Everything Boston College Head Coach Bill O'Brien Said After Win Over Duquesne
The Boston College Eagles football team won its home opener 56-0 against Duquesne on Saturday evening.
After the game, Eagles head coach Bill O’Brien talked about what the liked about the performance, how it felt to play his first game at Alumni Stadium, and more.
Below is a transcript of everything O’Brien said.
Q: I think a lot of people, a lot of fans at BC, are thinking back to last year, barely beating an FCS opponent in Holy Cross, losing to NIU in the home opener, kinda been a whirlwind of transitioning into what they're experiencing now with this win. What do you kind of think the message is to everybody?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, look, I think every year is different, right? Last year's long over. I think that these guys need to realize that every week we have to try to play to a higher standard than we did the week before. This was a good win. I congratulated the team, but it wasn't that clean. It wasn't as clean as you would want it to be and so we have to play a cleaner game. The one thing I want to say, though, to be the first home game, especially in regards to the students, right? Flynny just told me there were 6,000 students. Blake James just told me 6,000 students at the game. That's unbelievable. So, I think if we can get student turnout like that, that's a huge thing for this program. Plus, can we get non-students to fill it for Michigan State? Can we get whatever it holds? I think it holds 55 [thousand] somebody told me, there's always an argument about what it holds. I think that's what's huge about this deal right now, is that these guys, like, they feed off that energy, so they're putting a lot of work in. They're playing well. And, you know, love to see the crowd. They thank the students big time for for turning out 6000 students. That's awesome.
Q: What were some of the things in your eyes that you need to clean up?
O’BRIEN: Yeah. I mean, we had five penalties, some lazy penalties. The ball was on the ground with the second-team offense, didn’t think that was great. I think we can do a better job in our return game. I think we can punt better. I think there's a lot of things we can do better. I think, and I think most of all, I think we as coaches need to try to improve, we can coach better and so I think all of us, everybody in this program, in the football program, has to live by the theme of every day we try to get better. How do we get better? How does a coach get better? How do I get better? How does a player get better? How does the unit get better? How does the team get better? I think that's a big deal for us moving forward.
Q: Your first calling the game debut and you put up 56 points to zero. How did you feel when you seen like there were multiple touchdowns going in? I know it wasn't a perfect game, but how do you feel when you see it 56-0?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, it was good. I was happy for the kids, especially like a guy like Khari Johnson, who's been around here for a long time and had a pick-six. And I thought Tommy did a good job today. I think we ran the ball hard. I think we rushed for a decent amount of yards, but I thought we left some yards out on the field. But look, I thought the defense really held up. Anytime you get a shutout, I think that's obviously very, very good. So, there's a lot of things that we did well. I'm not trying to say we didn't, there was a lot that we did well, but I think we can be better.
Q: Was it hard to get that message across when you win 56-0?
O’BRIEN: No, no, I'm able to get the message across.
Q: Obviously, you had your first game last week but you talked a lot, in this case, about your wife going here how much it meant to be coming back for Boston College area. Could you take a moment to appreciate it?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, I think the coolest thing for me was, having grown up here and kind of watched the team run out for a game over all the years, and watched Coach [Bick]Nell lead the team out for a game, watch Coach Coughlin lead the team out for a game. Watch Coach Tom O'Brien lead the team out, I think that was cool for for me, to be able to lead the team out to the game, to the fight song. I thought that was a very cool feeling for me. Other than that, I was coaching my butt off today, trying to get better on every play.
Q: Coach, on Monday you said you guys were right onto Duquesne basically five minutes after the game, or whenever it was. How did you think you guys approached this weekend? How do you kind of, I guess, replicate it?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, I think that that's the key at Boston College, right? Tommy Castellanos said it after the game, he said, they asked him about celebrating after the Florida State game. He's like, we got to go to class, so we, we had, we had an issue with the plane. We had to stay overnight. All the administration, our support people, everybody did an unbelievable job getting us back to that hotel. We stayed overnight. We got on the plane. We came back. Those guys went right to class. Had afternoon classes, and then we practiced. Had kind of a jog through practice on Wednesday, and then had a tough practice on Thursday and I thought those guys, they showed up, and I think that was big, and that's what it's got to be. You know Father Jack Butler talks to this team quite a bit, and he always talks about the more. Like trying to get the more, you can do more at BC, than just play football, right? You can be really good in football. You can be a good student. You can give back to the community. It's all about getting the most out of yourself and I think that's what these guys need to keep trying to do on a daily basis.
Q: Connection between Tommy and Lewis tonight?
O’BRIEN: It was good. I think that those guys have worked very hard. I was really happy to see that. We hit JB on a chop route, you know, we we hit Lewis Bond which was really good. I thought seeing some of these guys get in there and run the ball the way they ran it. Like, like, obviously Kye and Treshaun, but like, DayDay got in there, and Turbo got in there, and Jordan McDonald at the end, like, ran hard. I was happy to see that. I was happy to see a lot of offensive linemen play. So I'm happy for all, for everybody and I think it was a good team win.
Q: Coach, one of the taller tasks before you is looking at this week when it comes to the quick turnaround that you had, or just trying to put Florida State in the rearview as being such a big win that this not being?
O’BRIEN: We only get 12 opportunities so now we only get ten more. I say this a lot but it's true. Like in baseball, you play 162 games, pro baseball, NBA, play 80-something games. You know, even the NFL plays 17 games. We don't. We only get 12. So we got to make the most of every day, every opportunity. That's what we talk about in this room a lot like not every day is a bed of roses. And I think that we just need to approach it, you know, having trying to have a day where we try to improve every single day. That's, the way we have to approach it.
