Boston College Head Coach Bill O'Brien 'Excited' For Quarterbacks, Confirms Competition

The biggest question going into this season for Boston College is who will start at quarterback.

The Eagles have a strong quarterback room with returner Grayson James, who started five games in 2024, Alabama transfer Dylan Lonergan, who committed to the program in December, and freshman Shaker Reisig, who was a part of Boston College’s 27-member 2025 class.

During a segment on ACC Network on Thursday morning, second-year Eagles head coach Bill O’Brien confirmed that there will be a quarterback competition during training camp which will begin on Wednesday.

“I’m excited about this offense, they’ve worked really hard,” said O’Brien. “Grayson [James], like you guys said, he’s coming back. Really good guy. Did a great job for us at the end of the season. We have a transfer from Alabama named Dylan Lonergan who’s had a really good offseason.

"We’ll make a determination on who’s gonna start here pretty soon during training camp. Then, we have a freshman named Shaker Reisig, who we really like too. He's from Oklahoma. We think [he] is gonna be really good so we’re excited about the quarterback room.”

Although a decision has yet to be made, both James and Lonergan have had even reps throughout the spring and summer as well as have been working with offensive coordinator Will Lawing and quarterbacks coach Jonathan DiBiaso.

“I think we’ll make a determination in the camp,” said O’Brien. “We do a good job at balancing out the reps. Will Lawing, Jonathan DiBiaso, the quarterback coach, they do a good job of balancing out the reps. These guys have had a million reps, Grayson and Dylan, and it’s been good.

I think over the course of time, I’ll make a determination when I feel like the team’s ready and these guys are ready and we’ll go with it. But we have a very strong quarterback room which I think is a good thing and we’re excited about that.”

When asked about the experience of James, O’Brien had nothing but positive things to say about each player vying for the position.

“He [James] did a good job for us at the end of last year,” said O’Brien. “He came in during a difficult situation. He was hurt. A lot of people didn’t know this. He had a rotator cuff issue for about eight weeks of last year. He couldn’t play. Took him a while to come back. He was out for six weeks, took him two weeks to get back to throwing, and then we put him in there against Syracuse [and] did a heck of a job.

“Dylan is someone I recruited to Alabama and have a lot of confidence in. He’s a great passer, he’s a very smart guy, so I think it’s a good problem to have. Eventually one guy is gonna have to start but the other guy’s gonna have to be ready and I think we have really good guys in that room.”

While speaking to the media after Boston College’s press conference, O’Brien also revealed what it takes for a successful quarterback and what he is looking for at that spot.

“Our quarterbacks have to be very, very smart,” said O’Brien. “They have to have a brain that works very quickly so that they can get us into the right play when the ball is snapped, they can make good decisions relative to whether it's a run or a pass. They can make good decisions with the ball. They have to be athletic. They can't be statues. We have to be able to move because of the things that we do offensively. They have to be accurate passers. They don't have to have rocket arms, but they've got to have accuracy and they've got to have anticipation.

“The best guys I ever coached had great anticipation. They didn't wait for the in cut to come open. They knew that in cut was coming open because they had great defensive knowledge, which is another thing our quarterbacks have to have: really, really good defensive knowledge. Our quarterbacks, I tell them, if they take five classes at Boston College, this is their sixth class, and we're looking for an A in that class. So it is definitely a lot of preparation and studying. These three guys put in a lot of time and we've completely changed the quarterback room at Boston College. I think it's been fun to watch, but we ask a lot of our quarterbacks.”

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