Say what you will about BC’s offense and defense, but their special teams play in 2024 was when the Eagles were at their absolute worst. They attempted five total field goals in the entire season, making three of them, which was dead last in all of FBS. And their punting was arguably worse, as fans in Alumni Stadium would audibly cheer if a BC punt went more than 30 yards. And that’s not even mentioning the Eagles’ kick returners, who had a lackluster season in their own right. There is some serious room for improvement all around in Boston College special teams’ unit, but will they get better in 2025?
This was what depressed me the most last year. I love it when my teams go for it on 4th down, and we all saw how often BC was aggressive on the opponent’s side of the 50-yard line last season. They rarely ever kicked a field goal and the offense often benefited from that aggressiveness by extending many of their drives on 4th downs. But you can’t always elect not to punt. And we saw the consequences of bad punting as a result.
BC was 134th out of 134 FBS teams last season when it came to average punt yards. Not a single team was worse at it. Liam Connor, Ivan Zivenko, and Sam Candotti kicked it a measly 36.5 yards per attempt, an average that was brought down by a lot of shanks. It’s hard to win games when you’re giving the other team’s offense a head start of 10+ yards when you boot the ball back to them.
Boston College is bringing back Liam Connor, but probably moreso for his placekicking abilities, so the punting unit is getting a refresh in 2025. Freshman Andy Quinn out of the NFL Academy in England is a promising young punter who was named the #4 punter in the 2025 recruiting class by Kohl’s Professional Kicking Camps. BC also brought in redshirt senior Shamus Florio as a transfer from Yale, where he was the starting punter for the past two seasons. Plus redshirt sophomore Sam Stone is returning to the roster after punting just twice last season for an average of 28 yards. Hopefully BC can find some consistency with one of these guys, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Like I said, BC kicked just five field goals last season and made three of them. Bill O’Brien almost always opted to go for it on 4th down rather than attempt a field goal, showing a complete lack of trust in his kicking unit. Though they did make 47/49 PATs overall, which is a pretty good rate. Liam Connor was their primary kicker last season after Luca Lombardo went down with a season-ending injury early in the season. Both Connor and Lombardo are returning in 2025 as BC’s primary kickers.
According to reports from camp, Lombardo has looked pretty good and is primed to be the Eagles’ starting kicker when the season starts later this month. He went 1/1 on his FG kick last season and made 15/16 PATs before going down with injury. Connor has a lot more experience, though, having been BC’s starting kicker in 2023 and 2024. Either way, we’re going to need to see some major improvement from this unit so that the offense can put up points when they’re in field goal range rather than needing to rely on 4th down conversions every time they approach the redzone.
This was another area that BC struggled with last season. They averaged just 16.4 yards per kickoff return (120th of 134) and 6.7 yards per punt return (84th of 134). Returners Isaiah Farris and Johnathan Montague Jr. are returning to the team this season, but that doesn’t necessarily mean much. They didn’t perform very well last year and we could definitely see Montague get more involved in the offense in 2025 and leave his kick returning duties to someone else.
So far in camp, we’ve seen Farris returning kicks alongside Turbo Richard, Cam Martinez, freshman TJ Green, and freshman Ashton Cunningham. Nobody has truly stood out yet as a great returner, but I would lean towards Farris, Martinez, and Green being the primary options on that unit. It would be great if one of the freshmen can break out and make an impact, but it seems more likely that the Eagles will once again struggle to return kicks.
