Boston College Athletics
New Faces Gelling As Saturday Draws Closer
August 30, 2022 | Football, #ForBoston Files
The coaching staff has new names and new perspectives in 2022.
Turnover is an integral part of the college sports experience. The very nature of going to college is based around rotating students in and out through a timeline that starts at orientation and ends at commencement, so college sports are likewise thrown into the revolving gears that take in young people and produce adults ready to contribute to the world around them.
That wheel makes it impossible to keep teams together, but the fact isn't limited to just rosters, depth charts and players. A coaching staff is equally as difficult to keep intact, owing to personal situations that change year-over-year, and this year marks the first time in Jeff Hafley's tenure at Boston College that his staff experienced turnover following the installation of four new assistants on the offensive side of the ball: offensive coordinator John McNulty, offensive line coach Dave DeGuglielmo, running backs coach Savon Huggins, and wide receivers coach Darrell Wyatt.
"It comes with the territory," said defensive coordinator Tem Lukabu. "The days where a staff is going to be together for 15 years is just not realistic. We've done well here, especially on defense, but you have to understand that it's the way the cookie crumbles in football. For me, it's exciting because I get to work with John for a third time. I was with him at Rutgers and again in Tampa, and he's a guy that I grew very close with. He's a mentor for me when I was coming into the business, and he was the offensive play caller at Rutgers."
McNulty's resume included two stints as the offensive coordinator with the Scarlet Knights, but his reputation extended well into the NFL after he worked with franchises throughout their different eras. His first stint in New Jersey ended when he joined the Arizona Cardinals in 2009, and he was part of a staff that won the NFC West for its second straight year, one year after it appeared in the Super Bowl.Â
Prior to that, he was part of a 10-win Dallas Cowboys team in 2003 under Bill Parcells before making his way to the Rutgers staff, and he concluded his time with the Cardinals by joining Greg Schiano in Tampa Bay in 2013 on a staff featuring both Hafley and Lukabu, as well as former Pittsburgh Steelers and Pitt Panthers head coach Dave Wannstedt. In 2018, he returned to college, and after 2020 and 2021 as the tight ends coach at Notre Dame, Hafley hired him as the team's new offensive coordinator.
"John and I coached together in Tampa," Hafley said, "so I knew about him as a person, which was really important to me. We have great kids here, and I wanted people to be around them. When I looked at coaches, I had to bring in good people with good backgrounds to align to what we need right now, and he's a great coach."
Personal relationships played a huge role in Hafley's decision-making as he made his first turnover hires in Chestnut Hill. It was a situation he missed in 2021 after other programs saw what took place at BC during that first year, but it was unavoidable during this offseason after NFL franchises hired offensive line coach Matt Applebaum and wide receivers coach Joe Dailey and running backs coach Rich Gunnell, a BC legend, moved to Holy Cross in a return to coaching receivers.
In their place arrived DeGuglielmo and Wyatt, while Huggins received a promotion after spending last season as a recruiting coordinator. All three possessed very different resumes, but the flavors brought to each group made for a new and unique experience within the coaching room.
DeGuglielmo, for example, is a Massachusetts native who won a Super Bowl with the New England Patriots after taking over for a legend in Dante Scarnecchia, but his resume is well-traveled throughout both the NFL and college ranks. He had never coached with Hafley but worked with McNulty when both were part of the Chargers organization.
"When I was at Albany between 2001-2005, he was with the New York Giants," Hafley said, "and as a young coach, I tried to sneak into the Giants meetings. I'd peek my head around a corner and watch those guys coach. Then I just followed him through to the New England Patriots, but he and John have known each other for years."
Wyatt, meanwhile, took a different route by navigating the collegiate waters of his native southern landscape. He helped Central Florida bust the College Football Playoff conversation as a position coach for the undefeated Golden Knights, and he helped produce All-American status for both Gabriel Davis and Marlon Williams in his first three seasons. After Josh Heupel left for Tennessee, Wyatt stayed in Orlando to coach with Gus Malzahn before being lured to the Northeast for the first time in his coaching career.
"Darryl was recommended to me by a lot of people," Hafley said, "and we talked a lot before I made the decision to hire him. What [he] has done in the short time with receivers is really impressive. And don't let me tell you, I let the players tell [others]. [Everyone] would be really impressed with what they have to say about him."
"Having never coached in the Northeast was a challenge for me," Wyatt said. "I've been most places in the country, but I'm a guy that likes a challenge. I was really motivated by it, and it's been great just to see the history and culture. That's been really fun…You're going to face hard, tough kids that are really going to play. You're going to get their best shot every time.
