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BOSTON COLLEGE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 20, 2019

Steve Addazio

Boston, Massachusetts

STEVE ADDAZIO: First of all, just want to welcome you guys. It's good to see you back. It means we're back into football, which is awesome. It's an exciting time of year. We start up Saturday our first practice, this Saturday, and we'll get three in before spring break, which is exciting. It's a little early this year, but the way the calendar falls with spring break, Easter, and our model of trying to get a week in before we go away for spring break puts us in there, plus it gives a little extra time for us if you get an injury that you can still make it back for the start of the season. So I think all those factors combined, I'm looking forward to the early start. I think our kids are ready. They've worked hard, and they're ready to roll, so I'm excited about that.

I also wanted to make you aware, we have three mid-years here. I think you guys are aware of that. You know, you have Sam Johnson, Zion Johnson, Ethon Williams and Izaiah Henderson. Izaiah is a defensive lineman that you know from Mater Dei down in South Jersey. Zion is a transfer from Davidson. Ethon is from Maryland, and Sam is from Detroit. You guys are aware of those guys from signing day. But they're here early, and obviously getting a jump start on everything, which is fantastic.

Staff changes this year, on defense, we're excited Bill Sheridan -- you'll have a chance to talk to Bill. Bill will be coordinating the defense. Bill has got a great background, tremendous background as a coordinator in the NFL, been in every major college program but has coordinated at the Tampa Bay Bucs, coordinated at the New York Giants, and he's going to do a fantastic job here with our defense.

You know, Jim Reid will be coaching the defensive front with Anton Smith. A new addition to our staff, Eric Lewis, will be -- and you'll visit with him. Eric Lewis will be coaching our secondary, and Eric comes to us with a wealth of experience in professional college football.

Mike Bajakian, new offensive coordinator. I know you guys are aware of all this information. You'll visit with Mike. He's done just a great job coming in here and just has a tremendous knowledge background and demeanor to come in and take our system and our offense and be able to help shape it and tweak it and direct it and be able to just seamlessly work with our staff and our players and bring a high level of expertise at the quarterback position.

We're fortunate that we've got three changes and two new people, one change, and elite coaches, great men, great husbands, great fathers, great role models for Boston College. So I'll let you visit with them.

On offense, we're excited about where we're headed this year. We've got tremendous returning players here. It always starts, as I've said, with the quarterback, and we've got a quarterback room, not just a quarterback but a quarterback room. Mike will probably address that. You know, I hear stuff like Anthony Brown, last year's QB rating was the fourth best since 1996 at Boston College. That's pretty good numbers for a sophomore. He was a sophomore last year.

And then EJ Perry and Matt McDonald and Matt Valecce and Sam Johnson coming in here, we have a roomful of guys. It's quite a bit different than I can remember back seven years ago or six years ago. So I'm certainly -- we're excited there.

We have a running back room that may be the best in -- not maybe, will be the best in the conference. Obviously highlighted by AJ, but not to take away from David Bailey and Travis Levy and Ben Glines, and just a great room.

Up front, people have asked me about losing some guys up front. Yeah, we lost Chris Lindstrom, who a lot of people were asking me why he was playing. Well, he's going to be drafted probably in the first or second round. Aaron Monteiro we lose, Jon Baker.

But part of recruiting, having a chance to be here with some longevity, in six years we've recruited well, and we've got guys that I'm excited about coming in here right now. I mean, John Phillips has emerged to be a really outstanding player, and Ben Petrula is an outstanding player, and Alec Lindstrom is going to be elite at the center position. Tony Palazzolo has waited for his opportunity to play here and is ready to play here.

You know, and then we have some unbelievable young players here, as well. So it's exciting. We're not -- our level of play at the offensive line will not drop off at all. I mean, and I think I'm pretty qualified to make that statement. So we're going to have a great front.

Our tight ends, there's not a better tight end room in the country. What are we talking about here? We're going to lose a third-round pick, fourth-round, fifth-round pick in Sweeney, but we've got draft picks in that room, and not just one. So we're going to several great tight ends, Jake Burt and Christian Garrison and Hunter Long and Korab Idrizi and Ray Martin. I mean, there's not a shortage of those guys now.

