celebration that involved the other big daddies inverting him in the air.

The moment's aftermath sailed easily onto social media with comparisons to the 1985 Chicago Bears, and Mahogany grabbed center stage during the postgame press conferences. It shone through the spring game and highlighted the progress made during an offseason built around the Big Dogs, the appropriately-named redesign of "O-Line U" and its new position coach, Dave Deguglielmo.

"To be a 'big dog' has many meanings, too many to list," said Deguglielmo during spring practice. "I equate it to having a big dog sitting on a porch in front of your house. [He's] your friend, your protector, your little bit of warning to people when you have to project a little bit more. Sometimes just sitting there and raising your head is enough to scare someone. Our job is to be what a dog would be to a family. A big dog is a special thing. Not everybody can be a big dog."

BC's offensive line tradition is well-known in football circles both private and public, but the challenges facing the Eagles' trenches were impossible for even the most ardent supporter or optimist to ignore after the unit lost four starters from last year. Each had their own spin on their position, but they worked well together and possessed a wealth of integrated experience after enduring a coaching changeover three years ago. Their 2020 season helped bolster Jeff Hafley's new offense, and their 2021 season helped BC stomp its way to a bowl game after quarterback Phil Jurkovec missed substantial time with a wrist injury.

That collective success bolstered individual resumes, and every member of the departing class finished their college careers with some notable footnote. Ben Petrula, for example, played more games than any other player in program history and started five years at every position on both sides of the line, including center, over his tenure.

Tyler Vrabel, meanwhile, started at left tackle after redshirting his true freshman season and made the decision to declare for the NFL Draft after playing his entire college career on the blindside, while consensus All-Americans Alec Lindstrom and Zion Johnson left BC for presumptive draft positions, with Johnson projected as high as the first round.

Their departures left Mahogany and Jack Conley as the only players with significant game experience, but Deguglielmo started bridging the gap last month by enforcing his experience as a professional coach on the four-star recruits now tasked with populating the depth chart. He was tough in his assessment, but he balanced his enforcement against the natural order that seemingly took place even without his coaching or refinement.

"Guys took hold of their positions with other guys competing for those spots," Deguglielmo said. "I think there's a little bit that's fallen into place on its own, but I'm just coaching every guy and if I have to make moves, it's nothing personal. If a guy can't practice, he goes to the back of the room, and another guy moves up. I don't embrace one guy or another. Guys just have to perform, and if they don't, they have to move."

"I was kind of thrown into the fire [last year]," Conley said. "I played a bunch earlier in the season at right tackle, but at Clemson, Tyler went down with a left ankle [injury]. I didn't have much experience [at left tackle], but that [playing time] was invaluable to me. Going into this year, I feel so much more confident and much better at playing left."

It didn't stop the offensive line from landing on the microscope during the spring game, and the first plays very much showed how the work-in-progress likely will continue into the summer and fall. There weren't many answers, but even getting up-and-down against the defense in that situation was instrumental to what happens in the fall, both good and bad.

Mahogany's run aside, the line did what it needed to do and sprung more than explosive play out of a stripped-back, vanilla offensive game plan. Xavier Coleman made three catches for 75 yards and a touchdown out of the backfield, and both Taji Johnson and Jaden Williams averaged more than 16 yards per catch in single coverage when Jurkovec and Emmett Morehead each had time to throw downfield.

Neither quarterback completed 50 percent of his throws, but Hafley admitted he stripped the game plan of any nuance from the real time action from a more familiar regular season game. Both Team Boston and Team Eagles played vanilla, individual matchups for one-on-one situations and softened the mistakes, which admittedly included a couple of jailbreaks that forced Jurkovec to scramble and Morehead to take "sacks" where he normally threw the ball away

It's minimally applicable, but nobody intended to finish the work in April anyway. They know that big dogs don't take time off, even if they're just sitting on the porch, and that the summer and preseason await with a coach who knows what it takes to win at the game's highest level.

"We knew he was high energy," Conley said. "He's got two Super Bowl wins and knows exactly what he's talking about. That kind of went into the 'big dog' mentality where we're always on that porch, waiting. [He taught us] that if someone comes a little close, we'll bark a little bit, and if they come too close, we'll go get him. That ties back to line play. The little guys are back there in the house. We're on the porch."

"I'm working with guys that understand what it's like to be a true 'big dog,'" Deguglielmo said. "Offensive linemen, that's what this place is. I might feel differently if I was working at another Power Five school with the pomp and circumstance that didn't have the traditional line play that this place has. The first round draft choices aren't even all the guys that went [later]. There's a lot of linemen that come out of here and stay in the NFL because of their training in college. For that line coach, this is the place to go."

Players Mentioned

Xavier Coleman

Jack Conley

Taji Johnson

Zion Johnson

Phil Jurkovec

Alec Lindstrom

Christian Mahogany

Emmett Morehead

Ben Petrula

Tyler Vrabel

Jaden Williams

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