Where is BC football in new NCAA reality?
Amid the warm overtures of his inauguration, new Boston College football coach Bill O’Brien was asked a question that challenged his faith.
Friends, family, and players of several generations greeted him in an overflowing lecture hall that morning of Feb. 15. Athletic director Blake James handed the new coach a game ball. O’Brien hit all the crowd-pleasing notes: He grew up here (Andover), and while he enrolled somewhere else (Brown), he and his family have always been fans. He has always believed in BC’s mission. He was finally home.
A reporter cited two bolded names on a 30-year résumé — Alabama and Penn State — as a way of saying O’Brien knows how top-tier programs are built.
BC has “kind of plateaued at seven wins, six wins,” the reporter noted. No one protested the thought.
“Can BC win the ACC,” he continued, “and make the playoffs, and win a national championship?”
A what? Here?
The Eagles have had trouble keeping fans in the seats for all four quarters at Alumni Stadium, much less challenging for a spot in the expanded college football playoff. What would make anyone think they’re about to start dropping elbows on the heavyweights of the sport?
“BC . . . ” O’Brien began, and paused as the room broke out into laughter. A national championship. Good one.
“Tomorrow,” a wise guy cracked.
What was O’Brien supposed to say? The Eagles haven’t won nine games since 2008. They haven’t gone above .500 in the ACC since 2009. Since 2008, they are 3-40 against ranked opponents, and only 12 of those losses finished closer than two scores.
No doubt BC football is accomplishing its baseline goals of pride, hard work, and
community service. The Eagles even won a bowl game last year, for the second time since 2007. But this is a college football world that has left programs like it in the dust.
A new era
The NCAA’s amateurism model is eroding. Pay for play is here. The transfer portal and the name-image-likeness collective system have brought free agency to college sports. Players soon could be considered employees, should the courts continue to rule in favor of unionization efforts at Dartmouth. NCAA president Charlie Baker recently renewed his call for a new tier of Division 1 that would let the elite schools pay their athletes. As an ACC member, BC ostensibly would be considered one of the elites.
But that might be in name only. Its NIL collective, Friends of The Heights, wants to do its part, but it won’t be paying top dollar for gamechanging players.
“A good QB in the portal costs $1 million, $1.5 million, $2 million,” Nebraska coach Matt Rhule said in November.
O’Brien, who was Ohio State’s offensive coordinator for three weeks after leaving the Patriots, was set to coach one of those quarterbacks. Will Howard, who won a Big 12 championship at Kansas State, left when that school landed a local five-star freshman (Avery Johnson). Howard could have declared for the NFL and was projected as a mid-round pick, but instead chose the Buckeyes from a handful of seven-figure Power Five starting jobs.
O’Brien said he wants to embrace the new era, but “if the first question out of a guy’s mouth is ‘How much are you going to pay me?’ ” he said, “that guy might not be the best fit for Boston College.”
BC may be behind its Power Five peers, but it isn’t poor. ESPN reported that BC was boosting its coaching “salary pool,” which has been among the lowest in the ACC, to the upper half of the conference. Evidence for that is the hiring of O’Brien, who reportedly made $5 million a year while coaching the Houston Texans (2014-20). BC also hired away Florida’s strength coach, O’Brien associate Craig Fitzgerald.
Friends of The Heights is trying to do its part, while dealing with financial fatigue among donors who already give and old-school attitudes among those who believe a four-year scholarship at a high-academic school such as BC is enough compensation.
“Who says there aren’t four- and five-star athletes who want to come to Boston College?” said Scott Mutryn, one of the organization’s four board members. “BC hasn’t given them a reason to come in the last however many years.”
A puncher’s chance
The hope is that they get a few more like Matt Ryan — the quarterback when BC last challenged for the ACC title — and Zay Flowers, both of whom turned modest recruiting buzz into major shine.
In 2019, Flowers was a three-star recruit, just another 5-foot-11-inch, 170-pound speedster from South Florida. Players of his type grow like citrus fruit there. He chose BC over Appalachian State, Bowling Green, Buffalo, and Cincinnati. He was ranked No. 1,188 nationally (per 247Sports) and the 135th-best wideout.
