Everything Boston College Head Coach Bill O’Brien Said After Win Over Michigan State
The Boston College Eagles football team defeated the Michigan State Spartans 23-19 on Saturday night to improve to 3-1 on the year.
After the game, Eagles head coach Bill O’Brien spoke about what he saw in the contest.
Below is a transcript of everything O’Brien said.
Q: How did you like your first rendition of the Red Bandanna Game?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, it’s a special night, it really is and I think just the crowd, the students, just a special place and a great tribute to Welles Crowther and his family. I saw Allison Crowther before the game, which was pretty cool, so it was, it was a special night. It's one of those games though you got to win. You got to win to make it a real special night. So I was happy our guys were able to pull it out.
Q: Coach, you talked earlier this week about needing more on special teams. Right out of halftime, to get that big play, how important is to get that contribution from that unit?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, that was huge. We got to turn that into a touchdown though. We really do. There’s so many things that we can do better and credit to the players. They fought, they were resilient, but that was a great play. That was a huge play in the game, but we got a field goal out of it. We got to turn that into six and seven with the extra points. So anyways, yeah, we work very hard on special teams. Matt Thurin does a really good job. Nick McGriff, they really coach it very, very well. The kids take a lot of pride in it, and Joe Marinaro is the captain of it and it’s something that we still got to punt it a little bit better, although I thought Liam had a great inside the five punt tonight, which was huge. But we still, we still got to do that part of it a little bit more consistently. But it was, it was good night.
Q: Coach, the play with Thomas to Lewis. It’s 3rd-and-1 and he takes that shot downfield. Just what did you see from him on that play, on Lewis getting free and how does that kind of, obviously it wins the game.
O’BRIEN: Yeah, I think there was a timeout. There was a TV timeout before the game, or before that play, excuse me and Tommy loved that play. Will Lawing made a great play call there. Lewis Bond was open a lot tonight, and I think we need to hit Lewis more. Lewis was wide open quite a bit so, but that was a great play and Lewis did a great job. Lewis is a very smart player, so he tried to use as much of the clock as he could. He skated the goal line, which was pretty smart on his part, and that was a really nice play by both those guys, and great protection on that play by the offensive line.
Q: Coach, you’ve had so much support throughout the years from being with the Patriots. What's it been like so far, just with Boston College specifically?
O’BRIEN: Oh it’s incredible. I mean, you get off the bus tonight and do the Eagle Walk. It's just awesome. It's great support. Yeah. I mean, the students here are unbelievable. It's a special place. It's a very special place. It's a place that has a lot of tradition. Father Jack, he talks to our team a lot about getting the more, getting the most out of yourself. And that's what BC does. BC gets the most out of you. And you saw that tonight with these kids. These kids work hard. These football guys, they work very, very hard. They get up at five in the morning, 5:30 in the morning, they practice every day, they go to class, they’re doing a better job of going to class, they do things in the community and they're resilient on the field. We got to keep it going. We got a very, very difficult game coming up here, Western Kentucky. I just told them that in the locker room, Western Kentucky is a good football team, so we got to really kind of turn the page here pretty quickly tomorrow.
Q: Coach, being down at halftime, what did you say to your players at halftime and any adjustments?
O’BRIEN: I can't repeat what I said to the players at halftime. I’d have to go to confession. Yeah, I was upset with coaches and players at halftime. I'll be honest, I was upset with myself. I was upset with the staff. I was upset with the players. And I just, a little Irish temper came out. And, you know, look, I think these guys like they work so hard. I want them to play clean football and I didn't think we played clean football, and I thought the defense did a really good job of keeping us in the game. We're only down a touchdown at halftime. We should have been down more, I'm sure that Coach Smith is saying that in his presser right now, like we should have taken advantage of some of those plays we had in the first half because our defense kept us in there, held them to field goals and really, really were kind of a little bit of bend but don’t break and then we got it going in the second half. But it was, it was a dogfight, no doubt about a great game.
