Everything Boston College Head Coach Bill O’Brien Said After Tuesday’s Practice
The Boston College Eagles football team started its game week preparation on Tuesday morning, holding its first practice of the week.
After the practice, head coach Bill O’Brien spoke to the media about what he has seen and how the team is getting ready for the matchup.
Below is a transcript of everything O’Brien said.
OPENING STATEMENT: Hey, before I get going here, I just want to really throw the football team’s support behind all BC fall sports. Just wish everybody, coaches and players alike, administrators, everybody, good luck. This is such an exciting time on campus, the students are back and we’re thrilled to be back. We’ve been back here for awhile. I know soccer teams and field hockey teams and cross country and all that, so we’re excited for all the teams and wish everybody the best of luck. With that, I’ll open it up to questions.
Q: First practice of game week. What did you like and not like and why’d you bring it inside?
O’BRIEN: I’m not gonna get into why I brought it inside but I did like the practice. I thought the energy was good and I think these guys show up every day. Practice is never perfect so there wasn’t much I didn’t like about practice. These guys really gave a good effort today.
Q: How much do you feel the energy shift when game week finally arrived?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, definitely there’s a little bit more excitement in the air. A little bit more of a second wind and after 20 practices of training camp and now they’re getting ready for an opponent so yeah there’s definitely an excitement. We just got to keep this energy throughout the week. The game’s not til Monday so we got ways to go here. We’re not playing on Saturday so we gotta do a good job of keeping the energy throughout the week.
Q: Do you feel like you’ve had enough time to shape this team as you want it, now entering Week 1?
O’BRIEN: We’ll find out. I do, I feel like I’ve had enough time, yeah. It’s been good. These guys have worked hard we’ll see what happens on Monday but we’ll be there. We’re excited about the opportunity. We know Florida State’s a very good team, great coaching staff, great crowd. I’ve coached down there a number of times when I was at Georgia Tech and so I know it’s a tough place to play but these guys are excited for the opportunity and can’t wait to get down there.
Q: What did you see from them on Saturday?
O’BRIEN: I think it was a back-and-forth game. I think that’s two good football teams. I think Georgia Tech’s very good, Florida State’s good and it was a battle. It was a good battle and back-and-forth and Georgia Tech came out on top but Florida State’s very good. They fought hard and we know it’s going to be a huge challenge for us going down there.
Q: Any advantages or disadvantages facing a team that’s already played a game versus you guys [who] haven’t played?
O’BRIEN: I don’t think so. Nothing you can do about it, right? They played, we didn’t. We try to control the controllable. We can’t control the schedule, we can’t control the weather, There’s a lot of things we can’t control but there are things we can and that’s our own performance, our own knowledge of the opponent, our own assignments, our own coaching roles, those are the things we can control so that’s what we’ll try to do.
Q: Coach, you talked about letting Tommy be Tommy in the past and with the Georgia Tech blueprint that was kind of laid out last week, how much has that influenced your game plan this week and are you gonna have a short or longer leash now after seeing that with Tommy?
O’BRIEN: No. We look at the opponents previous games and games from last year, last week obviously. I don’t think we put all of our game plan in one game. We try to think about our team and what’s best for our team relative to this opponent. Tommy’s had a really good training camp. I’m excited for Tommy, he’s put a lot of work into this and he’s a much improved player. We’re definitely going to let Tommy be Tommy. That’s what he does best is he’s a very instinctive player, he’s gotten better in the passing game, so we just want him to play a really clean game and always make good decisions for the team and I think he’s done that throughout training camp so I’m excited for him.
Q: You mentioned that environment, heard the fight song blasting over and over there. What are you telling these guys to anticipate when they walk in?
O’BRIEN: Loud. Yeah, they’ve got great fans, they have awesome fans, they got a great band. It’ll be loud. That’s what it’s all about. That’s college football right, I don’t know what it holds, probably 90,000 right, maybe more. They have a great fight song, great tradition. I can remember going down there in 1998 when I was at Georgia Tech and we had an excellent team and Coach Bowden, they had an excellent team and it was like a 38-35 shootout. It was just an awesome college game. It’s a great environment, they have great traditions down there so our guys should be excited. That’s what you sign up for when you come to a place like BC. You have a great home stadium and then you get to go play at places like Florida State, Clemson, North Carolina, those places, so we’re excited for it.
