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BOSTON COLLEGE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

December 19, 2018

Steve Addazio

Boston, Massachusetts

STEVE ADDAZIO: Morning, guys, or good afternoon or whatever it is. So real excited about the class that we've signed, and moving forward here in 2019. The highest rated class that certainly we've had since we've been here, and I believe the highest rated class since 2003. A lot of good football players, nine high school -- 10 high school captains, four players that won state titles, a great cross-section from our footprint. We've got five from New Jersey, two from Michigan, two from Ohio, two from Maryland, two from Connecticut, one from New York, one from Florida, one from Pennsylvania. Our breakdown was five DB's, four defensive linemen, two offensive linemen, a quarterback, a running back, two wide receivers and a linebacker/outside linebacker rush man.

So really, really good cross-section. I thought we've enhanced our team in areas that we needed to enhance our team. Certainly on defense we've really did a great job on defense, and specifically in the defensive front, which is an area that we obviously had some replacements to have happen.

Talking about the class, start with Spencer Bono, a defensive end. He's an Ohio kid, obviously from Elder, which is the home of Ricky Brown and other guys that we've had here. He's a 6'4", 245-pound defensive end, great athlete, tremendous player from a great football program. Really loves ball. Great fit for us here in terms of the whole package academically, athletically, and really excited about Spencer. I think he's a guy that has got unbelievable potential.

Ireland Burke, defensive tackle, 6'3", 290 pounds from New York but at Pope John in New Jersey, Catholic school there, and a big-time interior run stopper, pass rusher guy, just a really good football player. We think he's got unbelievable potential.

I'm not going in any particular order I think as you can tell. I'm kind of keeping this random, not by state, by position, by anything.

Jack Conley, offensive lineman, 6'8", 280-pound kid from New Canaan, Connecticut, really got an unbelievable ceiling. Very, very good feet. Very good athlete. I mean, can -- at times has been a punter, and he's just got really good athleticism for a guy that big. He's going to be a big dude. Another guy, great fit here. Obviously academics are important to him, and playing at the highest level of college football.

Josh DeBerry, a corner from Detroit, six-foot, 175-pound defensive back corner, great ball skills, real physical tackler, and really has great film and has had a great career. Really excited about Josh.

Zay Flowers, a corner who's from Fort Lauderdale. Dynamic athlete, great speed, great ball skills, plays both sides of the ball. Just a gifted athlete. Really explosive speed, dynamic guy.

Patrick Garwo, tailback, running back from PA, from Conwell-Egan, 212-pound, 5'10" guy, 5'9Â½", 5'10" guy. Great leader, really explosive. I mean, his tape is excellent. I mean, fantastic football player. Big, strong, physical running back, and we're thrilled to death to have Patrick. I mean, bona fide player.

Connor Grieco, defensive back. He's a 6'3", 185-pound kid from St. Joe's in New Jersey. Really talented guy. Long, long guy. Great size, great athleticism, toughness. Like the rest of these guys, really a perfect fit for us at Boston College, played for Augie Hoffman, former great player here, and really thrilled about Connor and his family. I think he's going to have a great career.

Izaiah Henderson, defensive tackle from Mater Dei, New Jersey. 6'5", 200 -- honestly like a 290-pound guy right now coming at mid-semester, and really a talented guy. I mean, if he walked in the door right now, you'd think he was already here in college. Really looks the part. Heck of a player. Great student, great guy, played for Dino Mangiero down there, a good friend of mine, and just a sensational player. Really excited about him.

Sam Johnson, quarterback from Detroit, a 6'4", 200-pound guy. I love this guy. I think he's got a tremendous arm. He's got unbelievable character. I mean, he is the kind of guy that you want as a quarterback leading your team with his mindset and his mentality. Great family, really looking forward -- he'll be here early, as well, and really looking forward to that. I think the upside with Sam is just incredible. I think we've got a special guy there.

Steve Lubischer, defensive back from Red Bank Catholic, 6'1", 192, great athlete. Played quarterback in high school. He's on the basketball team there, having a phenomenal basketball season. Really, really got great speed and athleticism, great vertical leap. You know, will transition into that defensive back position. Dad played here. Really like him. Really good high school program. It's a place that is a real winner, and he's a winner.

