One of the qualities that Boston College football head coach Bill O’Brien has wanted to instill on his team since coming to Chestnut Hill is physical toughness and identity.
The standard is one that the 55-year-old has stressed since before training camp last year. During ACC Football Kickoff in July of 2024, he stated that Boston College should be known as a “disciplined, tough, hardworking football team.”
O’Brien spoke about the physical identity of this year’s team during Wednesday’s ACC PM broadcast on ACC Network.
“I still think that we’re a team that has to establish our physical identity with our running game on offense and our ability to stop the run on defense,” said O’Brien. “Both of those we’re working really hard on in the spring. We’re working hard on our run game.
The spring, you get 15 practices and 12 of those practices can be in full pads which I think is really, really beneficial to us. We work hard on fundamentals, we work hard on blocking people, taking on blocks, tackling, the things that really establish a physical identity and I think our guys have done a good job of that so far in the spring.”
In 2024, the Eagles run game was a big part of the offense. The group tallied 2,163 yards and 24 touchdowns while averaging 4.1 yards per carry and 166.4 rushing yards per game.
This year, Boston College’s running back room will get a little deeper with the return of Alex Broome. Broome missed all of last year with a torn ACL.
O’Brien spoke on the redshirt junior and his work to get back on the field during spring practice.
“Give this guy [Alex Broome] a lot of credit,” said O’Brien. “He tore his ACL really about this time last year and he’s worked very, very hard to come back and to give himself a chance to play. He’s probably been one of the standouts of spring practice. He’s shown up everyday, he’s done a really good job obviously running the ball, but also catching the ball in the backfield, and special teams. He’s a guy that’s really gonna help us in the fall, no doubt about it.”
The second-year Eagles head coach also emphasized that the team has to improve on the defensive side of the ball when it comes to its opponents run game and needing to stay ahead in plays.
“I think there’s little details that we have to be better at relative to in the running game,” said O’Brien. “Just gap control, doing a better job on what we call P&10, the start of drives. We gave up too many yards on P&10. Teams were in 2nd-and-1, 2nd-and-2, and we were just behind in the drive a lot during the season. We did take the ball away very well which is something we work hard on but we gotta continue to do that.
I think there’s certain things we have to do especially in the running game. Virginia Tech ran for a lot of yards against us, Missouri ran for a lot of yards against us, and we just have to do a better job of controlling our gap and making sure that we’re in the right place at the right time and tackle… I was happy with the way we started last year with our defense. First year. Tim Lewis did a nice job, but we can take it to another level.”
Boston College will have its second spring practice of the week on Thursday morning.
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