BC’s O’Brien realizes dream of coaching at ‘home’
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Pete Thamel, ESPN
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — Bill O’Brien was officially introduced as the new head football coach at Boston College on Thursday in a move athletic director Blake James called a “monumental step.”
BC hasn’t won eight games in a season since 2009, and the hiring of a veteran NFL and college coach like O’Brien offers a harbinger of optimism moving forward. The overarching theme of the day was a return home for O’Brien, who grew up in the area and has a deep family history at Boston College.
“I went into coaching in 1993 when I got out of Brown,” O’Brien said. “I went into coaching [starting] at Brown, and I always dreamed about being the head coach at Boston College.”
O’Brien’s hire resonates locally and nationally with the commitment of Boston College to bring in a coach with such a significant pedigree.
Thursday’s news conference, which was packed with family members, former players and an outsize contingent of local media, stressed local ties, as O’Brien’s arrival at Boston College is a homecoming. He grew up in nearby Andover, graduated high school from St. John’s Prep in nearby Danvers and played at Brown in nearby Providence.
Amid a roll call of family members — and getting choked up when thanking his wife, Colleen — O’Brien expressed gratitude that his coaching journey brought him back to a job he had always wanted.
“My career has taken some twists and turns and taken me down roads I never could have imagined,” he said. “But as I stand here today, I couldn’t be more grateful that the road has finally taken me back home to Boston College.”
O’Brien comes to BC with two successful head-coaching stints on his résumé, as he capably guided Penn State through the grisly years in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky sexual assault convictions. He also reached the NFL playoffs four times as the head coach of the Houston Texans.
He also has served as offensive coordinator at Alabama and with the New England Patriots.
O’Brien moved back to the Boston area last year for the job with the Patriots. When he took the offensive coordinator job at Ohio State last month, his family planned to stay in the Boston area, so when the Boston College job came open soon after, it marked a significant opportunity.
“I’m still kind of pinching myself,” Colleen O’Brien, who graduated from BC in 1992, told ESPN. “It doesn’t seem real. The past 10 days were kind of in a whirlwind, but we’ve talked about this place a lot, about this job a lot. And just to see it finally come to fruition, it’s pretty amazing.”
One son, Michael, is a college baseball player at nearby Tufts. Their other son, Jack, has a rare genetic brain malformation known as lissencephaly, which requires significant medical care. Part of the reason the O’Brien family wasn’t following Bill to Columbus was to stay close to nearby Boston Children’s Hospital for the quality of the care available for Jack.
Bill O’Brien thanked Ohio State coach Ryan Day in his remarks, saying he appreciated Day’s “patience and understanding” about O’Brien wanting to return home. The Buckeyes have since hired Chip Kelly as their new offensive coordinator.
O’Brien went 15-9 in his two seasons at Penn State, 2012 and 2013, calmly guiding the school and program through the lowest moment in school history. With the Texans, O’Brien went 52-48 during his tenure from 2014 to 2020, including four playoff bids in the five seasons between 2015 and 2019. He won playoff games in 2016 and 2019.
His tenure at Boston College comes at an interesting moment for the school and the athletic department. BC has 31 Division I sports and has seen only middling success in football and men’s basketball over the past 15 years.
The O’Brien hire looms as a harbinger of commitment from the school, which has upped the staff salary and support pool for O’Brien. One of the signs of those deeper pockets appeared after O’Brien’s news conference Thursday, when longtime friend and strength coach Craig Fitzgerald shook hands and said hello to the assembled.
BC hired Fitzgerald from Florida in the days after O’Brien’s hire.
O’Brien said that Fitzgerald was instrumental in “helping to keep that program together” at Penn State and that he has been appreciative of the financial commitment BC has given him to put together a strong staff. He said BC officials are “making things happen” so far. “We believe in toughness, hard work,” O’Brien said. “We believe in lifting weights. We believe in the science, but we know on the football field, we have to move people, especially up front. We have to tackle people. We have to sometimes run people over.”
James said the school’s investment into football has been led by the college president, Father William P. Leahy.
“It’s an investment that we’re continuing to make, to move up more and more,” James said. “At the same time, it’s consistent with who we are as an institution. So I don’t know where we would fall in the league, but I know Bill feels good about it, and if my coach feels good about it, I feel good about it. And again, we appreciate the institution helping us get to that point.”
O’Brien inherits a solid roster coming off a 7-6 season. That includes returning quarterback Thomas Castellanos — O’Brien has taken to calling him “Tommy” — and a strong offensive line let by veterans Ozzy Trapilo and Drew Kendall.
O’Brien said that the program’s identity will be on the offensive and defensive lines and that they’ll try to channel past generations of BC football, which has been known for dominant line play.
“We will not be out-toughed,” O’Brien said. “We will not be outcompeted.”
LAS VEGAS — Left-handers Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves and Garrett Crochet of the Chicago White Sox won Major League Baseball’s Comeback Player of the Year awards on Thursday.
Cleveland right-hander Emmanuel Clase won his second AL Reliever of the Year award and St. Louis righty Ryan Helsley won the NL honor.
Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani joined David Ortiz as the only players to win four straight Outstanding Designated Hitter awards. Ohtani and the New York Yankees‘ Aaron Judge won Hank Aaron Awards as the outstanding offensive performers in their leagues.
