BC hangs hat on ball hawk safety Muse
Jahmin Muse is Boston Colleges’ opening day ball hawk.
The 6-foot, 212-pound strong safety from Elizabeth, N.J., realized every defensive back’s ambition in the Eagles’ 51-0 victory over Colgate in the season opener Saturday at Alumni Stadium.
Muse jumped on an errant fourth-quarter sideline pass by Colgate quarterback Grant Breneman and returned it for a touchdown to give BC a 44-0 lead.
“It was an amazing feeling,” said Muse on Tuesday. “I haven’t been in the end zone since high school so being able to catch a pick-six and score for the team was a great feeling and, hopefully I can do it more this year.”
Muse’s next chance comes Saturday in Amherst against the UMass Minutemen at McGuirk Stadium.
Muse got to share his magic moment with friends and family seated near the end zone.
“It was my mom, my older brother and a few cousins so it was a great feeling to catch an interception right there and God works in mysterious ways,” said Muse. “I was able to get it into the end zone with my family right there. It was great having them there to watch my first pick-six.”
Muse broke into the starting lineup last season under first year coach Jeff Hafley, who built his resume coaching the secondary. Muse recorded the first of his team high three interceptions and returned it 39 yards in the in BC’s season opener, a 26-6 victory at Duke.
Re-O-line-ment
BC has five returning starters on the offensive line but, with the exception of center Alec Lindstrom, none were assigned to the same positions they played in 2020. A year ago in the opener against Duke, the Eagles’ alignment across the front featured Zion Johnson at left tackle, Christian Mahogany at left guard, Lindstrom, Ben Petrula at right guard and Tyler Vrabel at right tackle.
The offensive front against Colgate started with Vrabel at left tackle followed in order by Johnson, Lindstrom, Mahogany and Petrula.
Vrabel, a 6-foot-5, 307pound redshirt junior from Bellaire, Tex., started 13 games at left tackle in 2019 when BC ran a 12-personnel double tight end power run game for tailback AJ Dillon, currently employed by the Green Bay Packers.
“Last year Vrabel was battling injuries most of the year so we moved him to the right side,” said head coach Jeff Hafley.
“With Vrabel back healthy we felt good about putting him back on the left tackle because we are fully confident that he’s a good left tackle.
“We wanted to move Zion back inside to shore things up in the middle with him and Mahogany and we moved Ben back to the right. The whole thing was to try and watch out for Vrabel last year and how well he played when he was not 100%. Now he is 100 and he’s our left tackle so it all really stemmed from that one position.”
Johnson is a natural guard and is expected to be one of the top players at that position taken in the 2022 NFL Draft. Petrula has played guard, tackle and center over 49 consecutive starts and excelled at them all.
Lower the boom
BC kicker Aaron “Boom” Boumerhi missed the Colgate game with an undisclosed hip injury and was replaced by Danny Longman, who has handled kickoff duties the past two seasons.
Longman was 4-of-5 on conversions and booted a 24-yard field goal to give BC a 30-0 lead with 4:12 to play in the third. Boumerhi, a graduate transfer from Temple in his third year at BC, played in 10 games last season and made 16-of-20 field goals and a perfect 30-of-30 on PAT’s.
Longman was a Max Prep All-American at Chaminade-Madonna College Prep in Hollywood, Fla., who made 18-of-19 field goals with a long of 49 and converted 54-of-55 PAT conversions.
“Those were big shoes to fill and I had been asking for some tips and stuff,” said Longman. “He is the best motivator and throughout the entire game against Colgate he was patting me on the shoulder and saying “you’re doing great and keep going.””