Heading into the second scrimmage of Boston College’s 2026 preseason, then, provided the Eagles with something that needed to emerge over the course of their entire training camp: evidence that a largely reconfigured roster was starting to gel into a coherent and cohesive football team. Playing on Saturday morning inside the wide berth of the Alumni Stadium confines, the Eagles found plenty of opportunities to get better, all while ensuring that both the offense and the defense generated positive energy against the opposite sideline.
“Both sides made plays,” indicated O’Brien. “There are still things to clean up, but I believe we’re a better football team. I think you can see that a little bit with more athleticism and more playmakers. Of course, we have to take care of the ball. We can’t turn the ball over, but as a head coach, that’s the fine line. It means we’re doing a good job defensively if we’re taking the ball away. I like the way that our guys competed…I was happy with how it went.”
Scrimmage scenarios still require coaches to avoid full contact on players that would normally absorb and break through hits during game situations, so the defensive players breaking containment found themselves celebrating simulated sacks and contact stops before they’d connect on crushing hits. Drives moved their starting position to account for experiences otherwise unseen by depth players in a particular game, which subsequently enabled the offense to find holes and gaps for their own downfield completions or goal-line executions.
Second-year running backs Bo MacCormack III and Mekhi Dodd handled the bulk of running duties while backup quarterbacks Grayson Wilson and Femi Babalola traded passes to emerging receiver options. True freshman DJ Biggins accounted for a 30-yard reception on a sideline route that torched through the defensive backfield, and several receivers found seams on crossing routes that produced open opportunities in the defensive red zone.
“We made some plays in the passing game,” said O’Brien. “I thought that certain run schemes were executed better, and I think we’re playing well defensively. I still think we need to be more consistent in stopping the run on defense and in running the football on offense. Overall offensively, we’re going to get into situations where we really have to protect [the quarterback], so those two-minute situations are where we still need to see some improvement from the offensive line and pass protection.”
“Our DB room is really physical,” said wide receiver Javarius Green. “I think that’s a great aspect about playing because you know they’re going to come downhill. They’re going to hit you in your chest. So you have to be able to have that physicality every day in practice and be able to see what’s going to translate to the games within the ACC.”
Passing judgment on scrimmage statistics therefore requires a desert’s worth of sand in comparison to performances that eventually emerge over the course of a regular season. Running the same play consecutively or with unnoticed tinkering during the middle periods of situations that include real-time officials and real-time contact would, for example, provide the defense with an opportunity to continuously expose the same hole on a repeated basis, but it forced the offense to account for a razor-thin margin of education.
The goal: avoid any season-long imbalance. BC’s clear-cut emergence from the first weeks left the indelible image of a team that was at its most comfortable when it established the run. At an overall level, the passing game possessed enough flashes to showcase its meaningful complementary status, so the scrimmage became the tool for him to issue challenges against a defense that’s potentially further along in its development.
“For me offensively, I have to call explosive plays,” said O’Brien. “We have to call them, and when they don’t go well, we have to go into the meeting room and figure out how to coach them better, how to scheme it better, and how to execute better. Coach Roof and I have worked together a lot, so sometimes we’ll ask for a particular look. On third down, for example, we’ll want certain looks, and he’ll ask for more things in seven-on-seven drills or something like that. So we’ll try to work together to get the looks that we need. I believe that we’re more of a balanced team.”
“I think a lot of people are getting smarter,” said safety Marcus Upton. “Coach Roof knows a lot of football, and I know that the entire defensive staff knows a lot of football. I think a lot of people’s IQ is getting better. Our communication is getting better, and I think that we’re playing as a whole. Nobody’s really selfish. We play together as a team. We communicate where we point out things and see what’s about to happen.”
“We have depth,” reiterated O’Brien. “It’s a good thing because we do not want to deal with what we dealt with during last year… We have depth issues at some positions, but I think you know that you can see whether it’s the secondary, at safety, the defensive line, the rotation of the defensive line, it’s all really good. A lot of guys will play, and we almost have a set rotation. We can rotate three or four plays in a row [for some of our units].”
