Bill O’Brien (HC Boston College, aka BillyBob O’Buttchin et al)
- By ScriptOhio
- College Football
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Bill O'Brien and a new world of football at Boston College
The degree of difficulty as BC football coach is high, but Bill O'Brien has the pedigree and motivation to make it work.
Bill O'Brien and a new world of football at Boston College
On a sunny evening in early June, Boston College coach Bill O'Brien pulls out his iPhone and starts filming.
He catches a panoramic view of the Shenorock Shore Club, a private club for swimming, tennis and pickleball in Westchester County, a few out-routes from Manhattan. He captures a scene like something out of East Egg -- water lapping on the shore, Adirondack chairs at the ready and an American flag rustling gently in the breeze.
He sends it to his wife, Colleen, and chuckles as he reads her response: "I thought you were working!"
This is all part of the work of the modern coach, a window into the new-age challenge for an old-school mind. O'Brien's appearance at the Shore Club includes more than an hour of glad-handing, introducing himself to graduates and students of all ages. It comes amid a jam-packed multistop trip through Westchester and Manhattan that includes meetings everywhere from Winged Foot to the Downtown Athletic Club -- old haunts for a new era.
The role of coaches as fundraisers isn't new, as they have been passing the leather helmet long before NIL, NCAA lawsuits and conference television networks. But as O'Brien sips on a Miller Lite and presses the flesh, the scene marks a compelling intersection of coach and moment.
O'Brien arrives at Boston College was the most qualified coach in Boston College's nine decades of football. He led the Houston Texans to four playoff bids -- and two wins -- in seven seasons and went 15-9 in two seasons as Penn State's coach.
He's worked under the two modern GOATS -- Bill Belichick in the NFL and Nick Saban in college football. He's called plays in the Super Bowl and for both a Heisman winner (Bryce Young) and an NFL MVP (Tom Brady).
He's also been around long enough to have been fired from the Texans, been hailed as the savior of Penn State in the wake of searing scandal, and he even parachuted into both Notre Dame (under George O'Leary for a few days) and Ohio State (under Ryan Day for less than a month) for stints that never saw a down of football.
The totality of the experience has power, and O'Brien appreciates the collective knowledge accumulated from the wins and losses, the climb and fall, and he feels those lessons have him ready for the journey.
"I feel very prepared," O'Brien said in his office a few days before the start of summer camp. "At the core, I am who I am. I'm passionate about football. I'm passionate about the guys I coach. I'm passionate about the guys I work with. But I've learned a lot. And I think I am calmer. I'm more thoughtful in certain situations. I have a lot of great people around me.
"I realize how important delegating [is]. I think when I was at Penn State, I tried to do everything. I tried to do everything. And I learned. And even in Houston, I tried to do everything at times. And there were some successes, but over time, you have to delegate."
The challenge at BC is significant. It's in the lower tier financially of the power leagues, it's located outside traditional recruiting hotbeds and is a program that hasn't won eight games since Frank Spaziani's first season in 2009. The school's last coach, Jeff Hafley, abruptly left for an NFL coordinator job in part because of all the changes swirling in the sport.
O'Brien is confident BC will have a place in the revenue-share world and have access to NIL, and he's comfortable knowing it will look different from Georgia and Ohio State.
BC officials have been thrilled with O'Brien, with athletic director Blake James offering a pithy summary of why they are so optimistic. "He's done it," James said. "So he knows. There's not a lot of learning."
He's here for both the opportunity and the tug of home. He's from nearby Andover, Massachusetts. His wife, Colleen, is a BC grad, and he has family scattered around the area. But him taking the job is also a bet that BC can win, as he's ready to take an old-school philosophy and merge it with a new era.
"I really think that this is a place where you can win consistently -- I really have a strong belief in that," O'Brien said. "If you have a bunch of guys that really take pride in representing BC, you've got good football players, you've got a really good quarterback, you got a couple special players on the roster, and then a bunch of guys that are just tough hard-nosed guys. You can win. You can win."
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Just sayin': Yeah, but can he win in Tallahassee tonight?
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