What Anonymous ACC Coaches Have to Say About BC
Andy BackstromStaff Writer
Athlon Sports asked ACC coaches to speak anonymously about their 2021 opponents and published the commentary on its site Wednesday.
Here’s what league coaches had to say about Boston College, which is coming off a 6-5 season under the watch of head coach Jeff Hafley and returns 20 starters across the three phases.
One coach pointed to the Eagles’ scheme changes and growing recruiting footprint. For its 2022 recruiting class, BC is in line to sign its first players from Nevada and Tennessee since Rivals started tracking recruiting data in 2002. BC also has more 2022 commits from Florida, Georgia and Texas than New Jersey right now.
“It’s not going to show up in the win column just yet, but this is the team in our conference that’s secretly building, at least in terms of media attention. If you pay attention as a coach, you can see they’re doing some really smart stuff. Schematically they’re night and day better with this staff than the previous one, especially on defense. They’re recruiting the entire country right now, and pushing hard in private and Catholic schools.”
Another coach mentioned how BC’s staff has ties to the next level and how that’s influenced the Eagles’ strategy in pulling high school prospects.
“They have a unique pitch we’ve heard about, where they’re looking to push the NFL experience for players, boasting about the NFL experience on the staff.”
Some believe BC remains lacking in the talent department but conceded that second-year starting quarterback Phil Jurkovec gives the Eagles an advantage.
“Right now they’re still below average overall in terms of talent. I bet Notre Dame wishes they had that quarterback [Jurkovec] back, though.”
“They need to fit to the defensive scheme better, recruit better talent overall, and I think they probably want to balance the run/pass a little bit more, but they just went heavier with Phil because he can make those throws.”
BC jumped from 125th to 73rd in total defense last season, however, that side of the ball is still a work in progress, according to one coach.
“They’re poor in terms of ability on defense, but he’s [Hafley] just starting there. Not a lot of time last season to really implement what they want to do there, at least if it’s the Ohio State packages he ran.”
Hafley alluded to that during ACC Kickoff when he noted that the Eagles were pretty vanilla last season. Regardless, BC was a two-point conversion away from potentially forcing overtime against No. 12 North Carolina, staked itself to an 18-point lead at No. 1 Clemson and played No. 2 Notre Dame tough despite the Holy War being the program’s ninth straight game without a bye.
“When you look at their record and look at who they played really hard, Clemson and UNC specifically, you can see it starting to take hold.”
