Boston College Athletics
Excitement Carries Eagles Into Camp
July 31, 2024 | Football, #ForBoston Files
It's finally here. Training camp - and the Bill O'Brien Era - is set to begin at Boston College.
Can you feel it?
It's training camp, and the final lead-up to the Eagles' September 2 season kickoff against Florida State is getting underway with the first workouts of a very different college season unlike anything in the sport's 150-plus year history. Six months after hiring the 37th head coach in program history, going through two more transfer portal period, spring ball and summer workouts, the 2024 Boston College football season is finally within reach. The vibrations of excitement can be felt throughout Alumni Stadium and are pouring out to the city and state's football-loving community..
"I love coaching the team," said Boston College head football coach Bill O'Brien. "I love working with the players. These guys show up on time, they buy into what we're trying to get done relative to offense, defense and special teams. I really like the staff. I've enjoyed working with the people at Boston College from [university president] Father Leahy to [Vice President for the Division of Mission and Ministry] Father Jack Butler to [Senior Associate Athletics Director] Reggie Terry to everybody involved on the outside of the program at the university. There's nothing that really surprised me. It's been a job that I love to come to work at, every single day."
Love and passion are staples of the Boston College football program, but O'Brien's mission requires the team to look beyond its ability to merely shoot arrows at the hearts and minds of its fans. This team carries the kind of expectations that end with a postseason victory at a neutral site location, and O'Brien's been more than happy to grab the ring as the key cupid to build that momentum on the path forward.
"It would say it added a new spark to this team, a new hunger," said defensive lineman Donovan Ezeiruaku. "Guys decided to stay instead of leaving. That just goes to show that guys are believing in what we have here, wanting to buy into what Coach Bill O'Brien has brought to the team, has brought to the new program, the new mentality, the new culture."
It doesn't mean that BC is intending to reinvent the wheel this season, but the fresh approach is required to succeed in the new Atlantic Coast Conference after the league swelled to 17 teams. The additions of two teams in California - ancient rivals Cal and Stanford - coincided with the decision to invite Texas-based Southern Methodist into a league originally based around North Carolina's Tobacco Road, and the process turned the ACC into the largest power conference in the football bowl subdivision.Â
The switch erased several protected rivalries that were introduced by last year's move to the one-division format, but BC retained matchups against Pitt and Syracuse that dated back to the original Big East. It avoided a trip to the west coast to visit either Cal or Stanford during this year's rotation, and the Eagles are only playing one game against a team that finished last season in the league's top four. They won't play Clemson, NC State, Louisville, Georgia Tech, or Duke, and three opponents - Syracuse, Virginia and Pitt - finished in the bottom four with the Cavaliers and Panthers missing bowl games altogether.
"I mean, we still got to go play 60 minutes, right?" said new Syracuse head coach Fran Brown. "These kids are young enough. I know when I was young, I went to the West Coast and I wasn't going to bed no matter what time it was on the East Coast, [so] we'll just go over there and have fun. We're excited to be able to go and play on the West Coast. We'll adapt as it comes, week-to-week. Mainly we're just going to worry about getting into camp right now, and we'll let that handle itself when it gets to us."
Handling the oncoming rush is part of the package in college football, but it'll be nice for coaches and players to avoid the conversation about realignment or the name, image and likeness monetary discussion for a couple of weeks. Months of debate permeated the offseason and stoked uncontrollable flames around a supposed demise for college football. After the ACC Kickoff event, the question box finally turns back towards how BC - and the other programs within the conference - intend to compete in their first game.
The Eagles won't need to determine their ability to retain players, though they largely proved that when nobody really transferred out of Chestnut Hill in the offseason, and they'll instead discuss quarterback Thomas Castellanos' ability to read and progress through his receivers. They'll discuss how the offensive line is gelling in front of incoming transfer running back Treshaun Ward, and they'll look at the receivers' ability to run routes designed for intelligent players who create options. The defense can talk about getting to the quarterback and stopping an offense built around new schools of thought, and everyone gets to continue learning new languages once taught by a coach who went into a room with the greatest to ever play the game.
"I've been fortunate," O'Brien admitted. "I've had the opportunity to work with a number of great coaches, [and] everybody obviously talks about Bill Belichick and Nick Saban, two of the greatest of all-time to ever do it. But I also worked for George O'Leary at Georgia Tech. Ralph Freidgen when I was at the University of Maryland. I've been fortunate to work with a lot of great players, some of the best players to ever play the game. I've learned a lot from them.
"What I try to do with these guys here at Boston College, I've already learned a lot from the guys," he said. "I try to impart some of my experiences, my wisdom - I've been doing this for 32 years - on these guys. Hopefully that's a role I can play on this team that can help this team get better every day because I've had a lot of great experiences. I've learned a lot. We're doing it in our own way at Boston College, but a lot of that has to do with what we learned over the course of my time, my staff and myself. These guys are doing a great job of trying to do what we're asking them to do."