The receiver position, Kobay is back, who's an elite player in the ACC. We lost Mike and Jeff, but Ben Glines is playing both positions and is an elite player, and Travis Levy is, oh, by the way, going to play both positions. I mean, our mindset is how are we going to have two really talented guys on -- get them all out on the field. Put the best players on the field. Noah Jordan-Williams will have a great year, CJ Lewis will have a great year, Jehlani Galloway we're really, really excited about.

On offense we've got skill firepower. We've got it at the quarterback, we've got it at the backfield, we've got it at the receivers, we've got it at the tight ends, we're going to have a really good offensive line. So you know, we're excited about that.

On defense, you know, we have five players back that have started at least one game in their career. It's not like guys haven't played. They have. And we're fired up about that. Interiorly, Jaleel Berry and T.J. and Tanner, we're excited about those guys. They've paid their dues and are ready to play. Those inside guys are going to be all over 300-pound guys that can play in this conference.

We've got to replace two edge rushers, and we're excited about our guys. Brandon Barlow was playing really well at the end of last year, and Marcus Valdez was playing really well at the end of last year, and Joe Luchetti we moved over there. Joe was an elite player coming to us. He was playing tight end, and we moved him to defensive end. He was a Division I basketball recruit. He's up to the high 250s, now he's going to be 265 pounds when we start the season. He's going to be -- everybody is going to say, where did that guy come from. He's going to be on the edge.

The linebackers, you guys all know about our linebackers, the depth that we have there. It's been established depth now for some time, and talking about Max Richardson and Isaiah McDuffie, and Isaiah will be out for the spring, still recovering from that knee injury, but he's doing fantastic. John Lamot, who's played a ton of football here. How about Davon Jones? Just a series of guys. We have a bunch of linebackers that can play, and some guys that are really ready to make their mark right now.

And then in the back end, we have some guys in the back end, but Brandon Sebastian is back. He was a true starter last year. And Tate Haynes is ready to go. Tate Haynes may be the best athlete of all of them, and we're excited about him.

And Elijah Jones is a real up-and-comer, and Jason Maitre and just some guys that we are very excited about.

I mean, another interesting deal to me is four DB's drafted since 2016. I mean, we came in here, one of the things we had to do at Boston College was increase our skill. I'd like to think we did that. Four DB's drafted since 2016, that's pretty darned good. The running back that we have, the quarterback, the receivers that we have, we have real ACC speed.

So in the back end, we have recruited well and we have developed guys, and we have to replace our safeties. The guys like Nolan Borgersen and Mehdi El Attrach have been here a while. Mike Palmer, Mike Palmer played a lot of football last year. So these are guys that can come in here and do a great job, and were very athletic. We have good speed, and we're talented back there. Yeah, we have to replace some guys, but that's what you do. You replace guys if you've recruited properly and you're coaching properly and you're developing properly, and you keep moving forward. That's what's interesting.

I think that's a reflection a lot of things. We've got a great commitment here with our new facility, which is going to help immensely. Another great deal that's coming out, bowl appearances in the Northeast since 2013, we're as high as anybody in that whole region. Boston College, five; Notre Dame, five; Penn State, five; Pittsburgh, five; West Virginia, five; Maryland, three; Rutgers, two; Syracuse, two; Connecticut, one. BC is right up there. We've been to five bowls in six years, and we'll make it six in seven. So that's given us consistency. It's given us a chance to go recruit.

We've got facility enhancements, coupled with winning, and we have star power marquee football names on our roster. We're going to have seven players in the combine. Seven in the combine. Dying for someone to talk about -- I sat in these press conferences about, well, what do we know about this star player and that star player. Well, that's the real way you evaluate your recruiting, and I'm proud of the fact and excited about the fact we have seven players going to the combine and probably have somewhere between five and seven players that will be drafted in the NFL Draft and probably another three or four at least free agents coming out of here. And the talk of the Senior Bowl and the talk of the combine has been Boston College.

I think these things have all worked together and given us an opportunity to continue to develop and build our program.

We've got a great staff. People come in, you know, and they try to raid our staff, and that's a compliment to our staff, and the key is the ability to keep bringing in high-powered people, and we've done that at a high level. And I'm excited about that. Fun to be around these kind of guys, to work with them, and our players, we turned -- Frank Piraino had a chance to move on, as you guys know, to go down to the Tennessee Titans, and Scott McLafferty came in, and Scott had been with us, and Scott is having a huge impact on our strength program right now.

