Eric Miller
Boston College won’t kick off its season at Duke until the second-to-last weekend in September. By that point last year, the Eagles were gearing up for their fourth game of the 2019 campaign. With a thrilling Week 1 win over Virginia Tech and an embarrassing Friday night defeat at the hands of Kansas, the program had already gone through a rollercoaster of emotions.
The traditional highs and lows that come with the start of the college football season are on the back burner for first-year head coach Jeff Hafley and his staff. Instead, the Eagles are carrying on with an extended version of training camp this week.
“We’re still competing all over the place,” Hafley told reporters after Tuesday’s practice, “and we’ll continue to do so this week as we fine-tune some stuff. But we’re going to keep in that camp mentality mode and just worry about ourselves right now.”
Since class started on Monday, NCAA rules restrict BC to 20-hour practice weeks from this point forward. Unlike camp, once practice is over, players don’t have subsequent meetings or walkthroughs, Hafley explained. The rookie head coach went on to say that he loves having in-season practice early in the morning. As a result, players are finished by noon and have the rest of the day to direct their attention toward academics and college life, he said.
Travis Levy noted that it’s a “little weird” having a three-week gap between the end of training camp and the start of the regular season. That said, the senior running back is still taking a day-by-day approach, just like Hafley preached during the summer.
“You just go in every day and just try to focus on what’s going on today,” Levy said. “Three weeks later, we’ll be focusing on game one. But today, we were just focusing on practice—practice for today.”
Hafley maintained that the Eagles have a lot of work left to do before they can begin to think about a specific opponent. Because spring ball was cut short, BC had significant ground to make up during training camp, especially for a new staff that had to gel over Zoom this spring. The Week 1 bye affords the Eagles more time to flesh out concepts on both sides of the ball.
As for a depth chart, Hafley said he and his staff will begin to prepare the two-deep a week from now. The most notable competition among the position groups is at quarterback, where Notre Dame transfer Phil Jurkovec is up against Dennis Grosel, who started the final seven games of last season under center. Hafley didn’t lean either way, but he did offer some words on the signal callers’ development.
“Phil is definitely getting better,” Hafley said. “You can see the confidence growing. Like I said earlier, really strong arm. When he pulls the ball down, he can really run. He’s going to create a lot of problems, because you’re not going to think he’s as fast as he is. When he pulls the ball down and scrambles, [opponents] better have a plan for him.”
Hafley praised Grosel’s leadership ability and his grasp of Frank Cignetti Jr.’s offense. He also said that when Grosel, now a redshirt junior, is on the field, the coaching staff knows that he’s going to make all the right reads. The former preferred walk-on posted a 9-to-3 touchdown-to-interception ratio last season but only completed 48.4% of his pass attempts.
After discussing the top-two candidates for the starting role, Hafley touched on the progress redshirt freshman Sam Johnson III has made, as well as the improvement of fellow quarterbacks Matt Valecce and Daelen Menard. He conceded, however, that having great depth at the position unfortunately means that there typically aren’t enough reps to go around.
Hafley hinted that, by next week, he and Cignetti will have a good indication of who’s going to be the starting quarterback. In the meantime, it’s back to practicing situational football.
He made the point that preparing for Duke three weeks out would be “too much” for the players. Hafley did say, though, that, because he has a new staff, they might put together a mock game plan next week just to make sure everyone’s on the same page. He suggested that he could possibly introduce a little bit of that game plan to the players but nothing’s set in stone.
“On our own, we still have to get better—we have to get way better,” Hafley said. “Sometimes when you prepare so much for one opponent, you start seeing things that don’t even exist, as you actually get ready for the game week, and you start making things up.”
For now, BC’s focus is on self-improvement.
