Everything Boston College Football Head Coach Bill O’Brien Said Ahead of UNC
The Boston College Eagles (5-5, 2-4 ACC) football team returns to Alumni Stadium for a matchup against the UNC Tar Heels (6-4, 3-3 ACC) on Saturday afternoon.
On Wednesday, Eagles head coach Bill O’Brien held his weekly press conference to talk about the upcoming matchup.
Below is a transcript of everything O’Brien said.
Q: I was just looking at [North] Carolina's numbers. They got like five guys that can get after the quarterback pretty good. Just what kind of pressure you're anticipating on Grayson?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, they do a good job. Jeff Collins, defensive coordinator, does a really good job. We have to be on high alert for four-man rush, five-man rush, six-man rush. I mean, he mixes it up pretty well so look at the end of the day, we feel good about our protection system, but it has to hold up. You're right, that's going to be one of the biggest challenges of the game.
Q: Any update on Jerand Bradley or Jaedn Skeete?
O’BRIEN: Jerand Bradley is sick so he's a little under the weather, I think he'll be okay, and then Skeete is out. Yes, Skeete’s out.
Q: Question about Donovan. Obviously super, super, super talented guy before you got here, but now we're in Week 13 of the year. I was wondering how he’s sort of developed, both on and off the field, since you've gotten here.
O’BRIEN: Yeah, he's what it's all about at Boston College. He's a captain. He's a great student, great player, one of the best players in the country, like this is what we're looking for. Very smart, very driven. Absolutely one of the great faces of this program, a great ambassador for BC football, and has a very, very bright future both on and off the field.
Q: Coach, just talk about Carter Davis a little bit. He cracked the starting lineup early, looks like he's doing the job on special teams. What's about this kid?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, I think he's a really good player. He's very instinctive, he’s got great ball skills, great tackler, really like Carter a lot. It's going to be fun to coach him for a while. He's a guy that can play corner, he can play safety, one of the better players on our team and comes to practice every day, tough, tough person, tough guy. He’s just a really great member of the team.
Q: Can you provide some insight what it's like as a coach navigating injuries. Just how you kind of handle that during the week and throughout the season when guys just get banged up, what’s that like as a coach?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, look, you have to have a plan for it. It happens. It's a violent sport. I have a lot of experience with it, both at the college level and at the NFL level. So, I think when I was a younger coach, I probably was more concerned about injuries and I'm always concerned about the individual injury like no doubt about it. The health of the player is so important to us, but as it affects the team, it's the next man up mentality and I think this team has embraced that. It's a great question Trevor because that's one of the things that over the last couple weeks, a lot of guys have gotten opportunities because of guys being banged up. And many of those guys have made the most of it. So, we'd like to see that continue.
Q: So on that note, this past week we saw two guys that we kind of didn't expect to see in Joe Marinaro and Bryce Steele stepping in at linebacker. Can you talk about kind of Marinaro’s process and going from mostly a special teams guy to then getting defensive snaps. And then, I believe you said earlier this year that Bryce Steele was expected to miss the season, but now that he's back on the field, I mean that's awesome for him, but can you kind of talk about his journey?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, one of the things with Joe is [that] he went into that game, he's definitely, he’s special teams captain. He's one of the leaders of the team, but he had eight tackles in the game against a good SMU team. So, really happy for Joe. Joe's a heart and soul guy and he prepares like a starter at linebacker every single week. Great communicator, you hear him out here on the practice field. He's definitely one of the voices you hear relative to communicating the defense and all that. Bryce Steele is a guy that we really have high expectations for. You think about his story and what he's overcome. I mean, here's a guy that overcame cancer. I think, really, we should do a great job of making a bigger deal about that because it's been very few guys in my career that I've been around that have overcome things like that. David Quessenberry in Houston, John Metchie III with the Houston Texans now and then obviously, now Bryce Steele. To overcome cancer and to be in the lineup and to be able to do what he does is really a tremendous, tremendous message to everybody in our program and Bryce is an awesome guy and we look forward to continuing to coach him.
Q: Is Reed Harris another one of those guys you've got to count on to step up with Jaedn out?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, Reed stepped up. Look, Reed had a big game last week and yeah Reed’s one of our better players. He's played a lot, we've tried to get him the ball. Sometimes we've got him the ball. Sometimes we haven't. We believe Reed Harris has a great future and is a really, really good young player and he has stepped up. He's done a lot during the year to help us whether it's blocking or catching passes and last week was a good sign of that.