There's a lot of continuity, a lot of positive things. We've got a great work ethic. The guys that have come through here have really set a high standard for our players and for our team in terms of their attitude, their work ethic and their commitment to football and what it takes, and they're all working at that really, really hard.

It's going to be fun. Granted, there's always the challenges of breaking some inexperience and some young guys in, but there's also a really high excitement level about that. That's what's fun about coaching. You know, if you've got the right guys in the right spots, you still can get a lot done. We all know where those spots are, and we have them.

With that, I'm happy to answer anybody's questions.

Q. What were the aftereffects of December 26th? What effect did that have on them?
STEVE ADDAZIO: That's a good question. As I told you before, if you were in that locker room, the level of disappointment and the sadness for the seniors was pretty high.

But I think that there is a sense of a hunger. I mean, we prepared so hard for that bowl game, and we were so ready to play that bowl game and felt like the rug came out from under us.

But I think it set the stage for a lot of these young guys to get a tremendous amount of work. Every year when you go into these bowl games it gives you that extra practice time, and I think we utilized it well this year. And we had a hell of a lot of the older guys out and a lot of these younger guys got a chance to really work, and I think they're hungry to make their mark. And I think coming off that game, or the lack thereof of that game, really had a tremendous jolt in terms of dying to get back on the field type of thing.

Q. Who will be in competition to beat Michael Walker?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, that's a good question. I think there's several guys that -- Jason Maitre is a young guy who's actually out for the spring but that had a high skill level there. We've got a couple guys coming in that are -- Zay Flowers is electric. He's an electric guy. You know, Travis Levy will for sure have pieces there. So you'll see those guys in there.

There will probably be five or six guys vying for those spots, you know. Obviously trying to find the guys that have not only that great speed but that unbelievable make-you-miss that I think -- we don't have a lack of those guys right now, so we'll plug one of those guys in.

Q. Just quickly, could you expand a little bit on what is keeping Jason out, and also, were there any guys during the bowl practices that stood out to you who maybe weren't playing a lot last year that might make a leap?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, EJ Perry had an unbelievable bowl prep. Hunter Long was phenomenal, Alec Lindstrom, fantastic bowl prep, Anthony Palazzolo. Anthony Palazzolo did a great job in bowl prep. Jason Maitre had gotten hurt. That's that injury that he had to have fixed.

I thought Elijah Jones did a great job with bowl prep. I thought the young secondary guys, the DB's back there, Mike Palmer and Tate Haynes, those guys, Jehlani Galloway had a chance to really shine as a receiver in the bowl prep. I thought Noah Jordan-Williams did a great job. I'm really excited about Noah Jordan-Williams at the receiver position. We have been for a while. I think he's about ready now to pop.

I thought Jaleel Berry was a guy that really has come a long way on the defensive front. Bill can elaborate on that a little more. He got himself in shape. He can run. He's trim. I think that guy has a chance to really go.

And of course I told you Brandon Barlow came a long way at the end of the year and so did Valdez and Joe Luchetti. Joe Luchetti had a chance to prepare like a starter in the bowl prep. I know I'm saying a few, but those guys all got a lot of work. Mm-hmm.

You know, David is going to be an unbelievable tailback, and he had a lot of work in the bowl prep. He looks great. He's trimmed down a little bit. He's 250-something pounds, and now he's down to like 240, which is still a huge back. But I think David Bailey is a real talent. He had a really good bowl prep.

Sometimes you watch these freshmen, it takes them a while, you know, and then all of a sudden they start coming. AJ is a freshman, it happened in the second half of his freshman year, but all those guys, you can see them starting to come.

You know another guy? Finn Dirstine. Finn Dirstine went from like 330 to 305, and he looks fantastic. Tyler Vrabel, he looks fantastic. Those are two guys you can really see emerge this year. They're emerging.

Q. How would you assess Hamp Cheevers' NFL Draft prospects?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, I mean, I think Hamp could have benefitted from being here another year, to be transparent with you. But Hamp felt this was in his best interest. He's an explosive guy. He's going to have to get bigger. He's got really good ball skills. He's got really good coverage ability. He made a lot of plays. I think he was just starting -- you're starting to really see the emergence of Hamp. So I think he'll do well in the combine. And I would think he'd have a great opportunity ahead of him. I mean, we're certainly all cheering for him.