Jackson Ness, defensive end from Upper Arlington in Columbus, 6'5", 265-pound, probably a little bigger than that right now. I think he's another guy that will walk in -- when he walks in the door now, you're going to look and say, that's a high school kid? Does not look like a high school guy. Super bright, super great fit for BC, really good football player, really good athlete, really going to make an impact at the defensive end position. Really excited about Jackson and his family.

Blerim Rustemi from DePaul Catholic, offensive lineman, 6'4", 280-pound. He's going to be another 310-pound offensive lineman. Great-looking body, tough guy, great demeanor. Football is really important to him. Great high school program. Really like him a lot. I just think that he'll come in here and really be what we're looking for in the offensive line with toughness and athleticism. Excited about him.

Bryce Sebastian, Brandon Sebastian's younger brother. Probably shouldn't refer to him that way. He's his own entity. Wide receiver, at Cheshire Academy from Connecticut, 5'9", 160-pound, real speed guy, burst guy, fast, tough, loves football. Great energy to him. You know, obviously a BC family, and very, very excited about his explosiveness and what he'll bring to the table here.

Shitta Sillah, outside linebacker, 6'5", 220-pound guy from Mater Dei, teammate of Izaiah. He's a real edge, get-to-the-quarterback pass rush guy. He's going to become a really -- he's 6'5", 220 now, and you'll see this guy being a pass rusher with tremendous athleticism off the edge at 6'5", 245-, 255-pound guy. He's really, I think, going to be just a sensational player here. Really think his ceiling, again, is so, so high.

Ethon Williams, wide receiver, six-foot, 195-pound kid from Maryland. Talented, got really good hands, really good ball skills, really mature guy, smart guy, really good football player, excited about him. Really think he's got a really great potential and really fits well into our team culture and who he is and what he's all about.

Jalen Williams, another guy from Maryland from the Landon School, defensive back. Really another one of those -- he's a sharp and mature and tough and all about the right stuff, talented football player, and I believe will have a great career here, as well. He's a real BC guy, comes from a high-end school, too.

I think we've compiled a list of very talented guys that will become outstanding representatives of Boston College. They'll be BC men. They'll represent what's important to us, that first and foremost, you're a tremendous human being. Second of all, you're going to really respect and engage in your degree here, and then of course be able to play at the highest level of college football in the ACC and be a great teammate, and we know we've upgraded and improved our football team with this class. So we couldn't be more excited about them and about the future of where we're headed, and as we move them here and graduate really talented players and replace them with really talented players, we put ourselves in great position to continue to grow and continue to improve and continue to move towards our goal of competing and winning a conference championship.

Happy to answer any questions.

Q. With so many graduates and seniors, do you see some of these kids college ready by next year?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, you know, the way it's been, every year there's more and more guys that seem to have that opportunity. I don't know what the numbers are, but yeah, I mean, there will be guys in this class for sure that will be challenging to play, and there will be a number of these guys that will end up playing as true freshmen. You hope that they can, and we believe that they can. And in certain positional needs, you hope that that's where that occurs, right?

But guys today, especially the ones that come in sometimes early, mid-semester, have a great opportunity to do that, and I just really think that there's a great shot for all that to happen.

Q. Tell us a little bit about Sam Johnson. Is he kind of that ACC dual-threat quarterback that everybody in the league seems to want to get?
STEVE ADDAZIO: I mean, he's a thrower now. He's a 6'4" or 6'5" guy that can chuck the ball down the field now. He's got great presence. He's very athletic, and I think that he's a guy that will impact the game. But he's a thrower that has athleticism. He's not an athlete that can throw. I mean, he can throw the ball now. We had him in camp, and watched him make those throws, was very, very impressive. Really, really excited about Sam.

Q. How many of these guys -- I know you have positions listed and stuff, but how many of these guys do you see coming here and you sort of deciding once they get here, a guy like Zay, for example, is listed as a corner but he's also somebody that can play receiver. How many of those guys do you see as sort of once they get here, you'll have a better idea --
STEVE ADDAZIO: I mean, we were recruiting Zay as a corner and believe that he'll be a tremendous corner here. We love those guys that have the great speed and athleticism but really good ball skills, and he fits that to a tee. I'm sure he'll help us also in the return game. He'll be able to be a punt returner and a kickoff returner because of his ball skills. Those guys are hard to find that have that kind of athleticism, speed but also can play corner and play man coverage and play zone coverage.

