Photo by: Joe Sullivan
BC Football Rewind: Reliving Last Thursday's Press Conference
February 20, 2024 | Football, #ForBoston Files
It was the first time Bill O'Brien met the media as head coach of the Boston College Eagles.
The key moment of Bill O'Brien's introductory press conference passed through the Yawkey Center's Barber Room last week without anybody noticing. The new head coach of the Boston College football program read through his prepared remarks before taking questions from the amassed media, but nobody in the overflow crowd lining the seats and stairways blinked twice when he delivered an off-the-cuff comment nobody seemed to notice. This was the former head coach of an NFL franchise and the former offensive coordinator of the New England Patriots, but no physical acknowledgment of his credentials hit home quite like the improvised comment that drove it all home.
O'Brien was talking about his expectations for the Boston College football program, and as he looked around the room, his words echoed with an unmistakable and unforgettable call-back to Bill Belichick, the legendary head coach with six Super Bowl championships and over 300 wins, who most recently served as O'Brien's boss and mentor.
"We will not be out-competed," he said. "We'll be a tough, smart, physical football team. We will be a good situational team. And we'll be a team that plays complimentary football in all three phases."
That statement about situational football and that comment about complimentary football - about "all three phases" - might have well been spoken by Belichick himself. In that moment, the head coach was still the man hired to crack the Eagles' glass ceiling, but the subtle comment reminded everyone that he was also the coach who once worked with Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Randy Moss and some of the best offensive players who ever walked the planet.
"When we got the news from [former head coach Jeff Hafley] that he was going to take the defensive coordinator position with the Green Bay Packers, I quickly put together a team that identified individuals that would be a fit for us here at Boston College," said director of athletics Blake James. "We interviewed college head coaches, coordinators, and assistant coaches, and we interviewed coaches from the NFL. We talked to our players, and our players gave us the input that they wanted a winner. They wanted someone who is passionate, and they wanted someone who would motivate them."
O'Brien's place in front of the Barber Family Auditorium last Thursday wasn't a foregone conclusion before he emerged from the pool of candidates, but he won the position by blending his passion for football with a childhood love for Boston College. He quickly professed how the maroon and gold ran through his bloodline beyond even his wife's college diploma, and the timing landed perfectly for the opportunity to continue building the next phase of a skyrocketing program.
He hadn't initially planned on looking at the BC job, but support from his family and Ohio State head coach Ryan Day, himself a former offensive coordinator with the Eagles, sent him travelling between Columbus and Chestnut Hill. As he continued interviewing, he began seeing the vision for what he wanted in Boston College at every level of the program's fabric and fiber.
"The vision is what I've said," O'Brien said. "This will be a team that will play smart and will be tough. A physical team that does the simple things, we have to be the team that wins the penalty battle and wins the turnover battle. We have to play situational football, and this is a place that I really believe needs to embrace what Boston College is all about."
In an era of the transfer portal and the NIL, that means BC has to continue operating like the special unicorn program that well-established its reputation. For decades, Boston College offered the hybrid program that allowed student-athletes to enter a world-class university based on their athletic prowess. The Eagles developed future first round NFL draft picks while churning out college graduates, and not even the transfer portal or NIL changed much for that team's overall reputation.
Embracing that doesn't mean BC won't operate in the NIL space, and operating in the NIL space won't mean the Eagles abandon their own perspective or objective of building service-based men and women. O'Brien understood that, and even in the current roster, he saw an opportunity to continue embracing both ends to create a new experience that isn't typically found in the college football universe.
"If you want to come here, we're in the middle of an unbelievable campus," he said. "It's in the middle of the greatest city in the world. We need to sell that to guys who have come in, and quite obviously, it's one of the best educations that you can receive in this world. That's the vision, and I promise that we'll show up every Saturday to try and upgrade that vision."
Last Thursday offered the first true step of Bill O'Brien's future as the Boston College football coach. His appearance at a hockey game followed a mid-afternoon announcement of his hire but felt rushed compared to the rest of his proverbial car wash. A week passed between the announcement and his first press conference, and time stood interminably as basketball and hockey season raged.