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It's training camp, and the final lead-up to the Eagles' September 2 season kickoff against Florida State is getting underway with the first workouts of a very different college season unlike anything in the sport's 150-plus year history. Six months after hiring the 37th head coach in program history, going through two more transfer portal period, spring ball and summer workouts, the 2024 Boston College football season is finally within reach. The vibrations of excitement can be felt throughout Alumni Stadium and are pouring out to the city and state's football-loving community..
"I love coaching the team," said Boston College head football coach Bill O'Brien. "I love working with the players. These guys show up on time, they buy into what we're trying to get done relative to offense, defense and special teams. I really like the staff. I've enjoyed working with the people at Boston College from [university president] Father Leahy to [Vice President for the Division of Mission and Ministry] Father Jack Butler to [Senior Associate Athletics Director] Reggie Terry to everybody involved on the outside of the program at the university. There's nothing that really surprised me. It's been a job that I love to come to work at, every single day."
Love and passion are staples of the Boston College football program, but O'Brien's mission requires the team to look beyond its ability to merely shoot arrows at the hearts and minds of its fans. This team carries the kind of expectations that end with a postseason victory at a neutral site location, and O'Brien's been more than happy to grab the ring as the key cupid to build that momentum on the path forward.
"It would say it added a new spark to this team, a new hunger," said defensive lineman Donovan Ezeiruaku. "Guys decided to stay instead of leaving. That just goes to show that guys are believing in what we have here, wanting to buy into what Coach Bill O'Brien has brought to the team, has brought to the new program, the new mentality, the new culture."
It doesn't mean that BC is intending to reinvent the wheel this season, but the fresh approach is required to succeed in the new Atlantic Coast Conference after the league swelled to 17 teams. The additions of two teams in California - ancient rivals Cal and Stanford - coincided with the decision to invite Texas-based Southern Methodist into a league originally based around North Carolina's Tobacco Road, and the process turned the ACC into the largest power conference in the football bowl subdivision.Â
The switch erased several protected rivalries that were introduced by last year's move to the one-division format, but BC retained matchups against Pitt and Syracuse that dated back to the original Big East. It avoided a trip to the west coast to visit either Cal or Stanford during this year's rotation, and the Eagles are only playing one game against a team that finished last season in the league's top four. They won't play Clemson, NC State, Louisville, Georgia Tech, or Duke, and three opponents - Syracuse, Virginia and Pitt - finished in the bottom four with the Cavaliers and Panthers missing bowl games altogether.
"I mean, we still got to go play 60 minutes, right?" said new Syracuse head coach Fran Brown. "These kids are young enough. I know when I was young, I went to the West Coast and I wasn't going to bed no matter what time it was on the East Coast, [so] we'll just go over there and have fun. We're excited to be able to go and play on the West Coast. We'll adapt as it comes, week-to-week. Mainly we're just going to worry about getting into camp right now, and we'll let that handle itself when it gets to us."
Handling the oncoming rush is part of the package in college football, but it'll be nice for coaches and players to avoid the conversation about realignment or the name, image and likeness monetary discussion for a couple of weeks. Months of debate permeated the offseason and stoked uncontrollable flames around a supposed demise for college football. After the ACC Kickoff event, the question box finally turns back towards how BC - and the other programs within the conference - intend to compete in their first game.
The Eagles won't need to determine their ability to retain players, though they largely proved that when nobody really transferred out of Chestnut Hill in the offseason, and they'll instead discuss quarterback Thomas Castellanos' ability to read and progress through his receivers. They'll discuss how the offensive line is gelling in front of incoming transfer running back Treshaun Ward, and they'll look at the receivers' ability to run routes designed for intelligent players who create options. The defense can talk about getting to the quarterback and stopping an offense built around new schools of thought, and everyone gets to continue learning new languages once taught by a coach who went into a room with the greatest to ever play the game.
"I've been fortunate," O'Brien admitted. "I've had the opportunity to work with a number of great coaches, [and] everybody obviously talks about Bill Belichick and Nick Saban, two of the greatest of all-time to ever do it. But I also worked for George O'Leary at Georgia Tech. Ralph Freidgen when I was at the University of Maryland. I've been fortunate to work with a lot of great players, some of the best players to ever play the game. I've learned a lot from them.
"What I try to do with these guys here at Boston College, I've already learned a lot from the guys," he said. "I try to impart some of my experiences, my wisdom - I've been doing this for 32 years - on these guys. Hopefully that's a role I can play on this team that can help this team get better every day because I've had a lot of great experiences. I've learned a lot. We're doing it in our own way at Boston College, but a lot of that has to do with what we learned over the course of my time, my staff and myself. These guys are doing a great job of trying to do what we're asking them to do."
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