Everything Boston College Head Coach Bill O'Brien Said After Win Over Syracuse

Boston College football wrapped up its 2025 season with a 34-12 road victory over the Syracuse Orange on Saturday night.

After the game, Eagles head coach Bill O’Brien talked about the team’s performance, gave an injury update on Dylan Lonergan, and spoke on turning the chapter to 2026.

Below is a transcript of everything O’Brien said.

Q: Can you clarify the injury? Dylan vs. Grayson. What happened in the first quarter?

O’BRIEN: Yeah, he hit his thumb on that first third down. He hit his thumb on a helmet and he couldn't grip the ball. They X-rayed it. I'm not sure what the X-ray showed, but he couldn't grip the ball. He tried, he tried to grip the ball, but he wasn't gonna be able to throw the football.

Q: Fast forward down the road. January 2, portal opens. What are, if you had to qualify, what are the two or three biggest needs for Boston College with the portal?

O’BRIEN: Yeah, I don't know. We just came off the field. I'm just really happy for these seniors. They went out on a winning note and they showed up every single day and fought hard all year. And I'm very happy for them to go out on a winning note.

Q: Think you can take this into 2026, the momentum?

O’BRIEN: Every year is different. This is 2025 and every single year is a different year.

Q: What did you change from first half to second half?

O’BRIEN: I thought we could throw the ball. I didn't think we threw the ball enough in the first half, and I thought in the second half we could throw the ball. I think they had trouble covering us, Bond and Harris especially, and Jeremiah Franklin. So came out throwing the ball first down, and it led to some good results.

Q: What did you think of the performance of Grayson?

O’BRIEN: He did a great job. I mean, I'm very proud of Grayson. He's shown up. He's one of the best teammates I've ever been around. 33 years. He's just an awesome guy. He deserves to go out a winner like this. He's shown to be a hell of a relief pitcher. Comes in, he's ready to go. And just can't say enough great things about him. He's a great BC guy, and we're going to miss him.

Q: Hey coach, congrats on the win. You spoke a little bit about Lewis Bond. Just talk about some of the big players today. Lewis Bond, obviously, Grayson James had a great performance coming in there for Dylan. And then, of course, the second half performance. It seems like this whole year unable to have that good performance in the second half and finally, this game, you're able to have a good second half.

O’BRIEN: Very proud of those guys, the guys that you mentioned. Lewis did a great job. Grayson, obviously operating the offense, coming in as a backup, and having to take over right away after the third play of the game. That's tough. That's tough. Thought Reed Harris did a good job drawing some interference penalties. Turbo ran hard. The offensive line did a great job. Jeremiah Franklin was big in this game. I thought the defense played really well. I think the defense did a great job the whole day of doing a good job of communicating and tackling. And Omar Thornton, KP Price, the D-Line did a great job.

Q: Hey Coach, back to Lewis. Just a career day in his final game, 171 receiving yards. Just talk about that and what it means for his future.

O’BRIEN: Yeah, he's got a great future. He's a great player. He's one of the best ever to do it here at Boston College. Very happy for him. He's a tough guy. Slammed his head on the turf on one of those catches there, crossing around. I mean, we had a million crossing rounds. It was awesome. But he slammed his head and he came back in. He was cleared. He came back in. He's just a tough guy. He's a great, great player.

Q: Hey Bill, just considering all you guys have endured this year, how gratifying is it to get this win for the players?

O’BRIEN: I think it's always important to end on a winning note. It hasn't been a great year. It's really important, though, to end on a winning note. The record’s not great, but at the end of the day these guys fought, they came in here on a road. It's not easy to do that. You're coming in here 1-10. They practiced hard. We had a bye week. They practiced. They showed up. They gave us everything. We don't ever want to experience this type of a season again. But there's a lot to carry from this season as far as adversity and never quitting, and just a real big heart of these players, and they did a great job today.

Q: Congrats on the win, first of all, and just more on the players. Just take me inside the locker room after that win today. And just want to hear also, kind of how you addressed things at halftime and how you're able to score 28 points.

O’BRIEN: I think that the locker room was awesome. I think in the beginning, we always sing the fight song when we win, but we haven't won in a while, so I think we kind of had to get back in that routine. And it was pretty funny. It was a comical moment, but we recovered and we sang the fight song, and the guys were excited. It was a cool locker room scene. It was a cool locker room scene. And I think that says a lot about that team. I think at halftime I didn't say much. I thought these guys were fighting. Syracuse was doing a good job with the wildcat with the tight end back there and we had to stop that. And then I thought we missed a couple plays on offense, like I said in the beginning, that I thought we could throw the ball, but I didn't say too much. I think the guys knew they got good leaders. Logan Taylor. KP Price [is a] really good leader. Jude Bowry. And they said more than I did.

Q: Hey Coach, what did you have to say to Luca after that miss [from] 40? I mean, it must have been pretty rough on him.

O’BRIEN: I didn’t say anything to Luca. It's hard. He's striving for perfection. He almost got it, you know what I mean. He's a great kicker. It could have been the hold, who knows, but it came off of his foot a little. I thought we should have done a better job offensively on that drive. So I didn't blame that on Luca at all. I didn't say anything to Luca.

Q: Coach, I know this has been a tough year, but you've maintained staying the course and all that. With the bye week going into this final game, though, were there any changes this week that you made outside of previous weeks going into this game that you think made some significant effects to why you guys won today?

O’BRIEN: No. Really, we stuck with it. We did during the bye week. We scrimmaged a lot because we tried to use that as an extra couple spring practices. And so we scrimmaged a lot of the guys that would be back next year. Gave the older guys some time off, the Logan Taylor's, the Lewis Bond’s of the world, KP, Price, those guys. Kind of lighten the load on them and scrimmage. But other than that, nothing. We stuck with the process. We believe in our process of practicing. We have not won. Don't get me wrong and this is no excuse or anything like that. We've had some very close ball games where we've got to figure out how we have to win these close ball games. There's a lot of areas starting with me that we have to improve upon. But I like the way we practice. I like the philosophy of how we practice. Our practice philosophy is a tried and true system that's really been responsible for a lot of wins in football at many levels. So we didn't change anything. We just came out and played well.

Q: Hey Coach, congratulations. Obviously you want to enjoy this for a day or two, but National Signing Day is Wednesday. How quickly do you have to turn the page?

O’BRIEN: Tomorrow. Yeah, we land tonight. We get back to Conte at 10:30 p.m. Go home, probably have a slice of pizza and go to bed, wake up and get going on 2026. Starts tomorrow. We have a 2 p.m. team meeting. I forgot to tell the team that, so if you guys can tweet that out, there's a 2 p.m. team meeting. You can't be at that, but maybe you can help me.

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