But you know, you get -- you go into that arena and the margin for error is small, so I hope he has a great workout here pro day and a great combine. He's a terrific kid, and we wish him nothing but the best.

Q. Just curious how unique is it for you in your tenure here to have a defense that isn't as experienced as it has been in the past, and what challenges might come with that, and also, what role do Bill and Jim have to play and maybe accelerate the process a little bit?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Well, Bill is running it. Bill is defensive coordinator and he's running that show.

Q. (No microphone.)
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, I mean, I think really -- I think really homing in on who we feel are the guys for each position throughout spring, really making sure we're doing what fits their ability and their talent. I think whether you're on offense or defense, I think every year, I think you're in a footrace to figure out -- you can say, well, don't you already know? You do, but to really enhance the guys that you feel need to be on that field, what do they actually really do best, and I think that'll be the process of spring ball. I think continuing to develop and work fundamentally both sides of the ball special teams and skill set, but in addition to that, I think all the factors of watching guys -- you're going to play man, you're going to play zone, right, we all know that. We're going to have both in our -- but who's a little better here, who's a little better here, and maybe the percentages of what you play, I think you come out of spring ball with a little better feel.

But ask Bill. Bill will be up here in a minute, and I think that's a great question for him, and I think he'll go into detail on that for you.

Q. (No microphone.)
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, I mean, I think that's accurate. I think you are identifying a little bit. I think -- and you've also got hungry, hungry guys. Watching this over the years sometimes to me, I think sometimes it's exciting with young guys that haven't had their chance yet. They're not in that mode sometimes. Sometimes you get older guys, and they've got a lot on their mind. And sometimes you get some of these other guys, they've got one thing on their mind. They want to emerge, and they're not -- they're more aggressive sometimes. So it's exciting. It's a trade-off. You've got experience, but you've got some inexperience, but a lot of these guys have played. It's not like they haven't played, and they've played at a high level against really good teams.

But you know, that exists. I mean, that turnover and that period of adjustment, if you will, it exists, and that's what spring is about. I'm not going to minimize the fact that we lost potentially a first-round draft pick at one end at another draft pick at the other end and a draft pick in the back end. I'm not going to minimize that. I mean, but I'd like to think that in the making are the next round of guys that are going to come up and be really productive players. You know, are they going to be a second- or a first-round pick? I don't know that. But certainly have an opportunity to be very, very talented and play with great synergy together.

Q. (No microphone.)
STEVE ADDAZIO: I don't know. You know, it's a good question. I think one thing that I think I made a point to you guys before kind of along those lines is here it's all about being aligned as a team.

Like I'm never like into this -- you didn't really ask me this, but oh, the defense, they're going to dominate the offense. That does not lead to team development. So it's my job to make sure that however it starts or however it finishes that all three phases work hand in hand together so that they can develop. That's why I like -- it's never about -- it's not Steve Addazio's team. It's not Mike Bajakian's offense, it's not Bill Sheridan's defense. It's the Boston College football team, it's the Boston College offense, it's the Boston College defense. So that we can always be working together in synergy to develop our team.

So I don't know in spring. You'd say on paper there's a little more experience coming back on offense, but in the same breath, you've thought those things before, but you just don't know. And I think at the end of the day, we've got good players, good coaches, and I think it'll be a good, healthy competition and a good, healthy experience on the field, and it's my job to make sure that it stays like that so that if one side needs a little more development, it can develop and it doesn't get choked; know what I mean? And I think as a head coach, if you don't watch that, that can stymie a piece of that team. All three phases are equally important, and they don't all come together exactly at the same time.

So there's, I think, a real conscious effort to make sure that that happens. What I love on our staff is there's no egos on our staff. It's not about like Mike would stand up here and tell you, listen, I'm -- I want to make sure our defense has everything they need, and Bill will talk about I want to make sure our offense has everything their need, and special teams is going to fit right with our offense and our defense. It won't be about like Bill say I've got to have this, even if that's not good for the offense. It doesn't work that way in our staff room, and that's really a credit to the coaches that we have, because it's not like that everywhere, it's just not like that everywhere. But it is here.