Q: Coach, the offensive line, I know you mentioned that we've been able to get a lot of guys in there too. How critical is it for them to be able to form that pocket around the quarterback, whether it's Tommy, whether it was Jacobe, to open up those opportunity running backs, however it is.
O’BRIEN: Yeah, no, I think that's huge. I mean, I give a lot of credit to our offensive line. They work very hard. The guards and centers set the depth of the pocket and the tackles set the width and I think overall, over the last two games, we've done a pretty good job of that. I think we have to continue that. The backs are a part of that. The tight ends are a part of that when they're in the protection. So I think, so far, for the most part, that's been good. That'll be tested big time next Saturday. Big time.
Q: On the TV broadcast, they mentioned that you showed clips of FBS teams beating FCS teams, pretty, pretty handidily.
O’BRIEN: I never showed one clip, not one time. I don't know what, where they got that from. They didn't get it from me. Yeah, you'll always get the truth from me. I never showed one clip to these guys about an FBS. I don't know. I'll be honest with you, I don't know the difference between FBS, FCS, NCIS, CIA, I have no idea. I just know that Duquesne is a tough football team and we better be we had to be ready to play them, and I never showed one clip of any of that. Never.
Q: Coach, one question that I'm gonna have to ask you, I feel like no one's gonna ask you in this room. KP, Price, I seen you were really enthused, really happy when you seen him run into the other team's bench. Can you explain, like, how it was? Because I remember seeing your face when I was in the media room, like you were enthusiastic because you were seeing how he was hustling.
O’BRIEN: Yeah, I don't know if it was the fact that he ran over the bench, it was just the fact that they made a play on that they made a play on that. I think it was him and Ryan Turner, maybe over there on that play. I thought they made a good play. They broke on the ball at the same time. It was kind of like how, you know, Ray Brown and Tim Lewis coach it and so I was very happy with the way they executed that play, not the fact that he, I might have been a little bit worried that he was injured hitting the bench, you know? I mean, it's pretty tight on the sidelines here at BC, so, but no, I was, I was fired up about the play that he made.
Q: Coach, you mentioned support from the student fans. So as far as, like, getting non-alumni, Boston sports fans into Alumni, how do you how do you see that happening? And is winning the ultimate solution for that?
O’BRIEN: Look, I think it's a big it's a big part of it, right? I mean, I think that Boston is a city of champions. Boston loves a winner and and I think we have to continue to be a team that people want to come watch. We can't be three yards and a cloud of dust. If it takes that to win a game, then that's what we'll do but we have to be a team that can make some chunk plays and do some things to get fans that want to come watch us play. And so I think it's a two-way street, but Boston loves a winner and so we have to try and understand that and hopefully, if we can continue getting better one day at a time that maybe we'll get the students, like I said, students, 6,000 students, unbelievable. But maybe we could get, you know, some non-students here and fill it up for Michigan State.
Q: Coach, just on that pick-six from Khari Johnson. When you have a guy who makes the interception like that, then everyone has turned around and kind of play the role of blockers, just how do those guys, how do those guys able to do that? I mean, I know that's kind of a simple question, but they turn around and how do those plays develop?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, I think we practice that a lot like one of the things that we do at the start of just about every single practice is an interception, basically a pursuit/interception drill. So these guys get, Tim makes a call, the ball snapped, a coach throws it out to somebody, boom, they pick it off, and then everybody's a lead blocker, and the guys do a good job of finishing the run and doing a good job of running it back. So I think we try to practice that every day. So you, you kind of saw that play out on that that actual play kind of reminded me of practice.
Q: Coach, I was reading The Athletic article. Thought it was really interesting, sort of what it talked about in terms of Coach Fitzgerald, how much of a big difference that has made for the team so far, and specifically the type of workouts that are happening inside the weight room week to week. And I just want to kind of hear from you if you could break down sort of, what's different about his style when those guys are not on the field, when they're training in the weight room, what's kind of different about him that you think just since the bar so much?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, look, I'm very biased. He's the best strength coach in the country and we got him from the University of Florida. He was in a great spot down there. He had been at the New York Giants and give credit to Blake and Boston College, we were able to get him here. And he was with me at Penn State. He was instrumental in keeping Penn State's program alive, along with the players and the coaching staff, then he was with me at the Houston Texans. We started out, we took over a team that was 2-14 and went 9-7 in our first year. A lot of it, the credit goes to him, because he knows how to get a team stronger and keeps it simple. Knows how to get a team in better condition. You run, you run. That's how you get in better condition. You run, back-and-forth, run, run. And he knows how to get a team, faster, quicker, because of the drills that he does. But the thing about Fitzy that's great, is he has a great bond with the players. He's got a personalities from Philly, which, you know, I get, I bless him for that, but like, but he's just got a great personality and the guys enjoy being in the weight room around him and his staff. His staff is awesome, too. And I think again, another person that we just hired, Bears, was instrumental in this, and Blake was instrumental was we hired a woman named Kayla Murphy, who's our football dietician, nutritionist and she's made a huge difference in the short two weeks that she's been here relative to what they should eat and how to hydrate and educating them. She's had a few meetings up here, teaching these guys on what's the best thing to put in their bodies, and so I think, I think we've got a lot of good support people.
KIM RANKIN