"Just getting to know how things work here, every day, there are things that I'm learning that might have been taken for granted," he laughed. "The traffic's different. The stoplights, no red turn, those kind of things have been the most interesting for me, because what I mean is that when I can get on the grass and get into a meeting with the kids, the kids are still kids."
Wyatt is a very different person from the loud, bombastic DeGuglielmo, and both employ different methods than Huggins, the New Jersey outsider who played for Rutgers but assimilated into New England with a brief stint at UMass. A three-year back for the Scarlet Knights, he helped steward the program out of the Big East, and his senior year marked the program's first foray into the Big Ten after the brief stopover in the newly-formed, breakaway American Athletic Conference.Â
He didn't play that last year but finished his career with 842 rushing yards and nine touchdowns while appearing in a bowl game each season, and his arrival at BC came as a recruiting advisor during the 2021 season. Following the season, Huggins, a fast-rising star, was given the opportunity to slide into the vacant running backs role on the BC staff.
"Coach Huggins is intelligent and knows football," running back Alec Sinkfield said, "but I think what he brings to the room is how he played running back. He knows certain things and tips that can help us, as running backs, get into a gap or get to the backside gap. [His style] is helping both the older guys and younger guys pick everything up so fast. I think he's a great coach.
"He's probably the best I've had in my whole college career," he joked, "and I've had seven different coaches."
Changeover and turnover are necessities in the coaching industry, but managing it properly can rocket a team into a new stratosphere. New coaches often have to unwind or merge their thoughts and explanations into players who are used to hearing things presented a certain way, but the new direction offers new education and perspective. For a football player, even the smartest athletes utilize newfound knowledge to their benefit, and being allowed to flourish is beneficial for everyone, a fact Hafley both welcomed and acknowledged.
"I've been around coaching staff where guys had other agendas," Hafley said. "Those guys are behind closed doors saying certain things or out in the locker saying their thing or selling their own thing. I never want and don't want that. We don't talk behind closed doors because we all have to go in the same direction. That's why I let them coach. If they aren't doing the job, then I'll call them, and we'll talk about it. But [the goal is] get better. Those are two things that as an assistant I learned, and I thought that if I were ever going to be a head coach, that's how I wanted to fill [positions]."
Boston College and Rutgers kick off the 2022 college football regular season on Saturday from Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. The former Big East rivals start at 12 p.m. with television coverage available through the ACC Network and online streaming via ESPN's platform for subscribers with access to the channel.
That wheel makes it impossible to keep teams together, but the fact isn't limited to just rosters, depth charts and players. A coaching staff is equally as difficult to keep intact, owing to personal situations that change year-over-year, and this year marks the first time in Jeff Hafley's tenure at Boston College that his staff experienced turnover following the installation of four new assistants on the offensive side of the ball: offensive coordinator John McNulty, offensive line coach Dave DeGuglielmo, running backs coach Savon Huggins, and wide receivers coach Darrell Wyatt.
"It comes with the territory," said defensive coordinator Tem Lukabu. "The days where a staff is going to be together for 15 years is just not realistic. We've done well here, especially on defense, but you have to understand that it's the way the cookie crumbles in football. For me, it's exciting because I get to work with John for a third time. I was with him at Rutgers and again in Tampa, and he's a guy that I grew very close with. He's a mentor for me when I was coming into the business, and he was the offensive play caller at Rutgers."
McNulty's resume included two stints as the offensive coordinator with the Scarlet Knights, but his reputation extended well into the NFL after he worked with franchises throughout their different eras. His first stint in New Jersey ended when he joined the Arizona Cardinals in 2009, and he was part of a staff that won the NFC West for its second straight year, one year after it appeared in the Super Bowl.Â
Prior to that, he was part of a 10-win Dallas Cowboys team in 2003 under Bill Parcells before making his way to the Rutgers staff, and he concluded his time with the Cardinals by joining Greg Schiano in Tampa Bay in 2013 on a staff featuring both Hafley and Lukabu, as well as former Pittsburgh Steelers and Pitt Panthers head coach Dave Wannstedt. In 2018, he returned to college, and after 2020 and 2021 as the tight ends coach at Notre Dame, Hafley hired him as the team's new offensive coordinator.
"John and I coached together in Tampa," Hafley said, "so I knew about him as a person, which was really important to me. We have great kids here, and I wanted people to be around them. When I looked at coaches, I had to bring in good people with good backgrounds to align to what we need right now, and he's a great coach."