Q. You look back at the totality of last season, the ups and downs and big wins, tough losses, how would you just sort of describe that?
STEVE ADDAZIO: Yeah, I mean, well, I look at it through these eyes. Obviously you're always striving -- our goal was to compete and win a conference championship, right? And I said that to you, and that's what I believed. In the tenth -- I think it was the tenth game of the year, in the tenth game of the year, I think we were 7-2, right, we were playing Clemson here on game day. We were 17th in the country. In the tenth week of the season, we were 7-2, on game day, 17th in the country, playing Clemson for the conference championship. Well, if they signed me up for that right now, I'm taking that again right now. That's not bad at that point in time.

Now, the outcome, the outcome was not where we wanted it to be, but I think in the same breath, the outcome where it wasn't want a lot of people playing Clemson. I saw the last two games of that year against Alabama and Notre Dame, and I'd say we played them every bit as good if not better without our starting quarterback.

But the reality of it is we did not win that game. So in week 10, we fell short of our goal, which was to compete and win a conference championship.

I would say to you after that game, we were very disappointed in the next week. That was a game that we felt we dominated that game and lost that game. And then we played an outstanding Syracuse team with a veteran quarterback who's one of the more elite players in the country.

We ended up with seven wins. We ended up with a chance to play in a bowl game for eight wins. Would I have liked that to have been better? Sure, but I thought that was still another outstanding season.

But our goal is to do better than that. And we want to compete for a conference championship, realizing what we have to go through to -- who we have to go through to get there. We're not oblivious to that. But I feel like we can compete with anybody on our schedule.

But I don't have to tell you guys who a couple of those teams are. Like I said, you saw it for yourselves. So we need to continue to grow. We need to continue to get better. I need to do a better job, and I think that we need to continue to fight to finish stronger, and I felt very confident that we would have finished strong in that bowl game, and I'm not a guy that gets up and just says stuff to say it. I felt like we had an outstanding opportunity and were highly prepared and were really on the mark in that game.

So we've got to get back to work and get going. We're in a big-time conference, and that's life in the big-time conference. You're going to get some that maybe people thought you weren't going to get, and the object is to get more.

Moving on to 2019, we've got a challenging schedule ahead of us, but it's an exciting one. We've got a bunch of players that are hungry, have played a lot of football, and we have a lot of talent at the right positions, and I think we'll have a chance to have an outstanding team.

Q. Coach, you mentioned that EJ Perry had a great bowl preparation and Sam Johnson coming in, one of the best quarterbacks in the nation coming out of this class, Anthony Brown having an outstanding season last year. Do you see Anthony Brown coming in as your guy again this year?
STEVE ADDAZIO: You know, yeah. I mean, I always feel that he's the starter. And he's done a phenomenal job, and he had an outstanding year. But having said that, we're going to compete. Mike is going to get up here and talk about it. He's coming in here -- you know what the beautiful thing is sometimes when you have new coaches coming in? Everybody starts from the same spot, and I love that. And I think it just creates a really great competition because he's going to evaluate it the way he sees it, and I've told him that. I want him to do that. So I think that's great.

So there's going to be some real healthy competition -- I mean, Matt McDonald, all of them. I mean, if I'm a quarterback right now, I'm excited. I'm fired up; I've got a chance; I've got someone to come in here. I want to show what I can do.

And I think if your quarterback is a guy that wants to rest on what's perceived that he is, call it your laurels for lack of a better word to say, then you're not really a true vicious competitor, because if you're a real competitor, you never feel like that. You always feel like you've got an edge to you and you've got something to prove, and I think all those guys feel that way, and I think Mike is going to be the kind of guy that is going to embrace them and challenge them, and I think -- I'd say they're all excited for that. It's going to bring the best out in all of them. It's a new beginning, fantastic.

Same in the back end with Eric; he's coming in here, it's a clean slate. That's cool. It's great. You know, and I'm looking forward to it. I can't wait to see how these guys -- what their assessments are. I'm excited about it, you know.

I like a little edge. Anybody doesn't want to be too comfortable, and I think that's good. And there will be a little edge, and it'll be nice. Bill is going to look at it through a different lens. I mean, that's good. He's fired up. He'll tell you. I'm excited for you guys to talk to those guys. You don't need to talk to me. You hear the same stuff from me. You get to talk to those guys; it's a lot better than talking to me anyways.

Hey, appreciate it, guys. You guys are awesome. I mean that. I know you've got a tough job to do, too, but you do a great job, and appreciate you being here today, and hope you're as excited as we are for 2019, okay? Go Eagles.

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