Q: Coach, obviously, games like this, with the weather being a factor, they tend to be played tight by both sides. And usually it's a team that makes that big play or generates that turnover in a key spot that wins the game. How important was it for you to see that from your guys tonight, because you were able to do those things that led to you getting this win.
O’BRIEN: Yeah, I think that, we preach a lot about taking care of the ball. We had the one fumble, but we took the ball away a lot and so on special teams, too. And I think that was a big factor in the game, even though that didn't always generate the points that we wanted, that was a very big factor in the game, and I think that's something we have to keep doing. I don't know what the penalties were tonight, but I felt like we had some penalties, but they weren't like, we had the delay a game on the field goal, which was terrible, probably my fault, but overall, I thought we tried to play a cleaner game, still not as clean as we want it to be but seems like we kind of won that battle tonight.
Q: Where'd you end up in the mosh pit?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, no, I was, yeah. I just am so happy for the students here. I mean, I don't know how many students. There had to be another 6-7,000 students tonight. I think that's what I tell these kids all the time, and I've said this since I got the job, is that we have to be an exciting team so people want to come watch us play. And I think the students, to give them, they work really hard too. It's a great school. It's a very demanding school, and to give them something to cheer for on Saturday night, I think that's pretty cool. So I was very, very happy to see that.
Q: Coach, the defensive takeaways, specifically the interceptions, how much of that is just defensive backfield having the instinct to go after the ball?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, I think Tim did a really good job tonight. They had some plays, they made some plays, but I think it was more, maybe our lack of execution than it was the call itself. So I think he did a good job of mixing coverages up and they hit some things, but our guys really were able to, were able to kind of hock the ball, is what I talk about and get some interceptions, which is huge. It was a big, big factor in the game.
Q: Coach, you can prepare for the cold by playing in the cold all week in practice, how you prepare for the rain?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, we haven't had much rain. We really haven't. We tried to go outside the other day. We thought it was going to rain. It didn't rain and we do work with wet footballs a lot. I'll dump the water on the wet football. Not sure how much that really helped tonight. It's probably a little bit of a misnomer, to be honest with you, but that's what we've done since I started coaching, but, yeah, you can't control, we've been outside a lot. We’re outside in the summer. I think it rained a couple times in the summer. They stayed outside training camp, not really just, you just do the best you can.
Q: You guys get stopped in that 4th-and-1, they take it for nine minutes. How important is that to hold them to a field goal there?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, that's exactly what I was saying before. I think Tim, the defense did a really good job of holding them to field goals, getting some TFLs to put them in long yardage and then holding them to a field goal attempt is huge in that type of game, right? And look, the fourth down stop, I was not going to kick a field goal there. That's not Boston College. The balls on the one yard line. The game's tied like we're not kicking a field goal there. And so we called a play. We thought it would work. They played it better than we executed it. It was a good play. They played it better. We couldn't get the guard around and we just got to, we got to go back to the drawing board on that one but our defense did a really good job on that drive.
Q: Treshaun had the fumble earlier The fumble earlier [and] ends up going over 100 yards, a touchdown. How do you feel like he responded from that early miscue?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, he's awesome, man. He's really a good guy. He's very quiet. Works very, very hard, good teammate. I was happy for him. He felt terrible about that fumble. That was a good drive, that was a drive I really felt we were going to score on and then he put it on the ground, and he didn't do it again. He felt bad about that, and he took care of, he's a veteran player, been around the block a little bit, so he, he did a really good job tonight.
Q: Coach, Luca Lombardo first field goal tonight, just what’d you think of his performance overall?
O’BRIEN: Yeah, I think he did a really good job. There were some tough conditions, right? Snaps were a little bit tough. I think Luca is a very talented kicker and I think Liam Connor is a very, I think we're lucky in that department, that we have guys like Luca and Liam that are really talented guys that can both kick.
KIM RANKIN