Defensive Turnaround Integrated At Every Level

The march to Boston College's September 3 opening game against Rutgers launched in earnest this week when the Eagles returned on Tuesday to practice for the final week of their preseason training camp. The transition, which began prior to Sunday's second scrimmage, was immediately felt by a team looking to build off of its last two years, and the energy was real as a first opponent drew closer into focus for the team's schedule.

But even as practice gradually rolls into form for the regular season, head coach Jeff Hafley and his coaching staff admitted prior to Tuesday that enhancing the team's depth was still a priority and that work to improve for the future would never stop for a team expecting great things from its players both present and future.

"In my mind, I don't know if you ever want it to be a balance because you want depth all the time," defensive coordinator Tem Lukabu said. "Because of the schedule we play and the style of defense we play, guys are going to get nicked up. So my dream is to be able to play 12 defensive line guys, eight linebackers, 12 [defensive backs]. Is that a reality? No, but that's what we strive for in time. [Depth] is paramount, and it's more important than anything you can do [for] X's and O's."

Building the depth chart was a priority for Lukabu, who arrived with Hafley after BC's defense slipped to 125th in team defense during the 2019 season. The unit had been ranked among the elite in the nation two years earlier, but it surrendered over 32 points per game that year and memorably struggled to stop both Kansas, Louisville and Clemson to the tune of 149 combined points.

Six different teams scored 30 or more points against the Eagles that season, and the hot-and-cold performance hadn't sat well with a roster known for its ability to bloody opponents with smashmouth football. Hafley, meanwhile, arrived with a reputation as a defensive coach, but he stacked his roster with lieutenants possessing experience at every level of the game as he sought to reinvent the unit's identity.

"The best coaches I've been around, they let you coach," Hafley said. "Even if it's a position group, the best [coaches] are the ones that let you coach. They might [sit] in on a meeting and kind of share with you what they want it to look like in certain drills, but when the players are around, their coaches are going to coach. That was huge for me, and I think my job as a head coach, which I learned and probably didn't realize, was to let those coaches grow and develop."

Almost immediately, the mentality and development engineered a 40-spot turnaround and put BC in the top half of the bowl subdivision, but the continued efforts through last season reinstated the Eagles in the upper echelon of Division I units. They placed 31st by allowing 22.2 points per game, a full touchdown and field goal less than the season prior to Hafley's arrival; the sixth best improvement in the country. The pass defense topped the ACC, and BC allowed less yards than any Coastal Division team.

Overall, team defense improved 97 spots over two years; the second biggest jump across all of Division I FBS. A look at advanced metrics from PFF shows the Eagles were also the most improved tackling defense from 2019 to 2021 and No. 2 most improved coverage defense.

More importantly, the team itself illustrated how razor thin the margin existed between winning and losing. BC finished 6-6 last year, but it possessed the second-best league defense in losses behind Clemson, which lost three games without surrendering a single 30-point performance to an opponent. The Eagles were one of three teams to average less than 30 points allowed in its losses, and the 168 points combined were 20 points less than the five losses absorbed one year earlier when the team lost one less game.

"Right now, the expectation is for us to get better at every position overall," said defensive line coach Vince Oghobaase. "We have to establish our foundation to strike, lock, shed, shake, and make sure we're doing things to put [every position] into a position to make plays. We have to make sure that we convert on passers and hold up in the running game to win our one-on-one battles. The past two seasons, everyone's had an eye on the prize, and [this year] had a really good training camp with guys that have been competing, working their tails off, and getting better every day."

Defensively, that's meant the continued installation of a more complex system than what people recognize from years past. Football itself never stopped evolving, but the innovations on both sides of the ball meant the entire scheme and approach to player positioning needed to change with it. In older days, a base 4-3 defense meant four defensive linemen rushed the passer with three linebackers either in pass or blitz coverage. Four defensive backs sprinkled into the mix, and the two corners covered wide receivers while safeties roamed freely either over the top or into their own coverage.

Positions possessed unique traits, and they didn't totally blend until innovations on both sides of the ball moved players into different positions. Fast, physical linebackers started moving towards the safety position and vice-versa, and go-fast offenses forced defensive linemen to play quicker off the ball. Running backs had to be better with their hands, and wide receivers had to block in space while offensive linemen had to be more than just tectonic plates moving forward if the situation called for it.

"It's a neat question," Lukabu said, "because, for example, the New England Patriots last year went back to smashmouth football with a fullback on the field because everyone went lighter and faster. It's a cat-and-mouse game of offense and defense, but that's what makes it fun. Whether it's a college program or an NFL franchise, you better have the ability to cover all your bases on a given week where you prepare for a spread or, if they decide to go smashmouth, you better have the capabilities to do that too."

Reading into those lines makes understanding BC's defensive turnaround easier to understand. It wasn't that the Eagles were bound to an outdated or older style, but this coaching staff found its initial success by identifying its own way to redefine the success the team enjoyed in 2017 and 2018. They saw the hard-nosed defense as a great baseline but put their own spin on it by employing techniques that leaked into other areas of the game. It wasn't a slight against any coach or any other system, but their system, personalized as it was, instantly became the hallmark of a team that lost its way in 2019.

"It's [due to] everybody," Hafley said. "It's about what coverages we're playing and if we're going to load the box or play with two safeties deep. We ask if we're going to pressure or not going to pressure, so I think it's a combination of everything. We mix up a bunch of things schematically and we have some stuff that's new. We're starting to use that a little bit more for those situations, and I think it's coaching and cleaning up all three levels from the line to the linebackers and to the secondary."

BC and Rutgers kick off the 2022 college football season next Saturday when the Scarlet Knights visit Alumni Stadium for a matchup of former Big East rivals. The game kicks off at noon with television coverage on ACC Network, and online streaming is available via the ESPN platform for cable subscribers with access to the channel.

Defensive Turnaround Integrated At Every Level

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