Finally seeing him in the room was both awesome and intimidating, and it opened the gates to the next phase of BC's 2024 football season. The process of assembling coaches had already started, but the excitement felt like that was the first supernova.
"What I promise is that we will field a very, very competitive football team with a bunch of guys that are tough," O'Brien said. "I want to carry on the tradition of guys that players tough, tough football here. I'm not a predictor. I'm not a genius. I'm just [saying] that we will show up every Saturday and play to the best of our ability."
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O'Brien was talking about his expectations for the Boston College football program, and as he looked around the room, his words echoed with an unmistakable and unforgettable call-back to Bill Belichick, the legendary head coach with six Super Bowl championships and over 300 wins, who most recently served as O'Brien's boss and mentor.
"We will not be out-competed," he said. "We'll be a tough, smart, physical football team. We will be a good situational team. And we'll be a team that plays complimentary football in all three phases."
That statement about situational football and that comment about complimentary football - about "all three phases" - might have well been spoken by Belichick himself. In that moment, the head coach was still the man hired to crack the Eagles' glass ceiling, but the subtle comment reminded everyone that he was also the coach who once worked with Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Randy Moss and some of the best offensive players who ever walked the planet.
"When we got the news from [former head coach Jeff Hafley] that he was going to take the defensive coordinator position with the Green Bay Packers, I quickly put together a team that identified individuals that would be a fit for us here at Boston College," said director of athletics Blake James. "We interviewed college head coaches, coordinators, and assistant coaches, and we interviewed coaches from the NFL. We talked to our players, and our players gave us the input that they wanted a winner. They wanted someone who is passionate, and they wanted someone who would motivate them."
O'Brien's place in front of the Barber Family Auditorium last Thursday wasn't a foregone conclusion before he emerged from the pool of candidates, but he won the position by blending his passion for football with a childhood love for Boston College. He quickly professed how the maroon and gold ran through his bloodline beyond even his wife's college diploma, and the timing landed perfectly for the opportunity to continue building the next phase of a skyrocketing program.
He hadn't initially planned on looking at the BC job, but support from his family and Ohio State head coach Ryan Day, himself a former offensive coordinator with the Eagles, sent him travelling between Columbus and Chestnut Hill. As he continued interviewing, he began seeing the vision for what he wanted in Boston College at every level of the program's fabric and fiber.
"The vision is what I've said," O'Brien said. "This will be a team that will play smart and will be tough. A physical team that does the simple things, we have to be the team that wins the penalty battle and wins the turnover battle. We have to play situational football, and this is a place that I really believe needs to embrace what Boston College is all about."
In an era of the transfer portal and the NIL, that means BC has to continue operating like the special unicorn program that well-established its reputation. For decades, Boston College offered the hybrid program that allowed student-athletes to enter a world-class university based on their athletic prowess. The Eagles developed future first round NFL draft picks while churning out college graduates, and not even the transfer portal or NIL changed much for that team's overall reputation.
Embracing that doesn't mean BC won't operate in the NIL space, and operating in the NIL space won't mean the Eagles abandon their own perspective or objective of building service-based men and women. O'Brien understood that, and even in the current roster, he saw an opportunity to continue embracing both ends to create a new experience that isn't typically found in the college football universe.
"If you want to come here, we're in the middle of an unbelievable campus," he said. "It's in the middle of the greatest city in the world. We need to sell that to guys who have come in, and quite obviously, it's one of the best educations that you can receive in this world. That's the vision, and I promise that we'll show up every Saturday to try and upgrade that vision."
Last Thursday offered the first true step of Bill O'Brien's future as the Boston College football coach. His appearance at a hockey game followed a mid-afternoon announcement of his hire but felt rushed compared to the rest of his proverbial car wash. A week passed between the announcement and his first press conference, and time stood interminably as basketball and hockey season raged.
Finally seeing him in the room was both awesome and intimidating, and it opened the gates to the next phase of BC's 2024 football season. The process of assembling coaches had already started, but the excitement felt like that was the first supernova.
"What I promise is that we will field a very, very competitive football team with a bunch of guys that are tough," O'Brien said. "I want to carry on the tradition of guys that players tough, tough football here. I'm not a predictor. I'm not a genius. I'm just [saying] that we will show up every Saturday and play to the best of our ability."
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