The Tailgate: Cincinnati

Boston College quarterbacks coach Jonathan DiBiaso didn't mince words when discussing Mason McKenzie's requirements and qualifications. The former Massachusetts high school legend had been a mentor for the former Division II transfer since his January arrival, and the message being sent alongside head coach Bill O'Brien set the need for the entire team to elevate its performance ahead of the 2026 season. In the bluntest terms, DiBiaso said the proverbial quiet part out loud when he outlined how Boston College demanded more from a quarterback who previously played at Saginaw Valley State.

DiBiaso's tone struck a chord that underpinned BC's drumbeat since the end of the 2025 season. In that moment, in that instant, the message delivered read loudly and clearly to a team embarking on the 2026 season. A power conference team, a non-conference slate that begins on Saturday when the Eagles play Cincinnati, it all became crystal clear in the last media session ahead of this week's game week.

"There's just been great coaching," said McKenzie. "Coach O'Brien and Coach DiBiaso do a great job in the meeting room, out on the field, just correcting our mistakes. And from the spring until now, we've had six months of that coaching. So really, that coaching has taken [the quarterbacks] to the next level. We've all grown so much since the spring, and that's just a testament to their coaching."

Eight months after O'Brien tabbed McKenzie as an incoming transfer, the Boston College Eagles will run out onto Nippert Stadium's gridiron as a team that's looking to both reset and rebuild a program. They are, in many ways, a team that needs to shed its skin after 2025 ended with two victories, even more formally than the way that the clashing numbers and close losses indicate nothing more than an obligatory mention at the start of a new regular season.

Nobody - least of all this team and these players who chose to fix BC's history - has any results, and the fresh start, the all-important first game, can now finally and permanently put last season to bed.

"There are different processes for different times of year," said O'Brien during this week's media sessions. "There's an academic process here, there's a recruiting process, there's a spring process. There's a training camp process. There's a regular season process for preparing for a game, how to prepare for practice. And then you know what your routine is on the road. We have similar schedules whenever we leave on the road with class so we leave in the afternoon. Each guy needs to know his process of how to get ready for it. It's the way that we've always done it, and we understand how we travel."

For the first time in 2026, it's time to look at a matchup. Here's what to watch during Saturday's game against Cincinnati:

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Weekly Storylines (Dolly Parton Edition)

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

I was never a huge Dolly Parton fan. I understood her greatness and status as an icon, but I never truly embraced her global superstardom because her entire empire predated my entry into the things that elevated her reputation. My parents were bigger fans of Elvis, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and I was never truly aware of her contributions to charities and different causes.

Her passing forced a reevaluation of a career that spanned decades, and like most cases, I found myself shocked by how deep her impact really ran. Her Imagination Library's millions of donated books, a foundation that reduced dropout rates by nearly a quarter of a depressed region of Tennessee, her creation of jobs and tax revenues, and her donations to HIV and AIDS research that started long before she donated towards developing a COVID-19 vaccine - it was all part of her myth.

I learned quite a bit over the past week, and I'm now realizing how the world lost a titan. The world was better for having experienced her life, and I'm sure she's going to live forever because of her lasting impact.

On that note, let's segue back to football, and let's focus on Bill O'Brien's constant point about ironing out mistakes over the past four weeks. More specifically, it's worth mentioning how the team still needed to improve in certain areas, and it went unsaid until this week that perfection is an impossible achievement. What's most important, what's most critical, is how BC intends to make its fast-paced changes against a Cincinnati team that's likewise going to adapt on the fly.

"It's about our values and our commitments," said O'Brien. "We repeat those every day, all the time, to live up to those [expectations] every single day. That's a goal, to do the things that we've committed to in the off-season, and let's really take to heart what our values are, to do it every single day. We're going to enjoy the process, work hard, and we're going to play smart."