I think to answer your question, I think right now, the guys that we've recruited, where we have them pegged is where I believe that they'll be. I don't think -- Steve Lubischer is a guy that we've already talked about in terms of -- he's playing DB here. Those are -- you're seeing us put these guys where they're going to be. I don't see that changing in any way, shape or form right now. For anybody. I think we're right on the money here.

Q. The way that the -- there's a high-end profile obviously with the program with the season you had, the new facility, and I guess that kind of shows in the crop of the class you got this here, but does that also come with some challenge as far as like competing with other Power Five schools for these players or retaining some recruits or just talking to guys? Does it come with challenges?
STEVE ADDAZIO: I think you're always trying to expand in your recruiting and push, and you're getting involved with more highly recruited guys. I think when you do that, you get in more risk of losing guys type of thing. But I think that's all part of it. I think we're pretty good at targeting the guys that fit our culture and match what we want here to keep -- that's so important to us, the character piece of this, and I really want guys that really want to be here.

So I think that as you keep trying to expand/go after higher-profile guys, you've got to be really careful with that because what you don't want to do is get out of your footprint and get out of your profile in terms of -- guys got to be able to make it here academically. Guys got to be able to want to be here and believe in what we have. So I think while you're constantly trying to elevate, you've got to also make sure that you don't put yourself in a situation where you're not getting a good fit and a good marriage because that's really so important at anyplace, that you have the right fit and the right marriage and the highest level of player that you can possibly be involved with to help you win the games that you need to win.

Q. How do you measure that, or are there things you can measure, because obviously a guy gets rated with measurables, how fast he can run, how high he can jump and all that stuff, but for you when you take the other side of it with the intangibles, the leadership qualities or stuff like that, how do you strike a balance between those two and the guy's ceiling while you're at it?
STEVE ADDAZIO: I mean, that's the -- that's what it's all about, and it's hard. I think our staff does a great job with that. I mean, there's not like a book or a page on that. I think there's a feel for that, and I think it's to be more right than wrong. You're not always going to be right. We all know that. But to be more right than wrong and to target properly and to evaluate properly, and how do you evaluate character? Well, that's hard, but obviously it's a process as you would well guess. It's relationship based. The more time you're with somebody, the more you get to know them; the more times they're on your campus, the more people you get to meet around them, obviously their parents, their family, their guidance counselors, their coaches, whatever. Over time I think you try to do a good job.

We're not like -- our goal is not just to go out there and say, okay, we're going to go chase this four-star, five-star guy. Okay, some people do that now. And we obviously are going to go out and chase the best players that we can chase, too, but while doing that, we want to make sure that we have the right guys that create a great marriage.

Getting a guy is one thing. Getting a guy that's going to be happy and be able to grow and succeed is our ultimate goal, right. It's not just getting a guy because he has a rating, because that's not who we are. Like we don't just -- on the extreme end of that, we're not going out to junior colleges and recruiting like some great player and just like, okay, now we're going to take a round peg and fit it in a square hole here. Like it's not going to work out real good.

So I think having a great understanding and a belief of who we are and what we're about is really important, and then the ability to figure all that out and evaluate it is really important. So it's a real process.

And obviously -- I think I said earlier in an interview I did that if you just went out there and said, okay, if you were at a place where you could just go out and recruit say all four- or five-star guys and you just cast out this net and lassoed and got four or five guys, rated guys, the percentages of those guys hitting are going to be greater because the chances are that while they might not be all great players, a fair amount of them are going to be better players, but I think the art is when you have to go out there and you've got to project that, and then having a high percentage of being accurate. That's where the secret -- that's where the -- secret sauce, but that's where the proof is. And how do you really evaluate that? I think you evaluate that as the number of guys that have come out of your program that you've recruited have gone on and had, A, good careers here, and then of course have gone on and had opportunity and done that. And I think that's how you evaluate the athletic part, and then of course the character part is ongoing. It's how they represent your university.

So I think all those things are -- you have an ability to evaluate that, it just doesn't always -- you can't really evaluate it properly until you have time to see how that plays out.

