Boston College Football 2025: Offensive Preview
Boston College's offense is kind of like looking into a mirror, and I don't like that.
The last (and only) meeting between these two teams was back in 1986, when a 10-2 Boston College team beat a 2-9 Cal team 21-15. Back then, they had legendary future Hall of Famer Doug Flutie’s brother, Darren, at wide receiver. (Doug Flutie was at Boston College from 1981-84 — though note that both Doug and Darren are indeed both in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame).
Boston College is led by second year head coach Bill O’Brien, formerly of the Houston Texans and New England Patriots. Bill O’Brien was actually briefly hired to be Ohio State’s offensive coordinator before being offered the head coaching job at Boston College, at which point Ohio State somehow then poached UCLA’s Chip Kelly.
While Bill O’Brien was generally regarded as a good X’s and O’s coach in the pros, he did struggle in his GM/coaching role, particularly at Houston. He had a number of high profile missteps: drafting Jadeveon Clowney #1 overall when Houston really needed a QB (Clowney, while serviceable, never lived up to the college hype), trading away star WR DeAndre Hopkins for peanuts, overpaying for OL Laremy Tunsil, ultimately losing Clowney for peanuts, and so on).
One of Bill O’Brien’s biggest mistakes for the Texans was giving a mega contract (4 years, $72 million dollars) to former ASU QB Brock Osweiler, only to end up dumping Osweiler just a year later. You may recognize Osweiler as the ESPN broadcaster for what seems like the majority of Cal’s late night games in the Pac-12 and now ACC (Osweiler is not listed on the ESPN broadcast at the time of this writing, but would be interesting to see how Osweiler may feel about BC if he is in the broadcast booth for the game). O’Brien also opted to start Tom Savage over a guy named Deshaun Watson (who ended up having some very strong seasons at Houston, at least before all the sexual misconduct stuff came out). So while O’Brien may be good at designing plays, he struggled in his other duties in the NFL.
On offense, O’Brien utilizes a timing-based system in which his receivers attack the open space of the defense. While a play-call may have route concepts for a particular side of the field, receivers are expected to adjust their routes based on what the defense gives them. A receiver running a go-route may convert that to a quick slant if he recognizes that his corner is blitzing, to give the QB a quick outlet. A receiver may also adjust his route depending on his leverage. In short, it’s very important that a quarterback and a receiver are reading the field in the same way, because a receiver may break in or out depending on what the defense gives him, may change his route to find the open space in zone coverage, and so on. Being on the wrong page means the quarterback throwing to an area of the field where his receiver may not be.
BC likes to attack the soft spots with zone coverage, while challenging you to deal with their receivers in man coverage. This obviously implies they have the personnel to win in one-on-one matchups (which you can judge for yourself in the receiver section).
Let’s take a closer look at the positional breakdowns.
Quarterback
Boston College is led by Alabama transfer Dylan Lonergan (who was originally recruited to Alabama by then Alabama OC Bill O’Brien, who was in Nick Saban’s coach rehabilitation program after O’Brien was fired by the Houston Texans). Given Bill O’Brien’s offensive system, Lonergan is expected to be a field general that makes good reads and stays on the same page as his wide receivers. Although Lonergan could reasonably be expected to already know O’Brien’s system because of his two years at Alabama, I did think he may struggle initially with building chemistry with his new receivers, but that doesn’t seem to be the case so far. Lonergan is currently throwing a 73.2% completion rate, which ties him for 6th (with Miami’s Carson Beck) among QBs with at least 93 dropbacks this season, with 9 TDs and only 1 INT so far this season. Lonergan has a strong arm and accuracy on his medium and deep range passes. Lonergan needs to be able to anticipate the defense and that his receiver is reading the defense the same way, so that he can anticipate his receiver finding the open space:
Lonergan has shown some excellent ball placement when given a clean pocket:
Here Lonergan hits his receiver streaking across the field with a strong throw:
Lonergan has shown some susceptibility to making poorer decisions under pressure:
Lonergan is confident in his ability to fit his throws into tight windows, but that can also backfire:
Lonergan isn’t particularly mobile and probably not adept to run a true RPO offense (that O’Brien utilized a lot more with Houston’s Deshaun Watson and New England’s Mac Jones). If we are to see some more traditional RPO plays, it’ll likely be with the backup, Grayson James:
Grayson James also has a strong arm. Here he also finds familiar deep threat target VJ Wilkins:
BC has had a lot of success throwing the ball this season, and we can expect that to continue.