New personnel on both sidelines required the coaches to emphasize minimizing mistakes after spending last season at opposite ends of the college football spectrum, but it's just another sign of how each team is trying to cleanly break away from last season's positive and negative indicators. Cincinnati only produced two interceptions compared to BC's 12 combined defensive turnovers, but the Bearcats listed two completely different starters at their outside cornerback positions. So while Kenny Worthy and Jacob Finley each contributed tackle numbers to the secondaries at Washington State and Northern Illinois, they haven't yet played together against opposing receivers.

"Your first game is when you're still trying to get into football," said Satterfield during his weekly media session. "Sometimes there can be some sloppy play. I think sometimes that the first weeks, whether it's penalties or some missed assignments or just a little bit sloppy - special teams always comes into play. I saw [a play] where TCU snapped one over the head. That stuff in the first game, you want to work all the kinks out at practice, but it doesn't quite get worked out until you get to the first week."

Never ignore your roots, your home, or your hair.

Even with a new quarterback and new wide receivers, Boston College very much remains a team rediscovering its historic roots as a horsepower offense built around a tough and rugged offensive line. Across the board, big and physical menaces at the tackle and guard position flank 300-pound centers who can steer running backs with similar sizes, skill sets and combinations, so the likelihood of seeing new formations and masked schematic changes should allow the Eagles to play like an old school football program when the time calls for it.

"Our running backs are pretty similar," explained O'Brien. "When you look at Evan [Dickens] and Bo [MacCormack], they're shifty. They have good speed. They're good in the passing game. They can block. They can pass protect. Nolan [Ray] is a little bit bigger and a good downhill runner, but he can catch the football out of the backfield, so there's a lot of similarities to those three guys."

Dickens enjoyed a breakout 2025 after rushing for 1,339 yards and 16 touchdowns for Liberty, a team that ran an up-tempo spread offense under offensive coordinators Willy Korn and Newland Isaac. Prior to that, he spent two years developing under Buster Faulkner and Chris Weinke in Georgia Tech's rush-heavy attack. Even while seeing minimal opportunities with the Yellow Jackets, he was part of a team that incorporated the concept of playing in an offense where a quarterback was the second-leading rusher, and Jamal Haynes nearly broke 1,000 yards with a build similar to Dickens. Projecting his four-year career to a third school therefore allows O'Brien to combine his skills behind a revamped offensive line that features a six-foot, nine-inch tackle on the left side and a pair of interior, 315-pound guards nearly identical at six feet and four inches tall.

If you don't like the road you're walking, start paving another one.

Like Dickens, Cincinnati running back Gi'bran Payne started his career with a team that didn't necessarily utilize him for offensive snaps, but the Notre Dame transfer that returned to his hometown roster had one major difference from the Liberty transfer because he lacked a true, 1,000-yard season. A potential breakout year never materialized when he missed the 2024 season, and his return to last year's 10-win program left him mostly on special teams coverage while watching Jeremiyah Love develop into a Heisman Trophy candidate under Marcus Freeman's hybrid-based offense.

That said, the Notre Dame offense wrapped its offense around three runners and a traditional passing quarterback in CJ Carr, so playing with a dual-threat quarterback like JC French is going to require a shift in his offensive mindset. Love was a unicorn and a generational talent, and Jadarian Price and Aneyas Williams each produced their own brands of success - so there are examples to understand how Scott Satterfield might embrace a running back behind his two-way quarterback.

"We find ourselves looking at film from years past on some things," said Satterfield during his weekly media appearance. "We're trying to see tendencies that they may do, but you're also looking at film from other schools because there are guys that are brought in [from other programs]. Especially early in the season, the first game and second game, you spend so much more time looking at yourself and creating a standard that you want the guys to play at, offensively, defensively, special teams - and we have to live up to that standard on a daily basis."

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Question Box

How do the defenses mount pressure against the offensive line schemes?

Coaches preach fundamentals until they run out of air, but the team that wins on Saturday is going to be the team with the better ability to create holes or fill tackles. Specifically looking at the defenses, different positions require different styles when it involves taking different types of players to the ground, and both Boston College and Cincinnati are built around successful linebacking tiers.

