Everything Boston College Head Coach Bill O’Brien Said at 2025 ACC Football Kickoff

The Boston College Eagles football program took the podium on Thursday morning at 2025 ACC Football Kickoff in Charlotte.

Head coach Bill O’Brien spoke first followed by wide receiver Lewis Bond, defensive back KP Price, and linebacker Daveon “Bam” Crouch.

Below is a transcript of everything O’Brien said.

BILL O'BRIEN: Good morning, everybody. Very excited to be here. Brought four great representatives of our program, Lewis Bond, wide receiver; KP Price, safety; Bam Crouch, a linebacker, and Logan Taylor is in the other room right now doing an interview, offensive lineman for us. So four great guys you guys will get a chance to know.

Again, excited to be here. Excited for the season. These guys have worked extremely hard. Since the season ended last season, started winter conditioning, which transitioned into spring practice, and then into summer workouts.

It's a full-time job. These guys work very hard. They're six days a week getting after it, coming together as a team.

Now we report on Monday -- Tuesday, excuse me. We report on Tuesday and start practice on Wednesday. Very excited about the season.

With that, I'll open it up to questions.

Q. Arguably your toughest challenge on defense this season is going to be replacing defensive end Donovan Ezeiruaku and defensive tackle Cam Horsley. Which guys do you think will emerge this preseason as some of the people who will be doing that?

BILL O'BRIEN: Yeah, I think in college football, there's graduation, right? Guys move on, move on to the NFL. We're proud of those guys, Donovan and Cam, and all those guys that played for us last year. Every year is new, right?

So when you look at our team this year on defense, you've got some guys that have been around for a while like KP and Bam and Q. Hutchins, Owen Stoudmire, Amari Jackson, Max Tucker, Cam Martinez. But then there's other guys that maybe you haven't seen play yet for BC, whether they're high school recruits that haven't played yet or they're transfers.

I don't want to go down the list of names, but I feel very confident in our ability to play good defense this year. It'll be different. It'll look different. I think every year you have to evolve on both sides of the ball and on special teams and try to make sure that you're doing strategically and schematically, you're doing things that accentuate the positives, the strengths of your players.

We have a lot of versatile players. We have guys that can play safety, can play corner. We have linebackers that can play in the box, they can walk out on receivers. We have nickels that can play safety, that can play corner, and we have defensive linemen that can play inside, can play off the edge.

I think over course of 30 practices and training camp, that'll all come together, and we'll be ready to go when the season kicks off.

Q. You're playing against former head coach Frank Reich of the Indianapolis Colts in Week 3. How do you feel about playing against them, and how do you feel about the growing number of coaches going to the ACC?

BILL O'BRIEN: I think it's great. I have a lot of respect for Frank. I've known Frank for a long time. I coached at the University of Maryland for Ralph Friedgen who coached Frank in college. Obviously coached against Frank in the NFL for many years, especially when I was at the Texans and he was at the Colts. I think we got him a couple times, he got us a couple times.

But I think he is a tremendous coach. I think it's fantastic for Stanford. It'll be a big challenge for us to -- we open up against Fordham, we go out to Michigan State, we come back from Michigan State, we gotta go back out to Stanford. It's a big challenge for our coaching staff and our players, but we're looking forward to it.

I think as far as NFL coaches in the ACC, look, I'm not going to go into all the things that I think about when I think about the ACC, but one thing I will say is the ACC is very strong conference when it comes to coaching and playing. We have great players, we have great coaches that have coached at both levels, and it's an exciting conference. And I think it's a great thing for the ACC to have NFL coaches in the ACC. It says a lot about the players in our league, and it says a lot about the programs and the coaches in our league.

Q. Coach O'Brien, this has been a thing well before you, but it's been since 2009 since Boston College had a winning record in terms of in-conference games. How do you reverse that trend, and what is it that you're trying to create different to kind of buck that trend of either .500 or below in terms of conference records?

BILL O'BRIEN: I think it's a fine line. I think there's a small margin of error for all the teams, and I think we have to figure out how to be on the right side of that margin, whether it's turnovers or missed opportunities on defense, maybe a lack of communication here and there. My point is, it comes down to seven or eight, maybe nine plays in a game that make a big difference. Can we kick better this year? Can we tackle better? Can we take care of the ball better?

I think we did a great job last year in the discipline of our team. That has to continue. We decreased, our penalties went down from the year before. We have to continue that.

I do think the difference between one game over .500 and 10 or 11 wins, it's a small margin, and I think that's something that I preach to these guys all the time, about understanding the difference between, hey, lack of communication here or a bad read here or a dropped interception here, that can go a long way towards winning or losing a game.

I think that's something we've really harped on this year, and these guys have done a good job of buying into that, taking it one game at a time.

Q. The general manager role that you had in the NFL, obviously you experienced that at the professional level. Now that we're seeing general managers in college football, what are your thoughts on that role, what it can be, what it should be as we move forward?

