Boston College Athletics
Photo by: Joe Sullivan
Bringing The Curtain Down On Successful, Transitional 2024
January 06, 2025 | Football, #ForBoston Files
The crazy move into the O'Brien Era ended with respect and admiration.
Joe Marinaro limped back to the sidelines as a battered warrior at the tail end of the fourth quarter of the 2024 Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl. His Boston College Eagles trailed Nebraska by an insurmountable 20-2 margin, but the former walk-on refused to leave the field for more than a single play as the wet and cold soaked into his uniform. Rest, it appeared, was only going to happen when his offense was on the field.
That offense likewise bore the brunt of the three-hour battle on the soggy and torn-up Yankee Stadium turf. Running back Kye Robichaux was banged up after taking a healthy hit to the padding on his back, and center Drew Kendall earlier departed down the visiting team clubhouse dugout steps after attempting to play through his own novel injury.
The Eagles were slowly getting worn down, but each upperclass player refused to walk quietly into the New York City afternoon. They never stopped believing in their team, not with time on the clock, and after BC nearly toppled Nebraska with a frenetic fourth quarter comeback, head coach Bill O'Brien acknowledged the importance of the players who left their imprint on a program that'll unquestionably reap the rewards from their sacrifices and examples.
"I thought those guys fought," said O'Brien in an emotional moment during his postgame remarks. "I've got a lot of respect for this football team. I think we have a bright future at Boston College. [The bowl game] didn't go the way we wanted it to go, but it could've have gotten really ugly. Nebraska did a good job, but our guys hung in there. They fought, and I have nothing but good things [to say]. I'm very proud of our effort."
O'Brien's first season started with nothing short of a bizarre reentry to the head coaching ranks. He hadn't prowled the sidelines since leaving the Houston Texans during the NFL's COVID-19 season in 2020, but his name often resurfaced as a potential candidate for an open position at both the collegiate and professional levels after he replaced Steve Sarkisian as Alabama's offensive coordinator.Â
That Sarkisian had replaced Lane Kiffin after Kiffin left Tuscaloosa to become the head coach at Florida Atlantic only added to the mystique around that particular role, but O'Brien's reputation was entrenched by his ability to develop Bryce Young into a Heisman Trophy winner after previously turning Matt McGloin into a 3,000-yard passer while recruiting Christian Hackenberg to State College. He'd won in the NFL with Ryan Fitzpatrick, Brian Hoyer and Brock Osweiler before turning Deshaun Watson into a two-year juggernaut in the AFC South, and after working with Young, he'd returned to the New England Patriots after the disastrous decision to replace offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels with the Joe Judge/Matt Patricia pairing led to a regression in second-year quarterback Mac Jones.
None of that led directly to a coaching position with Boston College, which had built its way to a seven-win bowl champion under a defensive guru in Jeff Hafley, but the turn of events at the start of the 2024 calendar year spiraled into the perfect storm after Hafley returned to the NFL as Green Bay's defensive coordinator. A coaching change in New England for the first time in two decades led to Bill Belichick's departure and more directly led to O'Brien becoming the offensive coordinator at Ohio State, where former BC offensive coordinator Ryan Day was a high-profile head coach. Day's affinity for his former employer and O'Brien's local roots then resurfaced for an opportunity to allow him to remain in Massachusetts, and the unlikely but custom-fit pairing between a high-profile coach with BC ties opened the gateway for O'Brien's return to head coaching.
Within that process, an accelerated timeline passed key milestones for signing recruits and transfer portal signees, so O'Brien's arrival resulted in a head coach building a program while renovating the team on the fly. Coupled with lowered expectations in the expanded Atlantic Coast Conference, BC achieved a seven-win season by adapting on the fly and taking a day-by-day approach at a time when nobody knew what was inside the Eagles' overall bag of tricks. The constant recalibration shot the team into the national rankings after its fast start to the season, but managing the roller coaster's ups and downs was a key component of how O'Brien approached 2024 on greater and more macro-based levels.
"We were hired in February," O'Brien said, "so we tried to get in and meet with all of the guys one-on-one. We tried to hire a staff as [quickly] as we could, [and] I thought we did a lot of good things. Not enough, [and] there's a lot more we can do. We can do a lot better. There's a lot of things we can improve on, both on and off the field, and we'll work hard to do that, but look, it's not great to go out on the losing end in the last game of the season, but I think there's a bright future. I really enjoy the job, and I think there are a lot of good players in that locker room coming back for 2025. So I'm looking forward to taking a couple of weeks off. We'll be back on January 13 to start school, and we'll get going on 2025."