"We're still teaching tackling, defensively," said Satterfield. "We have tackle circuits every day. There are certain drills that we can do. We chase the ball, so if your guy misses it, the next guy is going to be there. That's what we're all coaching, quite honestly, so hopefully that'll show up [because] one thing that you see early in the season [is] missed tackles."

Who plays better situational football?

Cincinnati's defense averaged two more third down plays per game than BC during the 2025 season, but the Eagles exited the season with one less surrendered conversion per game when compared to the Bearcats. That leaves a delta number where the two extra third down plays resulted in one extra conversion - a common number that's balanced by the fact that BC didn't face the same number of get-right scenarios.

To be fair, that doesn't mean that BC surrendered more first downs on early down scenarios, and the Bearcats ended the season with approximately five extra first downs allowed. The number was remarkably consistent across the entire season, so winning the field position battle and preventing drives would require Cincinnati to improve a number that dramatically worsened in 2025.

When does my wife throw me out of the room?

We're watching the game from my brother's house, which means that the allure of chicken wings and Chinese food probably won't help my cause. For the record, she threw me out of the room during the first week of the Red Sox season because I was demonstrating how launch angle was the devil, and apparently I wasn't supposed to swing a wiffle ball bat in the living room.

I'm guessing she believes that I'm going to tackle the television or something.

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Meteorology 101

New England dropped itself right into the heart of a seasonal September when cool temperatures accompanied whatever overnight rains were available for the first half of the week. The fog was a nice touch to the Tuesday and Thursday coastline, and sleeping weather finally evened out from the muggy humidity that slipped under everyone's weekend.

Alas, the more in-land Cincinnati climate stuck to its summery tune with a hot week that was loaded with 90 degree days and amassing humidity. Thursday was particularly stingy with 96 degree weather gaining approximately 50 percent humidity, and Friday was due to hit 94 degrees before lowering to the 80s for the overnight hours.

Saturday's forecast is calling for temperatures in the mid-80s with humidity reaching a robust 70 percent, and scattered thunderstorms are expected throughout the day. Those of us who easily recall the 2019 Birmingham Bowl just broke out in a cold sweat about the thought of a lightning delay, though the weather sure was fun to experience via social media.

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X Factor of the Week

Ted Roof

Much of BC's offseason attention centered on Mason McKenzie's transition into a new offense built around his skill set. Weekly questions were targeted at his development and the chemistry between a new quarterback's relationship with his offensive line, his running backs and his receivers. Not much was really known about how or why the relationship began between Saginaw Valley State's quarterback and a rebuilding program in the ACC, so the attempt to answer those inquiries with simple responses permeated through the four-week training camp devoid of an opposing team.

Maybe it's a bit contrarian, but I'm actually much more interested in defensive coordinator Ted Roof's ability to cage and box Cincinnati after August produced successful pressures and coverages against the homegrown BC offense. At nearly every turn, some point about a stop or a sack or a pressure would emerge, and while the popular spotlight opted to criticize the offense in those moments, the flip side of that debate would have complimented Roof on his ability to dial into something specifically concocted to challenge the opposite side of the ball.

Roof's been around long enough to design defenses at some of college football's biggest programs, and he led successful units at Georgia Tech, Duke, Minnesota, Auburn and Penn State. His teams at Duke, specifically, are an intriguing case study because the Blue Devils led the ACC in rushing defense while appearing in some of the nation's top situational statistics. The program faced notorious headwinds when it came to building successful teams in the aftermath of realignment, but Roof was good enough to move from coordinator to interim head coach to head coach before he eventually won a national championship under Auburn's Gene Chizik. He hasn't coached alongside O'Brien since they salvaged Penn State in 2012, but the two clearly have a tremendous working relationship balanced between cooperation and independence.

Saturday pits Roof against Scott Satterfield, an offensive innovator known for turning quarterbacks into two-way threats at both Appalachian State and Louisville. BC fans conceivably remember those days with the Cardinals and Malik Cunningham, but it's easy to forget that the Mountaineers transitioned successfully into the bowl subdivision because Satterfield helped build an offense around players like Zac Thomas. Even without Brendan Sorsby after his entry into the transfer portal, there's no question that Roof is going to have to dial a defense capable of attacking the pocket while protecting downfield integrity.

