Boston College Athletics
November 05, 2023 | Football, #ForBoston Files
Jeff Hafley never stopped believing in a team that's bowl bound with plenty left on its plate.
Jeff Hafley never stopped believing in Boston College football.
He knew improvements were needed after the loss to Northern Illinois, but he understood how the Eagles could make incremental adjustments to align behind a full-time starting quarterback.Â
He needed to fix the undue and disappointing personal fouls from the Holy Cross win, but he believed in the internal swagger and confidence of the team's emerging identity.Â
He watched his offensive line undergo communication issues against Florida State, but he believed in the ongoing development of the unit's different, more rugged style.
He saw his defense surrender chunk plays against Louisville but never stopped believing in the ability to get to a quarterback or to intercept passes.Â
He watched wins begin to pile up, but he believed the team needed reality checks to continue improving on a daily basis.
He believed BC would eventually emerge from the parity in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and on Friday night, Jeff Hafley's never-wavering belief in Boston College football produced a 17-10 win over Syracuse that clinched a postseason bowl game with a direct path to the conference championship game still remaining over the final four weeks.
"Congratulations to our team," Hafley said after the win. "We find a way to win [games], and that's how it is. I don't care how we win. I don't care what it looks like. That's five in a row, we're 6-3, and we're bowl eligible. Our guys felt kind of disrespected after being picked to lose this game after four wins for us and four [straight] losses for them…We were 1-3 and people wanted to say everything, but we didn't listen. Then that 1-3 turned into 6-3, and it's from nothing from hard work and guys that love each other."
Clinching postseason games feels like a foregone conclusion in an era where 114 teams play 57 different bowls, but Friday's win exorcized a number of demons from the past five years. Erasing last year's ineligibility very obviously stood as the biggest part, but the post-Covid era all but assures BC's first official postseason game since the 2019 Birmingham Bowl that resulted in a blowout loss to Cincinnati amidst the coaching change that produced Hafley's arrival in Chestnut Hill.
It was the only game on record for a program that had been either mathematically eligible or outright invited to games in 2018, 2020 and 2021, but the running joke in Chestnut Hill laughed off the calamities canceling the neutral site visits to the First Responder Bowl, which kicked off with a 7-3 lead against Boise State before a Texas-sized lightning storm canceled the game, and the Military Bowl, which never started after BC contracted COVID-19.
The Eagles opted out of a game in between those matchups after going 6-5 in 2020, but the lingering memory of missing two games due to some form of the coronavirus pandemic fell on the shoulders of this year's team after last season's three-win disappointment. There were elevated expectations that converted to fuming frustration during the 1-3 overall start, but even those bubbled over and dissipated thanks to a winning streak that extended to five games on Friday night with a team that never felt satisfied with its performance.
"We believed that we could do [anything]," quarterback Thomas Castellanos said. "We just had to do it. It wasn't pretty [on Friday], but a win is a win. We have a lot of things to work on, and obviously [everyone] sees that, but we will work on it and fix it."
It's now acceptable to openly talk about a postseason destination, and plenty of chips remain on the table for a team with a 3-2 conference record with four games remaining. BC exited Friday night with a half-game deficit to Virginia Tech prior to the Hokies' game against Louisville on Saturday afternoon, and both had to make up space to the 4-1 overall Cardinals that previously defeated the Eagles. Three other teams, including Georgia Tech, which lost to BC, were part of the 3-2 overall teams with BC, and Miami and NC State entered Saturday with 2-2 records and the most conference games in hand.
BC was the sixth team from that group to clinch a bowl game, and every week now changes and alters the bowl positioning for a conference that largely did away with its structure and alignment for particular games, The Orange Bowl remains an option for the league champion or the next-highest ACC team if the conference champion is selected for the College Football Playoff's Rose Bowl or Sugar Bowl (Florida State is in one of those spots in the CFP rankings), but the remaining 11 games are open slots after the New Year's Six games available in the Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl, or Fiesta Bowl.
None of them have a particular alignment like the days when the third place slotted into a particular game, but the destinations could send the Eagles anywhere from a Fenway Bowl appearance in Boston to the Pinstripe Bowl in New York City to games on the west coast at the Holiday Bowl in San Diego. Owing to the conference's change in alignment over the past few years, several of the games are different from what fans and analysts might remember from the pre-Covid era.
"There is just an unwavering belief in each other as we've grown, and we're playing really good football right now," Castellanos said. "There is still a lot of stuff to clean up and fix, and we haven't played our best ball yet. There's room for improvement, but the team has obviously grown together, and we've been closer and closer and the confidence and belief in each other that we have [helps us] do our jobs."
It's unclear where BC would end up if it wins or loses a certain number of games, but the bowl destination is irrelevant because the Eagles still have a legitimate chance to qualify for the ACC Championship after Florida State's pack-leading, 6-0 conference record. The schedule itself is rife with key matchups among the aforementioned group of teams, and while the Louisville-Virginia Tech game loomed largest on Saturday, Duke's win over Wake Forest on Thursday night kept the Blue Devils on pace with BC while Miami prepared for a game at NC State on Saturday night.
Georgia Tech lost to BC, but the Yellow Jackets' game at Virginia on Saturday intensified the mini-round robin between teams in the mix before next week's matchup with Clemson or Miami's road game against the Seminoles. NC State is on the road as well, but the Duke-UNC and Virginia Tech-BC games hold wild implications for a final run that includes the Eagles after they vindicated their coach and validated a season that started slow before collecting a colossal head of steam.
"[Getting to a postseason] game is always a goal," Hafley said. "We have to get to a bowl game, and now we're going to a bowl game. But now to get to November after going undefeated in October, November is November. 'The Path' is still alive in November, and we can't wait to get back and play at home."
