BC Football DE Commends Bill O'Brien's 'Loyalty and Respect' Prior to Final Home Game: Just a Minute
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Boston College football defensive end Quintayvious Hutchins shuffled into his post-practice press conference on Tuesday with a grin. Hutchins, along with a handful of players on the Eagles’ 2025 roster, is approaching his final game at Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, Mass.
“It’s tough,” Hutchins said. “It’s a tough one. I’ve been here over five years, so for it to be my last game, it hurts a lot. I’m done with college, hopefully going to the NFL to bigger and better things, but it hurts really bad.”
Hurts, quite honestly, is a mild way of explaining his feelings. That goes for the rest of BC’s graduating seniors, redshirt seniors, and graduate students who gave it their all this year.
To go out on a note like this—with the worst record in the Atlantic Coast Conference and one of the worst records in all of college football—probably stings.
But there is more to playing for a program like BC’s than just wins and losses, albeit those need to arrive at some point as well if the university hopes to keep the program alive.
Hutchins may be on his way out in just a few weeks, but his appreciation for BC, from the coaching staff and his teammates to the university as a whole, is evident.
“I’ve been here five years,” Hutchins said. “I could have left anytime, but I didn’t. I stuck it out, waited my turn. The coaches believed in me. They gave me opportunities, and it just means a lot to me. You don’t get so many opportunities in life. They gave me one of the biggest opportunities in my life.”
Hutchins is right.
The Bessemer, Ala., native redshirted his freshman year in 2021 after not playing a single snap. In 2022, he only saw the field on special teams.
During the 2022 season, Hutchins transitioned positions from defensive end to tight end, hoping to contribute in some manner outside of playing on the kickoff, punt, and field-goal units, but his time never came.
He returned to defensive end in 2023, in which he contributed four tackles on special teams.
As a redshirt-junior in 2024, however, which marked BC head coach Bill O’Brien’s first year with the program, his career trajectory took a 180-degree turn.
Hutchins played in all 13 games for the Eagles, who finished the regular season with a 7-5 record before losing to Nebraska in the 2024 Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl, and made seven starts on the edge.
He primarily lined up opposite former BC defensive end Donovan Ezeiruaku, the reigning ACC Defensive Player of the Year, and racked up 31 tackles, 5.5 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks, two fumble recoveries, a forced fumble and eight quarterback hurries.
While Hutchins has not reached the same tier as Ezeriuaku in 2024, partly due to the fact that the unit overall has taken a turn for the worse, to put it lightly—the Eagles’ defense currently ranks 124th out of 134 FBS teams in total defense—he is still on his way to hopefully living out his professional dream.
With two "guaranteed opportunities” left to show on tape why is an NFL-caliber player, Hutchins will look to build on what he has manufactured this season—30 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, two sacks and a team-high six quarterback hurries in nine games played.
But what stands out to Hutchins the most about his time at BC is not at all about statistics, wins or losses, even if he wishes those were more fruitful than they have been this year.
“It’s community,” Hutchins said. “Loyalty and respect. When you get respect and loyalty, that means the world to anybody. Personally, when you give me loyalty and respect, I give you the same back.”
He is not the only player to attest to that loyalty from O’Brien and the coaching staff, even if it is glaringly obvious the individuals on that staff need to be reevaluated during the offseason.
Practically every player who walks through the double doors leading into the media room inside of Fish Fieldhouse, BC football’s indoor practice facility, has said something along those same lines, all year long.
“It’s because of the opportunities that [O’Brien] gives,” Hutchins said. “He gives everybody an opportunity, no matter if they are walk ons, starters, non starters. It’s always opportunity.”
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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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