Q. And kind of when you're out recruiting, how you approach -- when do you identify areas of need? Is it something that you go into your recruiting season knowing that you might need a guy? Is it stuff that pops up?
STEVE ADDAZIO: It's ever changing. It's a moving target. I mean, you have projected numbers and then things pop up on you. Guy gets medical, guys does -- whatever, something changes in your program. Things happen all the time that don't exactly go according to plan, and you've got to adjust. But you start with a roster management. We want 15 offensive linemen. Okay, that's a number. But we don't want -- we certainly can't end up with 12. Is it 14? Is it 15? You have every position. You come up with basically what you want to get accomplished, and you try to work with -- if you don't, at some point your roster is going to get out of whack, and if you don't manage your roster in recruiting and you just let guys just go do their thing, at some point you'll get out of whack now, and that's my job as the head coach is to manage the roster.

Now, some head coaches are more involved than others. Obviously I'm very involved. I watch every tape. I evaluate every prospect myself. I mean, I manage the board, I manage the numbers, and I try to keep the thing moving. So I'm -- some guys are less involved, and sometimes those things have the ability to take a life of their own, and it can catch up with you, and then guys try to say, oh, we've got to go make it right, now how do we do it. Well, they'll go out and grab a couple of junior college players. Well, I know that that's not going to happen for me, okay, so I'm going to have to be pretty consistent in how we manage our numbers, and sometimes the recruiting people don't understand that, either. It's like, well, wait a minute, you took this guy over this guy. Yeah, it's not just best available. It's best available but it's best available within keeping your numbers proper.

Q. This is now the second year with the early signing period --
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yes.

Q. So in general I guess this is sort of a general question. How have you felt like you've adjusted to this, and what are sort of the differences now that you see as opposed to what it was like before?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, I think we've adjusted well, and I think -- here's the story, right. We go out there, we do our homework, we do great job evaluating, we recruit guys, and I think we build relationships. We get them here early. I think we are aggressive and on target with our evaluations. Now we have a chance to sign our guys because sometimes what happens is some of these places when you don't, you go down the home stretch in January and people don't go do what they think they should do, and then they come back and they start to raid your roster, right, and especially those places that really respect and value your opinions will come back and try to raid them. And I think this is good for us from the standpoint that that sometimes -- it still happens, but the time frame to do it is much shorter. So that's a good thing.

And I think we're very accurate and very on top of it, so we have our ducks in a row. Some places, believe it or not, don't get their ducks in a row that quick. So for us, I think it's been a good thing. It's crazy hectic. Everybody is home before this date, so I don't start until obviously I can, when the contact period starts, and the window for me to do that is about this big. It's almost impossible. So you're trying to get ready for a bowl game. You're trying to get in in every single home, and it is really -- while recruiting is taxing, I find this to be, like, a lot. But it's been good, and we've managed it, and I think we have a good system of how we're going to handle this.

Somebody asked me earlier today about the whole early signing thing. My original thought process was it should be maybe like a June or August or September deal. Originally I thought the thought process was it was just for those guys that really knew where they really wanted to go. They wanted to early commit, they were set and they just wanted to sign. It wasn't going to become a whole visitation thing and everything else. Well, it ends up being this.

And now I don't know what the numbers will be, but I'd say the majority of kids or programs will sign -- the majority of their class are signed right now. And there's really not that many guys that really go to the next signing period, so it's become a whole different deal. January is like May now, what May used to be, when the head coaches used to be able to go on the road in May. So the whole thing is shifted right now.

What do I think? Probably for us, it's turned out to be a good thing. Overall, I don't know. I don't know. From a cost containment standpoint, it probably helps because you're not rerouting all those trips again all the way through January, as well, right? I don't know, everything is changing so fast. It's hard to keep your arms around it. You adjust to the new normals and you work within the new normals. And that's the best I can tell you. This is a new normal and will probably change again for all I know, and you just try to keep adjusting to -- we adjusted to the spring visits. Like we didn't go over board on that stuff, and I think we were right. Moving forward, exactly how that's going to go, I don't know. The kids are -- are kids going to want to take them? This year we had a couple, and a couple signed, but I thought that was hard because it seemed like so long ago that they were here, and I love our first two weekends in December. I just think it's such a family embrace time and those guys sometimes can't -- so I don't know about all that. But just keep rolling.

I know what's here, and I've been a lot of places, but I've been here during this new normal, and this for us right here has been pretty good for us.