He knew improvements were needed after the loss to Northern Illinois, but he understood how the Eagles could make incremental adjustments to align behind a full-time starting quarterback.Â
He needed to fix the undue and disappointing personal fouls from the Holy Cross win, but he believed in the internal swagger and confidence of the team's emerging identity.Â
He watched his offensive line undergo communication issues against Florida State, but he believed in the ongoing development of the unit's different, more rugged style.
He saw his defense surrender chunk plays against Louisville but never stopped believing in the ability to get to a quarterback or to intercept passes.Â
He watched wins begin to pile up, but he believed the team needed reality checks to continue improving on a daily basis.
He believed BC would eventually emerge from the parity in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and on Friday night, Jeff Hafley's never-wavering belief in Boston College football produced a 17-10 win over Syracuse that clinched a postseason bowl game with a direct path to the conference championship game still remaining over the final four weeks.
"Congratulations to our team," Hafley said after the win. "We find a way to win [games], and that's how it is. I don't care how we win. I don't care what it looks like. That's five in a row, we're 6-3, and we're bowl eligible. Our guys felt kind of disrespected after being picked to lose this game after four wins for us and four [straight] losses for them…We were 1-3 and people wanted to say everything, but we didn't listen. Then that 1-3 turned into 6-3, and it's from nothing from hard work and guys that love each other."
Clinching postseason games feels like a foregone conclusion in an era where 114 teams play 57 different bowls, but Friday's win exorcized a number of demons from the past five years. Erasing last year's ineligibility very obviously stood as the biggest part, but the post-Covid era all but assures BC's first official postseason game since the 2019 Birmingham Bowl that resulted in a blowout loss to Cincinnati amidst the coaching change that produced Hafley's arrival in Chestnut Hill.
It was the only game on record for a program that had been either mathematically eligible or outright invited to games in 2018, 2020 and 2021, but the running joke in Chestnut Hill laughed off the calamities canceling the neutral site visits to the First Responder Bowl, which kicked off with a 7-3 lead against Boise State before a Texas-sized lightning storm canceled the game, and the Military Bowl, which never started after BC contracted COVID-19.
The Eagles opted out of a game in between those matchups after going 6-5 in 2020, but the lingering memory of missing two games due to some form of the coronavirus pandemic fell on the shoulders of this year's team after last season's three-win disappointment. There were elevated expectations that converted to fuming frustration during the 1-3 overall start, but even those bubbled over and dissipated thanks to a winning streak that extended to five games on Friday night with a team that never felt satisfied with its performance.
"We believed that we could do [anything]," quarterback Thomas Castellanos said. "We just had to do it. It wasn't pretty [on Friday], but a win is a win. We have a lot of things to work on, and obviously [everyone] sees that, but we will work on it and fix it."
It's now acceptable to openly talk about a postseason destination, and plenty of chips remain on the table for a team with a 3-2 conference record with four games remaining. BC exited Friday night with a half-game deficit to Virginia Tech prior to the Hokies' game against Louisville on Saturday afternoon, and both had to make up space to the 4-1 overall Cardinals that previously defeated the Eagles. Three other teams, including Georgia Tech, which lost to BC, were part of the 3-2 overall teams with BC, and Miami and NC State entered Saturday with 2-2 records and the most conference games in hand.
BC was the sixth team from that group to clinch a bowl game, and every week now changes and alters the bowl positioning for a conference that largely did away with its structure and alignment for particular games, The Orange Bowl remains an option for the league champion or the next-highest ACC team if the conference champion is selected for the College Football Playoff's Rose Bowl or Sugar Bowl (Florida State is in one of those spots in the CFP rankings), but the remaining 11 games are open slots after the New Year's Six games available in the Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl, or Fiesta Bowl.
None of them have a particular alignment like the days when the third place slotted into a particular game, but the destinations could send the Eagles anywhere from a Fenway Bowl appearance in Boston to the Pinstripe Bowl in New York City to games on the west coast at the Holiday Bowl in San Diego. Owing to the conference's change in alignment over the past few years, several of the games are different from what fans and analysts might remember from the pre-Covid era.
"There is just an unwavering belief in each other as we've grown, and we're playing really good football right now," Castellanos said. "There is still a lot of stuff to clean up and fix, and we haven't played our best ball yet. There's room for improvement, but the team has obviously grown together, and we've been closer and closer and the confidence and belief in each other that we have [helps us] do our jobs."
It's unclear where BC would end up if it wins or loses a certain number of games, but the bowl destination is irrelevant because the Eagles still have a legitimate chance to qualify for the ACC Championship after Florida State's pack-leading, 6-0 conference record. The schedule itself is rife with key matchups among the aforementioned group of teams, and while the Louisville-Virginia Tech game loomed largest on Saturday, Duke's win over Wake Forest on Thursday night kept the Blue Devils on pace with BC while Miami prepared for a game at NC State on Saturday night.
Georgia Tech lost to BC, but the Yellow Jackets' game at Virginia on Saturday intensified the mini-round robin between teams in the mix before next week's matchup with Clemson or Miami's road game against the Seminoles. NC State is on the road as well, but the Duke-UNC and Virginia Tech-BC games hold wild implications for a final run that includes the Eagles after they vindicated their coach and validated a season that started slow before collecting a colossal head of steam.
"[Getting to a postseason] game is always a goal," Hafley said. "We have to get to a bowl game, and now we're going to a bowl game. But now to get to November after going undefeated in October, November is November. 'The Path' is still alive in November, and we can't wait to get back and play at home."
Players Mentioned
QB
/ FootballSunday, October 25
Sunday, October 25
Saturday, October 24
Saturday, October 24
