BC Bulletin

Amid Boston College Football's Struggles, Bill O'Brien Takes Lessons From Resilience: The Rundown

Bill O'Brien spoke on Tuesday about how the Eagles are finding ways to stay positive during what could be considered a lost season in Chestnut Hill, Mass.
Graham Dietz|
Oct 18, 2025; Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA; Boston College Eagles head coach Bill O’Brien during the first half against the UConn Huskies at Alumni Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Bob DeChiara-Imagn Images
Oct 18, 2025; Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA; Boston College Eagles head coach Bill O’Brien during the first half against the UConn Huskies at Alumni Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Bob DeChiara-Imagn Images | Bob DeChiara-Imagn Images

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Boston College Eagles

In many cases of failure, personal growth often emanates from enduring prolonged hardships—remaining positive despite the negativity that continues to transpire.

Ask Boston College football head coach Bill O’Brien about hardships. In 30 plus years of coaching the sport, O’Brien has been through too many ups and downs to count, just like any other coach, player, general manager, or any other individual in the landscape of sports, for that matter.

But nobody except O’Brien—and arguably his wife, Colleen, and his two children, Jack and Michael—knows exactly what he has had to endure off the field, which is an important message in and of itself.

Football is just a sport. It has the ability to teach life lessons, sure. But the difficult part, especially for fans, is not getting the two mixed up—football and life.

“This is football, right?” O’Brien said after Tuesday’s practice leading up to the Eagles’ road contest at Louisville on Saturday night. “And if you know anything about me, which I don’t think you guys know a whole lot about me, but like, I’ve been through a lot. My wife and I have been through a lot, and so this is football. This is the game of football.”

O’Brien added: “We all want to win. We are working very hard to win. But at the end of the day, it’s about these kids, teaching these kids, teaching them how to play football, making sure they get a great degree, doing the best job I can to represent Boston College in the best way possible, and keep building, keep working, keep going.”

At the bottom of the Atlantic Coast Conference, and close to the bottom of the Football Bowl Subdivision, frankly, the Eagles (1-6, 0-4 ACC) are not where they want to be right now.

With key starters out for the season, it does not look like BC has the depth to be able to compete for a steady stream of wins for the remainder of 2025.

But there are still five games left to be played, starting with a matchup against the No. 19 Cardinals (5-1, 2-1 ACC) in Louisville, Ky., in primetime Saturday night.

Win or lose, there are still positives to take away from the learning experience of game exposure for the players who can actually play on BC’s roster.

Every player for the Eagles once dreamt of competing for a Division-1 college football program, and they all were able to achieve that, to some degree. Of course, a winning record and the ability to compete for a conference title, or even a College Football Playoff berth, is the ultimate goal for the program.

But even if this is considered a “lost season" for O’Brien and co., there is still honor in the simple act of representing the maroon and gold on Saturdays. Maybe that is a difficult truth for fans to accept, but at this juncture of the season, what other option is there?

“The messaging is easy,” O’Brien said. You don’t have any choice. You go out there. What are you going to do? You go out there and you play hard. You play hard. You try to do exactly what we’re asking you to do to the best of your ability. Play fast. Play with great toughness. Play with energy. What other choice do you have?”

O’Brien continued: “You’re an athlete. You’re a competitive athlete at the Division 1 level. … In our room, or in our team meeting room, in our meeting rooms on this practice field, there’s no, we don’t have any mindset like that. Yeah, we’re not winning right now. We totally get that. We know the fans are not happy. We understand that we can’t do anything about that other than show up to practice and be ready to go on Saturday night.”

As for what the future holds, it is completely up to the BC Athletics program and the Boston College administration to figure out if it wants to be serious about pouring in the requisite resources to be able to compete at the NCAA Division 1, Power-Four level of college football.

If it does not, then it should not have hired a coach like O'Brien in the first place, so at least that should provide fans with some level of reassurance.

Trusting the process is the only option for now, however, because those desired results are already out the window this year, plain and simple.

Here is The Rundown, your daily breakdown of all things Boston College athletics, for Thursday, Oct. 23.

Thursday's Schedule:

There are no events scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 23.

Wednesday's Results:

  • Volleyball: Boston College 2, Syracuse 3. | Box | Recap

Countdown to Boston College men's basketball season opener:

11 days.

Did You Notice?

  • Former Boston College men's hockey forward Ryan Leonard tallied his third goal of the season on Tuesday night for the Washington Capitals, becoming the youngest player in the organization to score in consecutive games since Nicklas Backstrom in 2008. Leonard is becoming an early front-runner for the 2025-26 NHL Rookie of the Year.
  • Boston College football and Carolina Panthers legend Luke Kuechly visited the main quad on Wednesday to spread awareness for Project Life, which is a bone marrow registry for individuals with a range of auto-immune diseases.
  • Former BC men's hockey forward Will Smith and San Jose Sharks teammate Macklin Celebrini, a former Boston University men's hockey player, were stopped in the middle of the street to answer a comical series of question from a random pedestrian in New York on Tuesday. It's a must-watch if you haven't.

On this day in Boston College Eagles History:

  • October 23, 1962: Doug Flutie was born in Manchester, Md.

Boston College Eagles Quote of the Day:

“I knew I could shoot. I just didn’t have the confidence in certain coaches to let me shoot, and it sort of weighs in the back of your mind. Well, maybe I can’t shoot … you tend to be a little tentative.”

- Michael Adams

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Graham Dietz
GRAHAM DIETZ

Graham Dietz is a 2025 graduate of Boston College and subsequently joined Boston College On SI. He previously served as an editor for The Heights, the independent student newspaper, from fall 2021, including as Sports Editor from 2022-23. Graham works for The Boston Globe as a sports correspondent, covering high school football, girls' basketball, and baseball. He was also a beat writer for the Chatham Anglers of the Cape Cod Baseball League in the summer of 2023.

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