BILL O'BRIEN: Look, I think it's a lot different. We just talked about this outside. I think there's such a huge difference between the National Football League and what's going on in college football right now. In the National Football League there's a collective bargaining agreement, there's an enforcement body over 32 teams. Obviously it's a very uniform system. It's a system that is very equal. If you don't do well, you get a higher draft pick. If you manage your salary cap correctly, you can participate in free agency better. There's all different things that go into the NFL.

But it's very uniform. There's rules.

That's something that I believe has to happen eventually in college football, that there has to be an enforcement. I know there's some things going on that are going to help, but in the end, right now, it's just a little bit of the Wild Wild West. Relative to Boston College, we do a good job of making sure the players understand it's an earn-it philosophy. So everybody coming into BC as a freshman, they're going to make a certain amount of money. From that point forward, they're going to earn everything they get, going to class, being on time for meetings. Don't necessarily have to be an All-American right away, just got to be a good guy, good locker room guy, good teammate, somebody that's a contributing member of the team, and if you do that, you'll earn more and more as you go through your career at BC.

Berj Najarian and I handle NIL at BC, along with the administration, Blake James and Colin Shaffer. So I think we're on the right track and we'll see how it goes from here on out.

Q. When it comes to your offense, what strides have you seen from the overall unit, whether it be in spring ball or now over the summer, and now heading into fall and towards the regular season, what do you want to see from that overall unit?

BILL O'BRIEN: Yeah, look, I like our offense. I think when you look at the guys that we have returning, obviously Logan and Lewis here, we have a lot of other guys returning, I really like the diversity of our offense, our ability to be in 12 personnel, 13 personnel, 11 personnel. I think our offensive coaches led by Will Lawing do a great job. I've seen a lot of strides made. These guys have worked extremely hard to get better. I've seen a lot of improvement.

I would say the same thing about defense. I think we have a very versatile defense. We can play 3-4, 4-3, we can play nickel, we can play dime, all kinds of different packages. I think we have versatile players, and I'm excited about both sides of the ball.

I've seen a lot of improvement because of the work that these guys have put in, so I'm excited for training camp to start.

Q. Last year you ranked nationally 12th as far as fewer penalties allowed. Talk about the discipline behind that and just the preparation, and essentially the emphasis in your daily work with that.

BILL O'BRIEN: Yeah, I think the credit goes to the players on that. We, as coaches, we guide them and we talk to these guys a lot about being disciplined and what that can do for you. If you win the penalty battle, you win the turnover battle, you tackle well, you play just good, clean football and you eliminate bad football and then you take advantage of bad football when it happens. That can help you win.

I think we need to continue to do a better job of that. But I give a lot of credit to the players. They kind of hold each other accountable on that now. We instilled it in the beginning when I got here with our staff. They hold each other accountable on that now relative to the discipline on each side of the ball and on special teams, so I give a lot of credit, and that has to continue. That's going to be a big part of our winning formula.

Q. You stated a desire to prioritize local prospects in your recruiting. In that regard, how do you balance local talent with national outreach, and what's your pitch to recruits during the NIL era?

BILL O'BRIEN: Yeah, I think when I said local, obviously I meant New England, but also New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Cleveland and Cincinnati. We recruit those -- Pennsylvania. We definitely go national, though. We go out to California, we go to Texas, we go down to Florida. We do that.

But I think one of the keys to BC is making sure that you have a number of guys on your roster where they come from places where their parents can come watch them play. We recruit every Catholic school in the country. We go into every Catholic school in the country, whether they have a player right there immediately for that year or maybe they have a future player. We definitely are going to do that because we're a Catholic Jesuit institution.

Relative to NIL, I think I answered it before. These guys, they're sitting up here right now, I'm excited for them and many of their teammates who have earned what they're making right now, and then when the new guys, when they enter BC, especially the freshmen, they all basically make the same amount and then they earn it from that point forward. That's how we sell it. You're going to earn it, you're going to have an opportunity to get an incredible education, play great football here, and on top of that, make some money.

So I think we have a total package at Boston College that we talk to our recruits about, and I think we're doing okay. I don't really put much stock into stars and all that stuff. I want to see what they do on the field when they get there. We have a process of how we evaluate prospects, and I think we're on the right path.

Q. With the recent settled lawsuit between the ACC and some of its member schools, we bring in the era of unequal revenue share. Can you talk about how that might affect a school like Boston College?

BILL O'BRIEN: Well, I think when you think about it, if you look at last year's stats relative to actual eyeballs on our games, people watching our games, I think we were pretty high up in the ACC relative to the games that we played. A lot of people watch Boston College. A lot of people are interested in watching these guys play. We play in a great conference. We play in a fantastic city, in the city of Boston. We have really good players.

I think that's a big part of it. I think as you move forward down the road, obviously you've got to win, and we understand that. But I think when you look at our schedule this year, we'll have a lot of national games. We've got SMU at home, we've got Clemson at home, we've got Notre Dame at home, we've got Michigan State on the road. So we have a lot of marquee games that I think a lot of people will be interested in watching, and I'm excited for that and excited for these guys and excited for our season.

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