Within that entirety, BC relied on its upperclassmen to cement a new culture while maintaining the success levels installed over the previous four years. Even in an age where the transfer portal makes it easy to envision fast success, players like Donovan Ezeiruaku, Kendall, Ozzy Trapilo, Jack Conley and Lewis Bond understood how to invest in a program designed around collective individualism. They bought into the notion of team-over-self by improving their own commitment to their respective jobs even as the team transitioned through the three-win season in 2022, and they built their own twist on the culture by strengthening it for incoming transfer arrivals and freshmen initially recruited during the new "hired gun" era of name, image and likeness.
"Coming into this program as a new guy, it's sweet to see the older guys [and] the culture that they already built here," said quarterback Grayson James, who arrived this year after spending his first three seasons at Florida International. "It was tough that we couldn't go out there and get the win for them [because] for a lot of those guys, it's their last game in a BC uniform, maybe even football. I know that's tough and emotional, but [now] we've got some guys that are going to step up next year."
Those players began the process of evaluating their football futures over the holiday break, and an "announcement season" brought expected matriculations to the next stages of their careers. Ezeiruaku sat out the bowl game ahead of his projected high-round selection, and the post-holiday aftermath revealed several decisions to opt into professional careers ahead of Lewis Bond's decision to return for another season.
O'Brien, meanwhile, finally looked ready to rest after the bowl game ended. He spent virtually an entire year converting the team into his own personal football program, and he did it while converting his office's interior workings more towards his own liking. One year later, he managed to maintain BC's success as a seven-win program while now holding the keys to his own team, all while college football's changes raged around him.
"There's no doubt that [the upperclassmen] laid the foundation of discipline and toughness," he said. "Most players, they just wanted to be coached. They wanted to be led. These guys were very coachable, whether it was the winter workouts or a new way of doing things in the weight room. Spring practice was definitely a new way of doing things, [as was] training camp. Our summer training was very good. Our training camp was very good.
"A lot of it was because of those guys," he said. "The captains did a great job. We had some adversity that we dealt with during the year, and the captains were always steady [as] good leaders and tough guys. Joe Marinaro, Donovan Ezeiruaku, Ozzy Trapilo, Drew Kendall, Kam Arnold, they just did a really good job. I can't say enough about those guys that played their last game [for BC]. I have a ton of respect for them."
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That offense likewise bore the brunt of the three-hour battle on the soggy and torn-up Yankee Stadium turf. Running back Kye Robichaux was banged up after taking a healthy hit to the padding on his back, and center Drew Kendall earlier departed down the visiting team clubhouse dugout steps after attempting to play through his own novel injury.
The Eagles were slowly getting worn down, but each upperclass player refused to walk quietly into the New York City afternoon. They never stopped believing in their team, not with time on the clock, and after BC nearly toppled Nebraska with a frenetic fourth quarter comeback, head coach Bill O'Brien acknowledged the importance of the players who left their imprint on a program that'll unquestionably reap the rewards from their sacrifices and examples.
"I thought those guys fought," said O'Brien in an emotional moment during his postgame remarks. "I've got a lot of respect for this football team. I think we have a bright future at Boston College. [The bowl game] didn't go the way we wanted it to go, but it could've have gotten really ugly. Nebraska did a good job, but our guys hung in there. They fought, and I have nothing but good things [to say]. I'm very proud of our effort."
O'Brien's first season started with nothing short of a bizarre reentry to the head coaching ranks. He hadn't prowled the sidelines since leaving the Houston Texans during the NFL's COVID-19 season in 2020, but his name often resurfaced as a potential candidate for an open position at both the collegiate and professional levels after he replaced Steve Sarkisian as Alabama's offensive coordinator.Â
That Sarkisian had replaced Lane Kiffin after Kiffin left Tuscaloosa to become the head coach at Florida Atlantic only added to the mystique around that particular role, but O'Brien's reputation was entrenched by his ability to develop Bryce Young into a Heisman Trophy winner after previously turning Matt McGloin into a 3,000-yard passer while recruiting Christian Hackenberg to State College. He'd won in the NFL with Ryan Fitzpatrick, Brian Hoyer and Brock Osweiler before turning Deshaun Watson into a two-year juggernaut in the AFC South, and after working with Young, he'd returned to the New England Patriots after the disastrous decision to replace offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels with the Joe Judge/Matt Patricia pairing led to a regression in second-year quarterback Mac Jones.
