Amid BC Football's Historic Slide, a Walk On’s Final Moment Shows What the Program Stands For

The Eagles' 11-point collapse to Georgia Tech culminated in a powerful moment for walk-on Shane Hanafin, a redshirt-junior quarterback.

Graham Dietz / Boston College Eagles On SI

Unbeknownst to the rest of his team most likely—and certainly to the rest of the country, at least for a 24-hour period—Shane Hanafin sat for almost two hours on the Alumni Stadium turf following Boston College football’s 36-34 loss to No. 16 Georgia Tech on Saturday, in which it blew an 11-point, fourth-quarter lead.

The Eagles fell to 1-10 on the season and 0-7 in Atlantic Coast Conference play. If BC does not capture a win in its final game of the 2025 campaign, at Syracuse on Nov. 29, it will mark the worst season for the program since 1978, when the Eagles went 0-11.

Hanafin started in the endzone nearest to BC’s lower campus, slumped against the padded maroon cushioning attached to the bottom of the field-goal post, and lethargically tiptoed backward until he paused at the 50-yard line. 

He slumped to a sitting position with his arms on his knees, staring off into the abyss.

Something that’s important to note, but also does not matter in the grand scheme of things, is that Hanafin, a redshirt senior out of Buckingham Browne & Nichols (BB&N) who walked onto the team during the Jeff Hafley era, does not even play.

The only time Hanafin has seen game action this year was against Fordham, in the Eagles’ sole win of 2025, when he stepped in on special teams for participation snaps.

Nevertheless, it does not take a player who doesn’t play a single snap, or one that plays every snap of the game on either side of the ball, to lead by example.

On Saturday, not just by sticking around after his last home game in the maroon and gold, but for additionally standing with the leftover student body and alumni fanbase for the playing of BC’s Alma Mater—he was the only player that did so, while the rest of his teammates funneled to the locker room—Hanafin did just that.

Hanafin’s actions were a reminder of what the nature of sports, especially at Boston College, is all about—community, faith and pride, which all have been lacking in the BC athletics community as of late.

While football success from a results standpoint has virtually extinguished on the Heights, Hanafin saw the bigger picture.

He probably did not have any intention of being perceived in that activity, either, which puts into perspective how deep his feelings extend for the sport that has encapsulated the majority of his life. That is also true of the school which has served as a second home for him for the past three and a half years.

When BC head coach Bill O’Brien spoke after the game about the Eagles’ graduating players, who were not able to get a win to send them on their way into the real world—whether that is for professional football opportunities or not—he surely had Hanafin in mind.

“Yeah, no, I feel terrible,” O’Brien said. “I feel terrible. I wish I could have figured out a way to get two more points. I just, I think these guys have given us everything they've got. I got their back the rest of their lives. I just think it's a great group of kids, and I just have not been able to get them over the hump.”

O’Brien added later on: “I've seen a lot, and I just, I feel for the players. I just want the players to, I want the players to have some success.”

Trying to find the silver lining in something so devastatingly heartbreaking is never easy, and it is honorable that Hanafin chose to go down that route. It is a testament to the way he was raised, because that is an invaluable trait in the greater battle of life.

Just like most of his teammates, Hanafin has given his all since the very first day of fall training camp, sacrificing his body and mind to the everyday grind of being a student athlete. 

And as a walk-on player, particularly in this era of college athletics—walk ons, at this current moment, are practically the only players left who still put in the work without being compensated for it through Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deals—his commitment to the grind speaks volumes.

Even if walk ons like Hanafin are compensated at some universities, those sums are not even close to the same tier that the starters are making, which, at BC, is already on the very lowest end of the spectrum in the entirety of the Power-Four conference landscape.

So in addition to epitomizing what the BC athletics department is after in student athletes, Hanafin made an even bigger impression on the uncertainty of amateurism in college sports, which is somewhere in the realm of purgatory for the time being.