With Cincinnati on Deck, Boston College LB Anthony Palano Concentrated on 'Physical' Defensive Identity
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CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — After being asked what type of identity Boston College football’s defense needs to have for its season-opening matchup against Cincinnati this weekend, redshirt-sophomore linebacker Anthony Palano didn’t hesitate to answer.
“Physical, for sure,” said Palano, who was chosen by his teammates as a team captain earlier this week. “I feel like that’s something that we got to come out and be ready to do. Because at the end of the day, I talked about this when I first got here, if you’re not physical, you really got nothing. So I feel like if we can go out there and just be physical, execute our jobs to the best of our ability, I think we’re going to put out a good product.”
Palano is entering his first season on the Heights after spending a year at Washington State, where he totaled 65 tackles, four quarterback hurries, and two pass breakups in only seven starts for the Cougars.
As the Eagles’ starting middle linebacker with an athletic 6-foot-1-inch build, he is expected to be one of the most productive tacklers for the team this year after it mightily struggled to halt opposing offenses from gaining positive yardage on most plays just a season ago, whether it was through the air or on the ground.
According to Palano, this first game will certainly test how effectively BC’s brand-new defense, managed by first-year defensive coordinator Ted Roof, can limit explosive plays and get the ball back to the offense without surrendering much damage, and he will surely be at the forefront of the operation.
“Cincinnati is a great team,” Palano said. “I mean, obviously they might not have finished the year [the way] they wanted, but that was a ranked team last year. They were ranked, I think, 16th in the country. So they obviously have a lot of great things going on. They got a great coach.”
One of the most difficult parts of Week-One games, especially in this day and age with the transfer portal, is planning for the opponent’s scheme without having any tape to study.
“I feel like it's tough,” Palano said. “It's hard to know from both sides of the ball, right? Like what people are doing, what the offense is doing, what the defense is doing, so I feel like it's tough in that aspect.”
As for what Palano has seen out of the Bearcats’ offense from the information that is at his disposal, a large chunk of it dwindles down to a new quarterback who has already been extremely productive at the FBS level — JC French IV, who transferred to Cincinnati this offseason from Georgia Southern after two years as the starter — and an offensive line that features multiple All-Big 12 selections.
“He’s very talented,” Palano said of French. “He's got a great arm. He fits their offense well. Loves taking shots. So, he's a great player in my opinion. So, I mean, I'm excited for the challenge.”
Linebacker Anthony Palano on finally getting to play a game for @BCFootball:
— Graham Dietz (@graham_dietz) September 3, 2026
"Man, I'm excited. I feel like this is a group that I've been excited to play with since I stepped in the door here this Spring. ... I'm excited to finally put a result on the field." pic.twitter.com/1CkRjmZlkm
On the O-line, Palano commented: “Yeah, again, pretty similar. I think that Cincinnati is a great team, and I'm excited to go against their offensive line. I think it's going to be a great challenge, but to us, I feel like it's more of us going out and just executing our jobs, no matter if it's the best team in the country, the worst team in the country, it doesn't matter to us.”
“Whoever we're playing that week, we're going to go out there and try and do our jobs to the best of our ability. So I feel like it don't really matter to us who we're playing. We're just going to go out there and execute to the best of our ability.”
BC opens up it season on the road this Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET against the Cincinnati Bearcats. The game will be televised live on FOX.
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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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