Personal relationships played a huge role in Hafley's decision-making as he made his first turnover hires in Chestnut Hill. It was a situation he missed in 2021 after other programs saw what took place at BC during that first year, but it was unavoidable during this offseason after NFL franchises hired offensive line coach Matt Applebaum and wide receivers coach Joe Dailey and running backs coach Rich Gunnell, a BC legend, moved to Holy Cross in a return to coaching receivers.
In their place arrived DeGuglielmo and Wyatt, while Huggins received a promotion after spending last season as a recruiting coordinator. All three possessed very different resumes, but the flavors brought to each group made for a new and unique experience within the coaching room.
DeGuglielmo, for example, is a Massachusetts native who won a Super Bowl with the New England Patriots after taking over for a legend in Dante Scarnecchia, but his resume is well-traveled throughout both the NFL and college ranks. He had never coached with Hafley but worked with McNulty when both were part of the Chargers organization.
"When I was at Albany between 2001-2005, he was with the New York Giants," Hafley said, "and as a young coach, I tried to sneak into the Giants meetings. I'd peek my head around a corner and watch those guys coach. Then I just followed him through to the New England Patriots, but he and John have known each other for years."
Wyatt, meanwhile, took a different route by navigating the collegiate waters of his native southern landscape. He helped Central Florida bust the College Football Playoff conversation as a position coach for the undefeated Golden Knights, and he helped produce All-American status for both Gabriel Davis and Marlon Williams in his first three seasons. After Josh Heupel left for Tennessee, Wyatt stayed in Orlando to coach with Gus Malzahn before being lured to the Northeast for the first time in his coaching career.
"Darryl was recommended to me by a lot of people," Hafley said, "and we talked a lot before I made the decision to hire him. What [he] has done in the short time with receivers is really impressive. And don't let me tell you, I let the players tell [others]. [Everyone] would be really impressed with what they have to say about him."
"Having never coached in the Northeast was a challenge for me," Wyatt said. "I've been most places in the country, but I'm a guy that likes a challenge. I was really motivated by it, and it's been great just to see the history and culture. That's been really fun…You're going to face hard, tough kids that are really going to play. You're going to get their best shot every time.
"Just getting to know how things work here, every day, there are things that I'm learning that might have been taken for granted," he laughed. "The traffic's different. The stoplights, no red turn, those kind of things have been the most interesting for me, because what I mean is that when I can get on the grass and get into a meeting with the kids, the kids are still kids."
Wyatt is a very different person from the loud, bombastic DeGuglielmo, and both employ different methods than Huggins, the New Jersey outsider who played for Rutgers but assimilated into New England with a brief stint at UMass. A three-year back for the Scarlet Knights, he helped steward the program out of the Big East, and his senior year marked the program's first foray into the Big Ten after the brief stopover in the newly-formed, breakaway American Athletic Conference.Â
He didn't play that last year but finished his career with 842 rushing yards and nine touchdowns while appearing in a bowl game each season, and his arrival at BC came as a recruiting advisor during the 2021 season. Following the season, Huggins, a fast-rising star, was given the opportunity to slide into the vacant running backs role on the BC staff.
"Coach Huggins is intelligent and knows football," running back Alec Sinkfield said, "but I think what he brings to the room is how he played running back. He knows certain things and tips that can help us, as running backs, get into a gap or get to the backside gap. [His style] is helping both the older guys and younger guys pick everything up so fast. I think he's a great coach.
"He's probably the best I've had in my whole college career," he joked, "and I've had seven different coaches."
Changeover and turnover are necessities in the coaching industry, but managing it properly can rocket a team into a new stratosphere. New coaches often have to unwind or merge their thoughts and explanations into players who are used to hearing things presented a certain way, but the new direction offers new education and perspective. For a football player, even the smartest athletes utilize newfound knowledge to their benefit, and being allowed to flourish is beneficial for everyone, a fact Hafley both welcomed and acknowledged.
"I've been around coaching staff where guys had other agendas," Hafley said. "Those guys are behind closed doors saying certain things or out in the locker saying their thing or selling their own thing. I never want and don't want that. We don't talk behind closed doors because we all have to go in the same direction. That's why I let them coach. If they aren't doing the job, then I'll call them, and we'll talk about it. But [the goal is] get better. Those are two things that as an assistant I learned, and I thought that if I were ever going to be a head coach, that's how I wanted to fill [positions]."
Boston College and Rutgers kick off the 2022 college football regular season on Saturday from Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. The former Big East rivals start at 12 p.m. with television coverage available through the ACC Network and online streaming via ESPN's platform for subscribers with access to the channel.
Players Mentioned
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