In other words, it's a great chess match between two football coaches with loads of successful history.

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Around College Football

The trend towards creating high-powered early season matchups hit the perfect chord this past week when North Carolina and TCU traveled to Dublin, Ireland for a Week Zero matchup. NC State and Virginia played a game in Charlottesville that counted towards the ACC standings, and Colorado traveled to Georgia Tech on Thursday for a cross-conference game between the ACC and the Big 12.

Perhaps it was meant to solely tease the college football fan who longed for primetime drama, but Saturday's official kickoff to the 2026 season rams the principle right into all of our faces when No. 11 LSU hosts Clemson in a nationally televised game from the Bayou in Baton Rouge. A further mid-afternoon game between Boise State and No. 2 Oregon offers a tantalizing treat to those who want to split-screen the BC game, and Sunday night's Apple Cup game between Washington State and Washington precedes Wisconsin's game against Notre Dame from Lambeau Field in Green Bay.

Oh, and Louisville is playing Ole Miss from Nashville, Tennessee.

As for the rest of the ACC, Miami's debut on Friday is on the West Coast in a sneaky matchup on the Farm at Stanford, and Tulane's trip to Duke covers the ACC Network's mid-afternoon tilt. A throwback to the #Pac12AfterDark features UCLA head coach Bob Chesney's debut against California at 10:30 before No. 19 SMU plays Florida State in a Monday night conference game.

Among unranked teams, Baylor's game against Auburn is on national television from Atlanta's Mercedez-Benz Stadium, and Tulsa plays host to an Oklahoma State team that dropped last year's 19-12 decision to the Golden Hurricane in Mike Gundy's final game as head coach. An objectively fun matchup between UNLV and Hawaii is on the CW at 10 p.m., and Western Kentucky rounds out the night with a trip to Nevada.

On the local radar, a nationally relevant Rhode Island team takes its FCS resume to Temple while Holy Cross heads to Colgate.

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Dan's Non-Sports Observation of the Week

Being a parent is a funny thing. You're responsible for teaching a little human about the differences between right and wrong while understanding that they're inevitably going to think for themselves and rebel or reject everything that you've shown them. You unconditionally love another human being enough to devote your entire well-being, soul and financial health to them while receiving little to none of that in return during the early years. They're the most perfect expression of my family's love, and they aggravate the absolute stuffing out of both my wife and me.

Nothing, though, prepared me for the first kindergarten drop-off. Five years after I held her for the first time, my older daughter threw her bag over her shoulder and stepped out of our car for her first day of elementary school. She held the teacher's hand and disappeared into the school while my wife and I pulled away in the car. Unlike the first day of preschool, where she gave us a hug and a kiss, she never looked back at us as she happily started her new era. I'm not even sure she noticed we were gone. By the time we picked her up, it was like she'd been there for months and was a certified expert at the car line routine.

And if you're wondering, I'm definitely crying again. We'll go back to the foolish stuff next week.

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Pregame Quote and Final Thought

To me, the smell of fresh-made coffee is one of the greatest inventions. -Hugh Jackman

I'm a huge advocate of a theory that record prognostications don't serve much purpose because I don't believe late season situations are predictable without first running through September and October. I'm an even bigger proponent that football season is too precious because of its shortened length. Every game, to me, is a one-game season that's treated like a holy relic for players who one day won't play this game anymore, so for that reason, the first game and the first real result is beautiful. It's the official start of the new year, so pour that cup of coffee, line up the players, put the ball down, and run some plays. Football - in its beauty - is formally and officially back.

Boston College and Cincinnati kick off the 2026 college football regular season on Saturday, September 5, 2026, from Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio. Kickoff is slotted for 3:30 p.m. with television coverage available on Fox, where Tim Brando and former Michigan quarterback Devin Gardner team up for the call alongside Josh Sims.

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