None of that led directly to a coaching position with Boston College, which had built its way to a seven-win bowl champion under a defensive guru in Jeff Hafley, but the turn of events at the start of the 2024 calendar year spiraled into the perfect storm after Hafley returned to the NFL as Green Bay's defensive coordinator. A coaching change in New England for the first time in two decades led to Bill Belichick's departure and more directly led to O'Brien becoming the offensive coordinator at Ohio State, where former BC offensive coordinator Ryan Day was a high-profile head coach. Day's affinity for his former employer and O'Brien's local roots then resurfaced for an opportunity to allow him to remain in Massachusetts, and the unlikely but custom-fit pairing between a high-profile coach with BC ties opened the gateway for O'Brien's return to head coaching.
Within that process, an accelerated timeline passed key milestones for signing recruits and transfer portal signees, so O'Brien's arrival resulted in a head coach building a program while renovating the team on the fly. Coupled with lowered expectations in the expanded Atlantic Coast Conference, BC achieved a seven-win season by adapting on the fly and taking a day-by-day approach at a time when nobody knew what was inside the Eagles' overall bag of tricks. The constant recalibration shot the team into the national rankings after its fast start to the season, but managing the roller coaster's ups and downs was a key component of how O'Brien approached 2024 on greater and more macro-based levels.
"We were hired in February," O'Brien said, "so we tried to get in and meet with all of the guys one-on-one. We tried to hire a staff as [quickly] as we could, [and] I thought we did a lot of good things. Not enough, [and] there's a lot more we can do. We can do a lot better. There's a lot of things we can improve on, both on and off the field, and we'll work hard to do that, but look, it's not great to go out on the losing end in the last game of the season, but I think there's a bright future. I really enjoy the job, and I think there are a lot of good players in that locker room coming back for 2025. So I'm looking forward to taking a couple of weeks off. We'll be back on January 13 to start school, and we'll get going on 2025."
Within that entirety, BC relied on its upperclassmen to cement a new culture while maintaining the success levels installed over the previous four years. Even in an age where the transfer portal makes it easy to envision fast success, players like Donovan Ezeiruaku, Kendall, Ozzy Trapilo, Jack Conley and Lewis Bond understood how to invest in a program designed around collective individualism. They bought into the notion of team-over-self by improving their own commitment to their respective jobs even as the team transitioned through the three-win season in 2022, and they built their own twist on the culture by strengthening it for incoming transfer arrivals and freshmen initially recruited during the new "hired gun" era of name, image and likeness.
"Coming into this program as a new guy, it's sweet to see the older guys [and] the culture that they already built here," said quarterback Grayson James, who arrived this year after spending his first three seasons at Florida International. "It was tough that we couldn't go out there and get the win for them [because] for a lot of those guys, it's their last game in a BC uniform, maybe even football. I know that's tough and emotional, but [now] we've got some guys that are going to step up next year."
Those players began the process of evaluating their football futures over the holiday break, and an "announcement season" brought expected matriculations to the next stages of their careers. Ezeiruaku sat out the bowl game ahead of his projected high-round selection, and the post-holiday aftermath revealed several decisions to opt into professional careers ahead of Lewis Bond's decision to return for another season.
O'Brien, meanwhile, finally looked ready to rest after the bowl game ended. He spent virtually an entire year converting the team into his own personal football program, and he did it while converting his office's interior workings more towards his own liking. One year later, he managed to maintain BC's success as a seven-win program while now holding the keys to his own team, all while college football's changes raged around him.
"There's no doubt that [the upperclassmen] laid the foundation of discipline and toughness," he said. "Most players, they just wanted to be coached. They wanted to be led. These guys were very coachable, whether it was the winter workouts or a new way of doing things in the weight room. Spring practice was definitely a new way of doing things, [as was] training camp. Our summer training was very good. Our training camp was very good.
"A lot of it was because of those guys," he said. "The captains did a great job. We had some adversity that we dealt with during the year, and the captains were always steady [as] good leaders and tough guys. Joe Marinaro, Donovan Ezeiruaku, Ozzy Trapilo, Drew Kendall, Kam Arnold, they just did a really good job. I can't say enough about those guys that played their last game [for BC]. I have a ton of respect for them."
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