Boston College

One golden decade, one golden pass

Boston College organised a football team in 1892 and began playing in 1893, and for almost a century it ran as an independent — no conference, no automatic bowl tie, a New England schedule built on whoever would agree to a date. It joined the Big East in 1991 and moved to the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2005, where it still sits. The all-time ledger reads 703 wins, 541 losses and 37 draws, a shade over.563, with a postseason record of 15-14.

Two things anchor the history. The first is 1940: Frank Leahy's undefeated side, nicknamed the Team of Destiny, which beat Tennessee in the Sugar Bowl on New Year's Day 1941 and is the one national championship the university claims, though the NCAA does not recognise it. The second is Doug Flutie, the quarterback who won the Heisman Trophy in 1984 after a last-second throw beat Miami, and whose side went on to win the Cotton Bowl the following January under Jack Bicknell.

Since then the programme has functioned mainly as a supply line. More than 200 of its players have reached the NFL, among them the quarterback Matt Ryan and the linebacker Luke Kuechly. Home games are played at Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, opened in 1957 and listed at roughly 44,500 seats — comfortably the smallest ground among the ACC's traditional football schools. The fixtures that matter most to the support are Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, Syracuse and Holy Cross.

The local hire

Bill O'Brien was born in Dorchester, a few miles from the campus, on 23 October 1969, and played defensive end and linebacker at Brown between 1990 and 1992. His first significant coaching job was as offensive coordinator at Duke in the mid-2000s, under a head coach named Ted Roof — a detail that would come back around this October.

What followed was a career spent mostly at the top of the sport. He was head coach at Penn State in 2012 and 2013, going 15-9 across the two years and taking national coach-of-the-year honours for an 8-4 first season under NCAA sanctions. He then ran the Houston Texans from 2014 to 2020, finishing 52-48 in the regular season with four AFC South titles, before being sacked on 5 October 2020 after an 0-4 start.

He rebuilt his standing as a coordinator: Alabama in 2021 and 2022, where the team went 24-4 and averaged more than 41 points a game, then the New England Patriots in 2023, Bill Belichick's last season. Ohio State hired him as offensive coordinator on 19 January 2024. He lasted weeks. Boston College appointed him head coach on 9 February 2024.

Seven and six, then two and ten

The first year worked. Boston College finished 2024 at 7-6 and reached a bowl game, which was roughly what the appointment had been sold on. The second year came apart completely. The 2025 side opened by beating Fordham 66-10 on 30 August, lost 42-40 in double overtime to Michigan State on 6 September, and then did not win again until the final Saturday of the season — ten straight defeats, including 48-7 to Pittsburgh, 41-10 to Clemson and 45-13 to SMU. A 34-12 win over Syracuse on 29 November closed it out at 2-10, and 1-7 in the conference, level with Syracuse at the bottom of the ACC and the programme's worst record since 2012. Home attendance still averaged 41,090.

The athletic director, Blake James, kept him, calling him the right man for the job, and O'Brien said he had no doubt about returning. What he did not keep was his staff. The defensive coordinator Tim Lewis, the offensive line coach Matt Applebaum and the wide receivers coach Darrell Wyatt were all removed; the offensive coordinator Will Lawing left for the NFL. O'Brien took the play-calling himself, the first time he had done so since the 2023 Patriots, and hired Roof — his old Duke boss — to run the defence.

The roster was effectively rebuilt: 27 arrivals through the transfer portal and 23 freshmen. The previous starting quarterback, Dylan Lonergan, left for Rutgers. In his place came Mason McKenzie from Saginaw Valley State, a Division II programme where he had thrown for more than 4,000 yards and 31 touchdowns, with Grayson Wilson arriving from Arkansas as cover.

A season that cannot hold a line

The 2026 campaign has run hot and cold from the opening weekend. Boston College lost 34-15 at Cincinnati on 5 September, then won its home opener 28-21 against Rutgers on Friday 11 September, with the linebacker Anthony Palano taking two fourth-quarter interceptions and McKenzie passing for 252 yards and running for 94. A 22-16 win over Maine followed on 19 September. Then came 21-14 to Virginia Tech on 26 September, in front of 22,624 — barely half the ground — and 25-16 at 21st-ranked SMU on 3 October.

The rhythm by then was established: fall behind, rally, win or lose by a score. Pittsburgh were beaten 27-21 at home on 17 October. The following Saturday at Georgia Tech produced the best performance of O'Brien's tenure. Trailing 10-0 inside two possessions, Boston College ran for 399 yards and finished with 500 overall in a 49-27 win, McKenzie carrying for 170 yards and two touchdowns and Bo MacCormack III for 155 and three. The safety Charlie Comella took two second-half interceptions off Aaron Mendoza and returned the second 55 yards for a score. All of that came with the running back Evan Dickens lost to a knee injury the previous week, a missed field goal and two missed conversions.

Those were the terms on which the team looked like it might reach six wins: a heavy running game, takeaways, and a kicking operation nobody wanted to think about.

Durham

On 31 October, Boston College lost 47-2 at Duke. It was 27-2 at the interval. The Eagles managed 213 yards, converted two of thirteen third downs and none of four fourth downs, conceded six sacks and nine pressures, and scored their only points on a blocked conversion returned the other way. Duke's Nate Sheppard ran for five touchdowns on 129 yards, a single-game record for his programme. No college football match had ever finished 47-2 before.

The number that preoccupied everyone afterwards was 15 — penalties, eleven of them in the first half for 94 yards, a season high, and a list that took in pass interference, holding, unsportsmanlike conduct, a face mask and an illegal formation. "It felt like we were kind of getting things going, finally, moving the ball well, and then it would just be 15 yards," McKenzie said. The defensive back KP Price declined to blame the officials: "They called it for a reason, whether we agree with it or not." O'Brien was blunter about himself — "I didn't do a good enough job of getting them prepared to play" — and called it a rough day for Boston College football. It was the heaviest defeat of his time at the university and the team's lowest scoring output since a 44-0 loss at Notre Dame in 2022. For O'Brien and Roof, both of whom had worked at Duke two decades earlier, the venue sharpened it.

Four games, two of them at home

Boston College stands at 4-4 overall and 2-3 in the ACC. Six wins buys bowl eligibility, so two of the remaining four will do it. Florida State visit Alumni Stadium at noon on 7 November. Notre Dame host the Holy War on 14 November. Syracuse come to Chestnut Hill on 21 November, and the season closes at Miami on 28 November, against a side that was top of the national rankings at the start of this month.

That is a demanding run-in for a team whose best and worst performances of the year arrived in consecutive weeks. The third season of a rebuilt roster under a coach who survived a 2-10 year will be judged on whether the Georgia Tech version or the Duke version turns up in November.