“We’ll see if it works. We have a strong belief in it and we’re going to make it work.”
The dilemma O’Brien has faced with BC’s 2026 roster is that the team-building model he envisioned has become increasingly uncommon in modern college football.
Based on roster analysis via College Football Data, across the country this season, about 44 percent of all newcomers were transfers, and 40 programs had transfers account for at least half of their newcomers (players who were not on the roster last season, including freshmen and walk-ons).
Losing 54 players after a 2-10 season — 26 of them transfers — forced Boston College to become one of those programs.
The result is a locker room with more than 40 percent new faces for the second straight season. The Eagles made 53 additions this season — 28 of them transfers.
“I don’t think we want to live in a world of bringing in 20-plus transfers every year,” O’Brien said at the ACC Kickoff in July. “I felt like we had to do that based on who left the program, who graduated, all that. I just felt like that’s something we had to do.
“I think eventually starting this coming year, you want to be about 75 percent high school recruiting, bring these guys in, develop them, watch them grow over two, three, four years and get better as players, and then maybe 25 percent portal. You never want it to be 50/50. But we’ll have to see how it goes.”
In the modern college football landscape, that has become a high bar.
Of the 138 FBS teams, only 13 had transfers account for 25 percent or less of their newcomers. Three were Army, Navy, and Air Force — service academies where transfers are rare.
Stanford was the only Atlantic Coast Conference program at or below O’Brien’s preferred 25 percent threshold, bringing in 32 newcomers but just six transfers.
As the transfer portal has evolved since its introduction in 2018, roster continuity looks starkly different from even five years ago.
O’Brien praised Indiana for its continuity after the Hoosiers won the national championship in January. But that team was built after losing 23 transfers and bringing in 24. Even after winning the title last season, Indiana lost 12 transfers and brought in 17.
Players are leaving winning teams and losing teams alike.
Seeing 20 players leave Georgia State after a 1-11 season might not be surprising, but Miami won 13 games and 20 players transferred just the same.
After a 5-7 season, the second straight losing season under coach Mike Norvell, Florida State lost 61 players from last season’s roster. Thirty-six transferred — by far the most of any ACC school.
Cal finished 7-6 last season then essentially went shopping around the country to replace 52 players it lost. The Bears brought in 32 transfers.
In the wake of former Patriots coach Bill Belichick’s first season at North Carolina, a 4-8 campaign, the Tar Heels lost 59 players, including 25 transfers.
Even after a 9-4 season and three straight bowl appearances under coach Jeff Brohm, Louisville lost 65 players, including 22 transfers.
Boston College’s 26 transfer exits ranked seventh in the conference, tied with California and Louisville. Its 28 transfer additions ranked fourth in the conference behind Louisville (34), California (32), and Virginia (30).
As recently as 2022, the Eagles lost 15 players who transferred to other programs, but they brought in only five transfers and otherwise filled the void through conventional recruiting.
Four years later, the landscape has changed.
“The whole era that we’re in, you can’t retain everybody,” O’Brien said. “You just can’t pay everybody. So you have to do the best job you can of wishing those guys the best that did leave.”
After flipping 43.5 percent of the roster a year ago — the highest turnover rate since Steve Addazio flipped 42.4 percent in 2014 — newcomers comprise 43.1 percent of the Eagles’ roster this year.
While the Eagles’ churn rates the past two seasons are historic spikes for the school, their level of roster turnover is relatively average compared with their peers in the ACC — not to mention the country.
The greater challenge to O’Brien’s philosophy may be that BC already has had to replace several players his staff added just a year earlier.
Eight players on the Eagles’ 2025 roster — Dylan Lonergan, Semaj Fleming, Shaker Reisig, Stevie Amar, Sterling Sanders, Omarion Davis, Jayden Fry, and Ty Lockwood — transferred after just one season.
Six were freshmen. All eight were brought into the program by O’Brien and his staff.
“In this day and age of college football when guys leave, you have to be able to replace experience with experience,” O’Brien said. “It’s hard to replace a guy who leaves that’s very experienced with a rookie. It’s hard to do that. So hopefully we can get that back to where it’s more of high school recruiting because that’s what BC’s really been built on. But again, we have to do what’s best for the team every year.”
In just two recruiting cycles, O’Brien is confronting how difficult it may be to execute his ideal recruiting philosophy in a landscape defined by constant player movement.
“I think it’s more the reality of what we’re in,” O’Brien said in January. “Some guys decided to leave. And I wish all those guys the best. There was not one guy that left that was, what you’d say is a bad departure.
“But at the end of the day, they decided to leave. We had to replace them … So I think it was more of a necessity relative to where we were at the end of the season.”
Julian Benbow can be reached at julian.benbow@globe.com.