Q: Overwhelmingly, power programs play more of a, I guess for lack of a term, like a preseason game, one Double-A team. What’s the challenge in opening up the season [with a] conference game against a major opponent?
O’BRIEN: I definitely think it’s challenging. I do think though that it helps your focus in the offseason, so your winter conditioning, your spring practice, your summer conditioning, your training camp is very very focused because you’re opening up against the top ten team on the road, so I think that there’s obviously challenges to opening up against Florida State on the road. Obviously, they’re a really good football team, but I also think it helps the focus of the team. They have a purpose every day to try and get better and I think that’s how this team’s approached it.
Q: This Labor Day game has kind of become a staple in opening weekend. What kind of showcase do you feel this is for Boston College?
O’BRIEN: I think it’s awesome. I think it’s a great opportunity for us to show what our school’s about, what our program’s about, our players. I tell our players like young guys nowadays, a lot of them are very results oriented and I want them to be processed driven right, like play one play at a time, play the next play, don’t worry about ‘hey this two plays ago, this didn’t go right.’ Something may not go right but we need to play the next play and play one play at a time the whole game and try and stack plays on top of each other, positive plays, and if we do that then we’ll have a shot. If we start worrying about different things, the crowd, the road, the noise, this play over here, that play over there, the result of the game, then it’ll be tough for us. I want these guys to really focus on one play at a time and the opportunity that they have to go down there and play good football.
Q: Any update on Jude or Logan and do you feel comfortable overall with that whole line unit?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, I feel very comfortable. No update on those guys.
Q: Helmet communication being new to college football this year, have you been able to confirm who’s going to be wearing the green dot on defense for you cause we know Tommy’s gonna be communicating on offense.
O’BRIEN: Yeah, the green dot on defense could be one of several guys, could be Kam Arnold, could be KP Price, we haven’t totally determined that. Both guys have been the signal caller during training camp and during spring practice but both guys have done a great job at that. I think we’ll be fine when it comes to that. We have a lot of experience too with coach-to-player communication so hopefully that shows up that we understand how that all works from a coaching standpoint. We’ve done that a lot of the NFL so hopefully it plays out pretty well in that regard.
Q: DJ was throwing a lot of quick passes to the outside. What did you see from him and how can you defend him?
O’BRIEN: He threw about four shots down the field. That’s their offense. They have a really good offense, they have an explosive offense, they have guys that I know personally Malik Benson, Roydell Williams, both great players that were at Alabama when I was there. I think they have 17 transfers including DJ. DJ’s a helluva player. He’s somebody I’m very familiar with from when he was at Clemson, Oregon State, just a great athlete, a big guy, strong arm, very smart, comes from a great family, good teammate, got all the qualities you’re looking for in a quarterback, so like I said, it’ll be a very challenging game for us but I’m really proud of these guys and how far they’ve come and we’re all looking forward to the opportunity and the game.
Q: Joe Marinaro named a captain. What can you say about him?
O’BRIEN: The team voted and it was a pretty distinct vote on who the captains were so, like you said, Joe Marinaro will be the special teams captain. He’s a great guy, comes from a BC family. His dad, Mike Marinaro played here, was a defensive lineman, played with one of my best friends Mike Panos and I actually grew up with Mike Marinaro in Andover, Mass., so I go way back with the Marinaro’s. Then we had Drew Kendall and Ozzy Trapilo, two BC guys, dads played here, great players here, and then Tommy Castellanos, our quarterback who’s had a really good offseason and then defense, Donovan Ezeiruaku who’s one of our best players and leaders and Kam Arnold same thing, really good player, really good leader. I’m really proud of the team the way they voted. They know who the leaders are and those guys really deserve the vote and they’re excellent leaders and great ambassadors for Boston College, so hopefully you guys get a lot of chances to talk to them throughout the year.
