Boston College officially names Bill O’Brien head coach
Former Penn State head coach Bill O'Brien is back in the saddle as a head coach for a major college football program. Just over a decade after coaching his final game for the Nittany Lions, O’Brien has officially been named the next head coach of the Boston College football program, keeping him in the New England area after his brief return to the NFL’s New England Patriots this past season.
O’Brien takes over a Boston College football program that just recently lost its former head coach Jeff Hafley to a job as a defensive coordinator on the coaching staff with the Green Bay Packers. O’Brien was lined up to be the offensive coordinator for Ohio State this season but will now take on the head coaching role with the Boston College Eagles.
Boston College is coming off a 7-6 season, its first 7-win season since 2018. The Eagles won the Fenway Bowl in Boston this past season to clinch its first winning season since 2020. O’Brien will be tasked with keeping the Eagles program on the winning side of the margin and hopefully bring the program closer to competing for an ACC title shot. Boston College has not had a top-25 finish since 2007 when Matt Ryan was the quarterback and the Eagles climbed as high as no. 2 in the rankings before national title dreams came shattering down with back-to-back losses to Florida State and Maryland, and ultimately ended with a loss in the ACC Championship Game against Virginia Tech.
O’Brien’s head coaching debut for Boston College will not be an easy one. Boston College is scheduled to open the 2024 season at defending ACC champion Florida State on Monday of Labor Day weekend. O’Brien will also coach the Eagles in non-conference replay at Missouri and home against Michigan State.
O’Brien was named head coach at Penn State in 2012, at which time he took over a program in its darkest days following the unraveling of the Jerry Sandusky scandal. Months later, Penn State was slammed with hefty NCAA sanctions making the job even more difficult for the first-time head coach. But O’Brien kept the program afloat and finished with back-to-back winning records in 2012 and 2013 against most odds.
O’Brien was named the 2012 Paul “Bear” Bryant National Coach of the Year and the George Munger Award winner for Coach of the Year by the Maxwell Football Club following his first season at Penn State.
At this point in time, there are no future matchups lined up between Penn State and Boston College, so we won’t be getting any James Franklin vs. Bill O’Brien battles any time soon barring any potential postseason matchups to come.
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