Boston College's Keys to Victory: Colgate
Boston College opens its 2021 season against the Colgate Raiders in Chestnut Hill on Saturday at noon. An FCS team from the Patriot League, Colgate struggled the last two seasons, finishing 4-8 in 2019 and 0-2 in 2020. After an abysmal truncated season in 2020, where the Raiders were outscored 18-60, head coach Dan Hunt resigned for personal reasons. Stan Dakotsky, formerly the defensive coordinator and assistant head coach, takes the reins this year. Boston College looks to make a major leap forward in the second year of the Jeff Hafley era. The newly explosive offense brings back all but two starters, while the defense is looking to make big strides this year.
Obviously, Boston College maintains a significant advantage in athleticism, talent, and depth over Colgate. Regardless, let’s go over the objectives that the Eagles must achieve for a convincing Week 1 win.
1. Throw It (Back)
BC comes into the year boasting one of the most dynamic passing offenses in the ACC. Phil Jurkovec is a hot name in the draft community and could be a first-round pick this spring. Zay Flowers is one of the best receivers in the conference and is part of an extremely deep receiving corps in general. The Eagles lost All-American tight end, Hunter Long, to the NFL, but they replaced him with Trae Barry, a transfer from Jacksonville State; Barry earned FCS All-American honors the last two years and could be the best pure receiving tight end BC has seen in a very long time.
With all that being said, this game is an excellent opportunity for the Eagles to revitalize their ground game. BC returns all five offensive line starters from last year; while four of them are playing different positions than last year, they are all returning to their original positions where they should be more comfortable. In general, Boston College struggled to run the ball last year. The position changes, along with a complete overhaul of the offensive scheme, both contributed significantly to this drop-off.
In 2020, the offense averaged 101.2 rushing yards per game (119th) and only 3.1 yards per carry (118th). By comparison, in 2019, they average 254.2 yards per game (7th) and 5.1 yards per carry (22nd). Now, there is one statistical caveat: BC also averaged 50.2 rushes per game in 2019 while only averaging 32.8 in 2020. Additionally, the Eagles also lost star running back AJ Dillon to the NFL. This year, the Eagles also lost David Bailey to the transfer portal, where he reunited with Steve Adazzio at Colorado State.
However, with a complete offseason of on-campus training, workouts, and practice, the offensive linemen and running backs should be much more comfortable in this zone-running scheme. Against a team like Colgate that is undersized (none of their defensive linemen are over 290 pounds) and athletically deficient, the offensive line should dominate and get the running backs off to a hot start this season. I’m not saying the Eagles need to fully go back to the ground-and-pound approach of the previous administration. But jump-starting this run game against an inferior opponent should pay dividends later in the season.
I Spy
Last year, Boston College’s defense was inconsistent in a variety of ways. In some games (Duke, Georgia Tech, Syracuse) they looked dominant; in others (Virginia Tech, Notre Dame, Virginia) they severely struggled, especially at preventing explosive plays. The Eagles lost all of their starting linebackers this offseason, with Isaiah McDuffie and Max Richardson heading to the NFL. McDuffie and Richardson were great leaders and tackling machines but they had their flaws. Richardson lacked athleticism and McDuffie played too aggressively at times, allowing offenses opportunities to exploit open gaps. Almost every other starter from last season is back (minus Chibueze Onwuka and Deon Jones, who are out with injuries). Like with the offensive line, a full off-season of normal practice within this defense should help the returning players improve.
One of the BC defense’s biggest issues last year was the inability to contain mobile quarterbacks. According to Pro Football Focus, Boston College finished with a Pass Rush grade of 70.6 as a team, finishing tenth in the ACC. The Eagles only made 2.27 sacks per game, good for 59th among FBS teams. Players like Hendon Hooker, Jeff Sims, Malik Cunningham, Brennan Armstrong, and even Ian Book gave the defense fits with their ability, not only to create rushing yards but also to extend plays and find receivers downfield. Making matters worse, the defense’s three players with the most sacks last year (McDuffie, Richardson, and Maximilian Roberts) are all no longer on the team.
With all the being said, Colgate presents a favorable opportunity for the BC defense to get their feet wet dealing with a mobile quarterback. The Colgate offense likes to use their quarterback as part of their designed running game. Many of their concepts reflect those of the Baltimore Ravens and how they use Lamar Jackson. Obviously, Colgate’s quarterback, Grant Breneman, is no Lamar Jackson. But he’s a creative runner that can pick up yards when called upon and extend plays with his feet. Breneman may test the new linebacking corps and the defensive ends with his ability to break out of the pocket. Therefore, I expect Hafley to instruct the defense to try to contain Breneman in the pocket by maintaining strong edges and using the linebackers (perhaps even safeties) to spy the quarterback. If the Eagles can hem in Breneman, that should render the Raiders’ offense completely ineffective.
3. Keep It Secret, Keep It Safe
The final key to victory applies more to the rest of the season. But it also is arguably the most important. As I said on the Locked On Boston College Podcast earlier this week, this game is basically a preseason game for BC. During the preseason in the NFL, teams run very basic concepts on both offense and defense. This allows the coaching staff to evaluate if players can play at that level by executing the simplest of schemes. But it also prevents their opponents from getting valuable film on the team that will presage what the team will look like during the regular season. Therefore, I don’t want BC to break out tons of new plays and concepts on either side of the ball. I want to see a lot of basic outside zone run schemes to get the ground game going and make the offensive line comfortable. I’d prefer to see Phil Jurkovec complete a lot of short passes and allow his wide receivers to do the work for him.
On defense, don’t expect to see lots of exotic blitz packages or complicated coverage rotations. Last year, BC stuck with very basic coverage shells; they ranked 10th in Cover 1, 16th in Cover 2, and 9th in Cover 3, while ranking 127th in Cover 4/6. Obviously, there are ways to rotate and confuse offenses within the first three types of coverage. But Cover 4 and Cover 6 are two of the primary coverages, especially in modern football, that defenses frequently use to thwart offensive attacks. Jeff Hafley and other members of the coaching staff even admitted this offseason that they keep their defense relatively vanilla due to the lack of practice and training with the team due to COVID. This year, I expect their defense to be much more complex, but not against Colgate. BC’s superior size, athleticism, and talent should be more than enough to easily dismantle the Raiders without having to rely on new advanced schemes.
The final element of this key is making sure everyone stays safe/healthy. BC has plenty of depth at nearly every position. Therefore, there is no reason for the starters to remain in this game into the second half. The Eagles should have built a multiple-touchdown lead by halftime so expect to see plenty of backups and freshmen in the second half. In the early parts of the game, there should be significant rotations of players, specifically at the offensive skill positions and the secondary. There’s even been some talk that offensive line coach Matt Applebaum will be rotating in some backups this season. Against a team like Colgate, this is a fantastic strategy; BC will need an entirely new starting offensive line last year so getting young guys like Kevin Cline, Jack Conley, and Ozzy Trapilo some playing experience is crucial. At the end of the day, preserving the health of the team as a whole is a paramount goal for the matchup against Colgate.