He left BC before last season ranked No. 1 in program history in catches (200), receiving yards (3,056) and receiving touchdowns (29). He went No. 22 to Baltimore in the NFL draft, the third receiver and second ACC player chosen.
Ryan, who wasn’t even mentioned in a February 2003 school press release touting BC’s signing class, was a tall, skinny, triple-option QB with a good arm out of Philadelphia. He also was recruited by Iowa, Georgia Tech, UConn, and Purdue. He developed into a third overall pick (Atlanta, 2008) and NFL MVP (2016).
O’Brien, who once led a scandal-plagued Penn State program to a winning record (15-9 in two seasons), has punched above his weight before. On3 national reporter Andy Staples pegged BC’s potential as “decent-to-good” under the coach.
“The NIL thing is tough,” Staples said. “They’ll have to ID who they really want to retain and focus on them. But they may have to accept that if a guy blows up, they’ll lose him [as a transfer]. They’ll have to be a great evaluation/development program, which is what BC was under Tom Coughlin, Tom O’Brien or [Jeff Jagodzinski]. The difference is now that the guys they do a great job developing may leave after their first good year.”
BC can compete in the ACC, Staples said, if O’Brien can get the best out of a quarterback like the “super fun” Thomas Castellanos.
James thinks BC has a puncher’s chance. “When you look at the last few years,” said the AD, “there’s been a team every year where I’m betting everyone didn’t say, ‘Hey, they’re going to be in the championship.’ I think we’re there. I think it goes to what made Bill a great candidate, is his understanding of what that needs to look like for us to be successful.” He can be the X-factor?
“Yeah,” James said. “Again, like I said, I think the trump card is our education, incorporating the Jesuit values, and our incredible professional network we have here.”
Community support
It is true that toughness and cohesiveness can turn expected losses into surprise wins. Mutryn, whose decision to leave his hometown Cleveland for Chestnut Hill was solidified by the 1993 upset win over No. 1 Notre Dame, is asking donors to believe.
“I think it’s a shame and a disservice to [say] you can’t win at BC. You can,” said Mutryn, who also works as a sideline radio reporter. “It’s not that long ago that you had successful basketball programs that were in the tournament, vying for Sweet 16s, and a top 25 football program and a national championship hockey team. There’s no reason why that can’t be the mold.”
Granted, times have changed. But BC, he believes, can play with the big boys — if the community rallies.
“There are a lot of very, very successful businesses run by people who are BC grads,” Mutryn said. “Sure it’s crazy. I’m probably going to be mocked and ridiculed for this, but I truly believe it can happen.
“You can pay for the most successful team . . . but if your culture isn’t strong enough to overcome any sort of adversity, it doesn’t matter how much you pay. You can have $100 million to hire the best team you can. If there’s no identity or culture, that team’s never going to succeed. Are we going to raise $100 million? Probably not. But we’re going to raise money. We’re going to give athletes the chance to capitalize on their name, image, and likeness so they can stay at Boston College, get a degree at Boston College, have a great experience at Boston College and pay that forward five, 10, or however many years down the line.”
By then, O’Brien hopes to have rewarded the faithful. How, he can’t say.
“Again, Boston College is a place where you can do a lot of great things,” O’Brien said. “I am not into the prediction — that’s really not what I do. What I will promise you is we will field a very competitive football team, with a bunch of guys who will play hard and be tough and carry on the tradition [of ] these guys who played here and played tough, tough football.
“Will we win the national championship every year? Who knows? Why not? I don’t know. I’m not a predictor. I’m not a genie. I’m just telling you that we will show up every Saturday and play to the best of our ability.”
The audience that day in February seemed satisfied. He was selling hard work and hope.
O’Brien and James repeated the mantra several times: Come to BC and play good football, get a great education, and give back to the community.
Great education, good football.
Is that all there is for BC?
Mutryn acknowledged there is skepticism among even the most generous donors, and that it’s difficult to ask for more money for a program that, by measure of its record, is stuck in neutral.
To them, he says: Wouldn’t you rather be a part of it?
No matter what happened last year, or for the last 15 years, hope springs eternal.
“But it’s not hope if you have a vision and a plan,” Mutryn said. “You choose to be a believer or not a believer. I’d rather believe in something and be wrong than not believe in something and be right.”