Major League Baseball made the announcements at its All-MLB Awards Show.
Sale, 35, was 18-3 with a 2.38 ERA and 225 strikeouts in 177⅔ innings for the NL’s first pitching triple crown since the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw in 2011. He earned his eighth All-Star selection and first since 2018.
Sale helped Boston to the 2018 World Series title but made just 56 starts from 2020-23, going 17-18 with a 4.86 ERA, 400 strikeouts and 79 walks over 298⅓ innings. He was acquired by Boston from the White Sox in December 2016 and made nine trips to the injured list with the Red Sox, mostly with shoulder and elbow ailments. He had Tommy John surgery on March 30, 2020, and returned to a big league mound on Aug. 14, 2021.
Sale fractured a rib while pitching in batting practice in February 2022 during the management lockout. On July 17, in his second start back, he broke his left pinkie finger when he was hit by a line drive off the bat of the Yankees’ Aaron Hicks. Sale broke his right wrist while riding a bicycle en route to lunch on Aug. 6, ending his season.
Crochet, 25, was 6-12 with a 3.58 ERA over 32 starts for a White Sox team that set a post-1900 record of 121 losses, becoming a first-time All-Star. He struck out 209 and walked 33 in 146 innings.
He had Tommy John surgery on April 5, 2022, and returned to the major leagues on May 18, 2023. Crochet had a 3.55 ERA in 13 relief appearances in 2023, and then joined the rotation this year.
Sale and Crochet were chosen in voting by MLB.com beat writers.
Clase and Helsley were unanimous picks by a panel that included Hall of Famers Trevor Hoffman, Mariano Rivera, Dennis Eckersley and Rollie Fingers, along with John Franco and Billy Wagner. The AL award is named after Rivera and the NL honor after Hoffman.
A three-time All-Star, Clase was 4-2 with a 0.61 ERA, 66 strikeouts and 10 walks in 74⅓ innings, holding batters to a .154 average. The 26-year-old converted 47 of 50 save chances, including his last 47.
Voting was based on the regular season. Clase was 0-2 with a 9.00 ERA in the playoffs, allowing three home runs, one more than his regular-season total.
Helsley, a two-time All-Star, was 7-4 with a 2.04 ERA and 49 saves in 53 chances. He struck out 79 and walked 23 in 66⅓ innings.
Ohtani became the first player with 50 or more homers and 50 or more stolen bases in a season. A two-way star limited to hitting following elbow surgery, Ohtani batted .310 and led the NL with 54 homers and 130 RBIs while stealing 59 bases.
Ortiz won the DH award five years in a row from 2003-07.
The DH award, named after Edgar Martinez, is picked in voting by team beat writers, broadcasters and public relations departments. MLB.com writers determined the finalists for the Aaron awards, and a fan vote was combined with picks from a panel of Hall of Famers and former winners to determine the selections.
Judge led the major leagues with 58 homers and 144 RBIs while hitting .322.
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Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Senior Writer
Boston College quarterback Thomas Castellanos, who lost his starting job earlier this week, will not be returning to the team, he announced Thursday night.
Castellanos, who started 12 games last season and retained the top job under new coach Bill O’Brien, wrote on X that “unfortunately, all good things come to an end, even though it’s sooner than I would like.” He did not mention the transfer portal in his departing message and has not officially entered it. The junior from Waycross, Georgia, started his career at UCF and appeared in five games in 2022.
O’Brien said Tuesday that Grayson James, who replaced Castellanos in last week’s win against Syracuse, will start Saturday when Boston College visits No. 14 SMU. Castellanos “wasn’t real thrilled” with the decision, O’Brien said, adding that the quarterback decided to step away from the team for several days.
Castellanos had 2,248 passing yards and 1,113 rushing yards last season under coach Jeff Hafley, passing for 15 touchdowns and adding 13 on the ground. He had 18 touchdown passes and only five interceptions this season, but his accuracy dipped in recent weeks, and he completed only 2 of 7 passes against Syracuse before being replaced.
In his statement, Castellanos thanked both coaching staffs he played for at Boston College and wrote that he had “some of the best experiences of my life in the Eagles Nest and I will truly cherish these memories forever.”
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida quarterback DJ Lagway is “ready to play,” coach Billy Napier said Thursday on his weekly radio show.
Napier removed Lagway from the team’s injury report and penciled him in to start against No. 21 LSU in the Swamp on Saturday.
Lagway practiced every day this week while progressing from a strained left hamstring. The highly touted freshman was carted off the field against Georgia on Nov. 2. Tests revealed a “less significant” injury than initially feared, and now he’s back in time to face the Tigers.
The Gators (4-5, 2-4 Southeastern Conference) need him. They have to win two of their final three regular-season games to become bowl eligible.
LSU (6-3, 3-2) has struggled mightily against dual-threat QBs, including Alabama’s Jalen Milroe, who ran for 185 yards and four touchdowns last week.
Lagway returns after walk-on and Yale transfer Aidan Warner started in his place against Texas. Warner threw two interceptions and was 12-of-25 passing for 132 yards in a 49-17 loss.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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