Everything Boston College Football Head Coach Bill O'Brien Said After Pitt Loss

On Saturday afternoon, Boston College football took a beating on the road at Pittsburgh.

The Eagles, coming off a three-game losing skid, did not score a single point in their fifth matchup of the year until there were less than two minutes left in the game, when third-string freshman quarterback Shaker Reisig capped off a nine-play, 80-yard scoring drive with a three-yard touchdown pass to classmate Kaelen Chudzinski.

The Panthers, who improved to 3-2 thanks to the stellar play of true freshman quarterback Mason Heintschel (30-for-41, 323 yards, four touchdowns), led in total yards, 331-69, by the end of the first half, along with first downs (20-2) and time of possession (21:12 to 8:48).

The Eagles had negative rushing yards at the end of the half (-9 yards), which ended 31-0 in favor of Pitt, and the Panthers went 4-for-9 and 3-for-3 on third and fourth downs, respectively.

Here is everything Boston College football head coach Bill O’Brien said following the Eagles’ 48-7 loss.

Q: Inaudible

O’Brien: “Yeah, look, Pitt did a great job. Give Pitt a lot of credit. We did a terrible job. But again, lot of credit to Pitt. I did a bad job. Did not have the team ready to play. I take full responsibility for what happened on that field. I've got to do a better job. I've got to figure out how to coach these guys better—how to, you know, get the staff and the players to understand how we want to play. When we pulled Dylan, I think it was 38-0. So, you know, Grayson is a senior, it had nothing to do with anything other than just giving Grayson some reps. Same thing with Shaker. At the end, it was 45-0. Let's see. Let's get Shaker some reps as well.”

Q: This has now been three straight subpar performances for Dylan. What do you think he needs to do to improve his game?

O’Brien: “I don’t know. I mean, you know, I don’t think it’s all Dylan. I mean, I think we got to look at what's going on around [Dylan], including us, you know, what are we coaching? What are we calling, especially us, you know, we got to coach it better, you know. And we haven't been able to do that, so it's disappointing, and we just got to go back to work. We have to figure this out and see what we can do to get him going in a better direction. Again, I don't think it's all on him, though, right? I think there were some protection issues. There were some route-running [issues]. We weren't running the ball at all. I think we had minus yardage running at halftime. So it's not all on Dylan.”

Q: You just mentioned the team wasn’t ready. I’m trying to figure out why wasn’t the team ready for this game?

O’Brien: “I don't know. I don't know. Again, that's my—yeah, I see you shaking your head, and I agree. I agree. I'm shaking my head too. And we'll figure it out. I've got to figure it out. It's on me to figure it out. Just not getting it done right now. I'm not getting it done so the players are fighting, and just for whatever reason, didn't have them ready to go today.”

Q: Just comment on the effectiveness of that true freshman quarterback from Pittsburgh.

O’Brien: “Yeah, he did a great job. They had a good game plan for him. And they did a good job. He’s a good runner. He was poised. He got it out quick. He did a nice job.”

Q: I know the injuries aren’t an excuse, but describe the challenge of shuffling guys in and out all game, just how that affects the game plan.

O’Brien: “Yeah, the next guy's got to step up. Injuries are never excuses. It is what it is. It's football. And the next guys have to be ready to play, and we have to get them ready to play. We have to get them ready to play, and we got to make the right calls to make sure we're taking advantage of what they do well.”

Q: I think Turbo [Richard] had just three carries in the first half. Just wondering if that was, you know, after a week where he rushed for 170 yards, if that was just more your guys’ game plan against what you were seeing from Pitt’s defense.?

O’Brien: “Yeah, no, we got to get him more carries. We did not get him enough carries. I thought the offensive game plan was terrible. Give Pitt a lot of credit. I've got to do a better job with the offensive game plan. Like I said, I've got to coach better. I've got to game plan better. I've got to get the players and the coaches to coach and play better. That's on me.”

Q: Just getting to the quarterback has been a big issue this year. You guys have been forced to blitz more. Just how much pressure does that put on the secondary to, you know, hold coverages longer and work with less help over the top?

O’Brien: “Yeah, no doubt, we have to blitz. We don't get very much pressure with a four-man rush. So we have to pressure. You don't always have to man pressure. You can zone pressure and help your DBs a little bit. But yeah, that does put, you know, if you're bringing five, and obviously, if you're bringing six, definitely, but if you bring in five, you know, that puts some pressure on your DBS, and that's just what we've had to do to try to generate some pass rush, and we've struggled to do that.”

Q: Do you perceive yourself making any changes, not necessarily to coaches, but their roles and what they do?

O’Brien: “No, I don't see us doing that. I think we just all have to do a better job. I think we'll evaluate everything that we're doing, but I don't foresee me making any changes, you know, this year. No, not at all. We're going to continue to, you know, work as hard as we can. And, you know, look, I get it. There's no excuses. I hope I'm making myself clear. You can put it out there. I've got to do a better job.”