Q. Just talk about mining the Jersey Catholic leagues.
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, Catholic leagues as a whole, obviously for us makes sense, right. And Jersey is in our five-hour footprint, so that makes double sense. New Jersey is our footprint, Catholic schools are our footprint, and we've got a two-fer right there. So it makes good sense for us. Our footprint is obviously New England and New Jersey, and then we expand it deeper. But when you call real footprint, you're talking about that five-, six-hour radius, and within there any private Catholic schools I think are always really good places to start for us, and then we're in the Catholic schools nationally, in Ohio and all those other places. I think where we have to be careful, we're in Texas, we're in California, but I think where we have to be careful is when we get outside of our footprint, meaning five-, six-hour radius and private Catholic schools, when we get out there, that's where I think we just have to be careful. That's where I think if you're going to -- if you've got a higher tendency, if you're going to be wrong, you might be wrong there. So you've got to really be I think even more scrutiny on that, you know, and that's what I try to pay close, close attention to.

But you know, certainly New Jersey always has and always will be -- let's call that a home area for us. That's not a new phenomenon in the last five or six years. I mean, it's been that way for a long time, and it makes sense that it would be that way. We've got to continue to do a good job in locating and recruiting in these areas and what your competition, who you're recruiting against in those areas. It's been good for us. It'll continue to be good for us, and just really like -- I like where we're headed and I like what we've done in this recruiting season a lot.

Again, we all know, we'll have a better valuation of this down the road. But I would say very, very excited and happy where we are at least right now today. We'll see where we head from here.

Q. The rating system in the past hasn't been too kind to your classes, but still -- I'm curious how you reconcile that with the talent you have been able to produce in the program and whether or not you think that those results have kind of changed the perception of how you recruit here or whether it's just like the raised profile increases people's awareness or your ability to target the higher-end players?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, I mean, at the end of the day, what we've done here recruiting-wise speaks for itself with the level of players in a we've had and gone on, and I think in terms of the perception, our perception out there nationally is fantastic. People realize that we have a really good football program, that it's a well-put-together football team. When we're on the road, we have -- it's been great to us. The rankings system of guys, I mean, I don't think that's ever changed here in terms of -- that's no new phenomenon. Since 2003 this is the highest recruiting class. That's a lot of years right there, 2018. That's a lot of years.

I think what's important is that we keep in mind that we get the right guys for our program to succeed here, to be able to compete in the ACC, and to be able to compete in the classroom and to be able to really embrace the Jesuit Catholic values of Boston College. I always look at it through the eyes of that's what's important to me, and I'm very, very cognizant of that, and I'd say that we've done a really good job of doing that, of recruiting to that, paying attention to that, and then, oh, yes, by the way, the actual development of these players and the talent level of these players, we've been proven to be way more right than we've been wrong.

I think as you win and go to bowl games and the vibe is very positive, all those things lend themselves to having a fertile successful opportunity to recruit, stability, and then of course our new indoor is a great testament and statement to where we want to continue to develop our players and commit to the best facilities for our student athletes.

I think all of it plays into this. All of it plays into this. You know, so the rating thing, I'm more interested in the marriage than I am the rating. I'm a big believer that when it's a good marriage, it's healthy, it grows, it gets better, it develops. It's all good. And if it's just about just a rating and it's not a good marriage, then it ends up falling apart, and what good does that do? That's way more counterproductive than it is productive.

So you know, I mean, I just -- having said all that, for me to sit here and say that the percentages aren't high with highly rated kids, I mean, it is what it is. But there's plenty of great players out there, and that just proves to it. That's why there's plenty of players that go on to the NFL from small schools, because this is an inexact science. I guess that's what I really want to say. This is an inexact science. It's not an exact science.

I mean, I've been doing this a long time. I can watch a tape, and if I just go by the tape alone, I can get fooled by the tape. Camp is important. Being on campus is important. Character evaluation is important. Fit is important. It's a whole piece.

So there may be some experts that think they can like, for example, evaluate an offensive lineman off of a tape. I'd say I have a pretty good background to be able to stand up to anybody and say my credentials about recruiting that would be pretty good. But I'm here to tell you that even if you are good, that tape, who are they playing against, what's the tape against, what's the level of competition in that league? There's a lot that goes into this.

So it's an inexact science. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Some people look for certain things more than other things, but at the end of the day, I want these kids that we recruit to come in here, I want them to develop spiritually, I want them to develop academically, I want them to develop socially. I want them to develop on the football field and hope that when they come out of here, all those areas started here and end up over here, and then I think we've had a success story, and that's what I think it's all about, and I think we're doing a good job with that and hope to continue down that path because that's -- that's the promise and the commitment and the responsibility I have here at Boston College.

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