Running back
Although BC had a lot of success running the ball last year, they’ve shifted away from their run-heavy identity under O’Brien. There’s no polite way to put this, but Boston College has looked absolutely awful running the ball this year. Boston College currently averages 61.5 rush yards per game, putting them at 3rd last in the FBS. Against FBS opponents: BC ran for 67 yards on 25 carries against Michigan State (2.68 yards/carry) and 56 yards on 23 carries against Stanford (2.43 yards/carry). What’s more concerning, however, is that they took on an FCS team that went 2-10 in 2024, and only managed 97 yards on 39 carries (2.48 yards/carry) — with those longer runs mostly occurring in garbage time. If you were to run the ball 40 times on a bad FCS team and not break 100 yards, I think it’d be time to sound the alarm. BC absolutely should have had the talent to dominate the opponents front seven, but BC seemingly struggled with communication on the offensive line, missed blocks, failed to pick up blitzes, and even had offensive linemen crashing into each other while trying to block players. They have not looked like a cohesive unit, and struggled to move the ball against any opponent:
The bulk of the carries this season have gone to sophomore running back, Turbo Richard (an all-time name for an RB). He was a track star in high school (if you search his real name, Hanovii Richard, he won the South Carolina High School League 4A Upper State Championship, and although I don’t know the difference between the different South Carolina state championship divisions, I do know that a 10.90 100m dash is pretty fast). Although you might expect a smaller, shiftier speedster, Turbo Richard is actually the opposite: a heavyset power back looking to run through contact. Richard is also a solid receiver, and to compensate for BC’s struggles in the traditional run game, they will often look to get the ball to Richard in open space, often by spreading the field horizontally:
Richard also had the longest reception of the game against Stanford:
Richard is a very patient back, as he anticipates his blocks to find his running lanes:
Richard does a good job of recognizing when his blocks are not there, and usually opts to try and churn a few extra yards as he falls forward through contact, but he can also bounce a run outside as he does here:
Here’s the standard Turbo Richard run so far this season:
Richard has also shown some flashes of his cutting ability, where he can make a man miss in open space:
The backup Jordan McDonald has had far fewer carries so far this season, but he also looks like a talented back that’s been stuck behind a struggling offensive line:
Although McDonald also leans more towards a power back that tries to break through tackles instead of avoiding them, McDonald has shown that he does possess breakaway speed:
Boston College’s offense has still been pretty successful (turnovers against Stanford excepted) without much of a run game, but you can’t expect to sustain success with a one-dimensional offense.
Receivers
Boston College has some pretty talented receivers, which is a big factor in why QB Dylan Lonergan has found early success. Bill O’Brien is trying to scheme receivers open in zone coverage, with big receivers that can beat you in man coverage.
Lonergan’s biggest safety blanket is the tight end, Jeremiah Franklin. Franklin has very strong hands and the ability to make catches in traffic, and he’s a reliable receiver once he gets his hands on the ball. Here, you can see Lonergan looking for Franklin on 3rd and long:
Franklin is big and tough to tackle, and defenders have found it difficult to disrupt his catches. Franklin has some pretty solid receiving skills, and can get open even without bullying smaller defenders:
Although Franklin is Lonergan’s second most targeted receiver, Lonergan’s favorite is actually the slot receiver Lewis Bond (although Bond will line up all over). It’s Bond’s ability to find the open space in zone coverage which has made him such an easy target for Lonergan:
Bond is also able to create his own yards:
Because Bond just finds himself open so often, he doesn’t have a lot of highlight catches— just pure production. He currently leads the team with 29 catches for 279 yards through 3 games.
At the X position is Reed Harris, who is the receiver meant to create mismatches when left in man coverage. He’s listed as 6’5” and 217 lbs; he’s strong, has excellent hands, and has a very large catch radius:
Harris has also done a nice job adjusting to errant throws:
And again, he’s able to highpoint this football:
Jeremiah Franklin, Lewis Bond, and Reed Harris (along with RB Turbo Richard) will be the primary receiving weapons on offense. But just for posterity, here’s the rest of the depth chart.
Starting at the Z position is Jaedn Skeete, who—despite having just 5 catches—leads the team with 3 receiving touchdowns. He’s just finding himself open in the endzone, perhaps as other receivers have drawn the defense’s attention:
Behind Reed Harris is the freshman Dawson Pough, who showed some wheels on this route:
Backing up Lewis Bond is Luke McLaughlin, who primarily saw action in garbage time against Fordham:
And finally, backing up Jaedn Skeete is VJ Wilkins, a transfer from FCS Campbell. Wilkins’s highlights can be seen in the quarterback section, as he pretty much ran by corners on go-routes a few times now.
BC’s receivers will be a handful to cover all game.
Conclusion
Looking at this BC team, it’s hard not to see a bizarro reflection of Cal: a very talented quarterback, a team that has struggled in run blocking, a propensity to turn into a one-dimensional offense… BC and Cal have similar offenses, except BC will have more trouble running the ball, while also having much more sure-handed receivers. It’s kind of a reminder that football is a team sport, and it takes (at least) two players to complete a pass. Lonergan’s stats may look better on paper than JKS’s, but I can see that easily flipping if Cal’s receiver room can get it together. Right now, I’d lean towards this turning into a shootout with Boston College having the edge, unless Wilcox can pull something out of his defensive bag of tricks and find a way to stop Bill O’Brien’s offense in a way it has yet to be stopped this season (I consider what happened at Stanford to be mostly self-inflicted). Generating pressure on the QB? Confusing looks to goad him into mistakes and turnovers? I am not sure. I feel like we’ll see a lot of Lonergan throwing to open receivers, and Cal likely playing catchup on offense. Hoping Cal finds a way to bounce back this week, but I’m not particularly hopeful.
Go Bears.
You can find my full clips here.
The conclusion says it all: "Hoping Cal finds a way to bounce back this week, but I’m not particularly hopeful."
> There’s no polite way to put this, but Boston College has looked absolutely awful running the ball this year. Boston College currently averages 61.5 rush yards per game, putting them at 3rd last in the FBS.
250 yard rushing day by BC coming up