Reflecting on Colgate: What Did Hafley Say During His Sunday Presser?
Andy Backstrom (@andybackstrom)
Staff Writer
“Vanilla” is a word Boston College head coach Jeff Hafley frequently uses to describe the Eagles’ defensive scheme from a year ago. After all, BC didn’t have much of a spring ball or a normal training camp heading into the 2020 season.
Hafley has said that the Eagles will get a lot more creative this year. Just not yet.
In fact, the second-year head coach noted that, during BC’s 51-0 shutout of Colgate Saturday, the Eagles’ defense was even more vanilla than it was last year. For now, Hafley wants to keep BC’s cards close to his chest, in addition to seeing how much better his guys can play with the calls the staff showed last year.
“I think we might have called the same play 25 times yesterday, and we just kept going with it,” Hafley told reporters via Zoom Sunday. “Once we got up and felt comfortable, we looked at the game plan and crossed off a lot of calls that we didn’t want to show because we didn’t show them last year.”
BC rotated a bunch of defensive players on and off the field amid the lopsided victory. A total of 33 different Eagles saw the field on that side of the ball alone. Hafley remarked after the game that BC’s defensive line rotations took the form of hockey line shifts. But the Eagles’ secondary had its fair share of in-game switch-ups, too.
Hafley explained that, going into Saturday, he, defensive coordinator Tem Lukabu and defensive backs coach Aazaar Abdul-Rahim had a plan. That said, it wasn’t a strict snap breakdown.
“We said, by such and such series, let’s get these guys in and get them some reps, and let’s keep our guys fresh and healthy and see what we got,” Hafley said. “We have a lot of guys who deserve to play, and if we believe a guy is deserving to be on the field, I’m gonna make sure we get them on the field.”
He also wanted to see his offensive skill players get touches as well, especially his top-four running backs. Even though Travis Levy was named the starter ahead of Saturday’s game, he had just nine carries throughout the afternoon. West Virginia transfer Alec Sinkfield registered six rushing attempts and Xavier Coleman and Pat Garwo III both had four.
Garwo impressed, averaging 7.2 yards per tote and scoring a touchdown. Even Peter Stehr got in on the action, plunging into the end zone for the first time in his career.
“We wanted to get them all touches,” Hafley said. “And we kinda wanted to see them play and evaluate and see how they did. I mean it doesn’t mean that all of a sudden the guy who had the most yards is now gonna start—I’m not saying that. But we felt good about all the backs. We think they’re all a little bit different.”
Hafley said there might be some games where one running back is the bell cow with 25 or more rushes. And then there might be others where the carries are split 10-10-5 between three guys.
Managing playing time in early-season blowouts is always tricky. Hafley let a handful of his starters, namely starting quarterback Phil Jurkovec, play into the fourth quarter, despite the Eagles being up by 30 points.
Hafley said that it’s risk/reward. He elaborated, pointing out that, since you don’t have a preseason in college football, it’s important to get guys going in the season opener, regardless of margin of victory.
“Guys have to play football, and sometimes you gotta push it a little bit,” he said. “Did I push it a little bit too far—I mean shoot, my brother thought I did. He was ripping me last night for keeping Phil in the game that long.”
Hafley continued: “But it’s a little different when I’m thinking about trying to make sure everybody gets enough reps. So, in some cases, maybe I left some guys in for a little bit too long, and I need to do a better job and got lucky this time.”
Hafley also cleared up a question that’s been floating around over the last year: Why was there a shakeup on the offensive line before the 2020 season? Tyler Vrabel was moved from left to right tackle, Zion Johnson was shifted over to left tackle and Ben Petrula was moved from right tackle to right guard.
Hafley said the change stemmed from Vrabel battling an injury all last season. With Vrabel not in peak form, the Eagles moved him to the right side of the line. That was the first domino to fall in an offensive line rearrangement that resulted in serious growing pains up front, which were exacerbated by the group’s switch to a zone blocking scheme.
The O-Line is finally back in its original spots, with Christian Mahogany flipping from left guard to right guard to make way for Johnson to slide into his old position.
“With Vrabel back healthy, we felt good about putting him back at left tackle ’cause we are fully confident that he’s an extremely good left tackle,” Hafley said. “So the whole thing really was trying to watch out for Vrabes a little bit last year, which people don’t even know about—how well he played, not really being 100%. Now, he is 100%, and he’s our left tackle again.”
All but one of BC’s starting offensive linemen earned Pro Football Focus offensive grades above 80 Saturday against Colgate. Johnson was the exception, actually.
The group will get another chance to create a clean pocket for Jurkovec this week at UMass.
