Just a few more Million Dollar Stairs to climb and we’ll have made it to the Boston College football season. The media machine is ramping up, and O’Brien has put on the full court press to make sure students and fans are out and about for the entirety of the Week 1 showdown against Fordham. We’ll get to a quick preview of the Rams, but first we take a look at some of the team news from the week.
BC announced the captains the locker room picked for the year. Congratulations to WR Lewis Bond, OL Jude
Bowry, LB Bam Crouch, DL Q Hutchins, LB Owen McGowan, WR Luke McLaughlin, DB KP Price, and OL Logan Taylor. All are seniors aside from Price and Bowry, and all are starters aside from McLaughlin (McGowan has an OR designation for the starting spot).
Speaking of, we have ourselves the first official depth chart of the season!
On offense, the closely watched offensive line is set now.
- As expected Bowry keeps his spot at left tackle, Taylor moves to the right after spending the last two seasons primarily at left guard and left tackle, and Cline takes the right tackle spot.
- Allick steps into the center role after a few years of experience at other line positions.
- Daugherty wins the left guard competition after starting at right guard in the Pinstripe Bowl.
- Behind him is the Princeton transfer Matheson, and a shoutout to true freshman Robert Smith IV for playing his way to a backup role as well.
As we saw last year, O’Brien is going to utilize a number of backs this season, and the pass catchers are pretty well established.
- McDonald and Turbo will split the majority of the workload.
- Broome missed last season due to injury, but is an excellent pass catching option out of the backfield.
- We’ll get our first look at freshman and Mass native Bo MacCormack this weekend and see if he can make a similar immediate impact as Turbo did a season ago. In fact, the two are sharing the kick returning duties.
- The receiving group is as expected with Bond, Harris, and Skeete.
- Transfer VJ ‘Rocket’ Wilkins is just behind Skeete, and freshman Dawson Pough backs up Harris.
- *O’Brien was clear that a lot of guys are going to play, and there being little delineation between the 1s and 2s. He called out Wilkins specifically, saying the team has plenty of different packages designed to get guys like him very involved.
Defensively, we have our new front 4 and some promise in the secondary.
- All four guys step into the starting job they backed up last year. Q Hutchins had one of the most impressive camps.
- Bate had an impressive offseason and should be in the pass rush rotation.
- O’Brien spoke highly of Sed McConnell despite limited moments last season. He’ll look to make a bigger impact this year plugging up the middle alongside Kwan Williams.
- Looks like we still have a linebacker competition opposite Bam Crouch. Michigan transfer Hewlett and McGowan will both play plenty.
- And in the secondary, sophomore Syair Torrence wins the corner role opposite Jackson. O’Brien said Tucker, who started all of last season, will still have a lot of opportunity as well.
- Martinez takes over the nickel spot where he started once last year, and freshman TJ Green backs him up.
- Omar Thornton and KP Price hold down the starting safety spots, Price continuing from last season and Thornton winning the role after an impressive camp.
- Freshman Omarion Davis backs up Thornton, and last year’s starter Carter Davis sits behind Price.
On special teams, O’Brien has not minced words when it comes to needing to be better in this department. No spot there is guaranteed as evidenced by the ORs at each position. Matt Thurin also detailed the kicking competition as ongoing.
- Florio and Quinn are both new to the program and will look to improve BC’s output in the punting department considerably.
- Lombardo and Connor split duties last year, both missing one XP. Connor took four of the team’s five field goal attempts, missing half of them, but hitting one from 49. He was 11/14 the year prior. With only five attempts last year, O’Brien was not shy about going for it (possibly understanding the kicking limitations), but it would be surprising to see so few attempts again.
Alright, on to a quick Fordham preview. ESPN’s Bill Connelly has this projected as a 46-6 victory with his SP+ rating system. The Eagles have a 99% chance to win this game, and this should be a nice celebration and showcase. Expect to see Lonergan and James play in this game, along with more or less everyone on this depth chart. As mentioned, O’Brien has said the team has more than enough packages to utilize much of the 1s and 2s.
Here’s a lookback at our Fordham team preview from last month. In short, the team is dealing with quite a bit of transition. Incumbent Jack Capaldi is in a QB battle with sophomore Tripp Holley. Capaldi started most of the season, but Holley got two starts as a freshman. Both guys are athletic and BC will need to keep them contained. The Rams lose a 1000-yard runner and their top two pass catchers. It had among the worst offensive line groups in the FCS as well, and lost more than half their starters. They’ll be running an up-tempo offense, spreading out the BC defense, testing their open-space tackling ability.
Defensively, they’re a bit more stout. They welcome back linebacker James Conway who is eyeing the FCS record in tackles. Despite losing the Patriot League’s defensive player of the year, they still return some key contributors who will be itching to make some raise eyebrows in this contest.
