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BOSTON COLLEGE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

December 2, 2019

Martin Jarmond

Boston, Massachusetts

MARTIN JARMOND: Good morning. Thank you for being here this morning. I want to start off by thanking Coach Steve Addazio for the seven years that he spent here on the Heights. He gave his heart and soul to this program and I appreciate all the efforts and what he has done and the staff has done to help develop our young men. That said, we're moving forward today, excited, and we have an incredible opportunity with Boston College football. I understand that we have young men in our locker room, I spent about an hour with them yesterday, and I was really impressed with just how driven they are, high character guys, want to be great, and it's refreshing, because that's what represents BC. So we have an incredible opportunity and I'm excited to find a head coach that's going to lead our young men and go to greater heights and that's what we want. So with that said I'll open it up for questions.

Q. When you extended Steve last year after the season were there parameters in that extension that said you have to match these goals or anything like that?
MARTIN JARMOND: No, you don't have specific parameters that way. Whenever a coach, specifically football, has less than four years you really want to make sure that they have that continuity because they're recruiting a four-year class. So you're in a position where you either need to make a change or either extend and I felt really good about the progress that we were making last year.

Q. (No microphone.)
MARTIN JARMOND: We look at the whole body of work. We evaluate throughout the year, but I started talking with Father Leahy at the end of the season and we connected and we just felt like the trajectory that we were on, I didn't feel like we were making the progress competitively that we needed to. We want to be more competitive in conference and nationally, and I just felt with the total body of work that we, that it was time to make a change.

Q. What are the qualities you would want out of a candidate?
MARTIN JARMOND: Integrity is the first one. We want a person of high integrity, we want a leader, someone that understands Boston College. We have a wonderful opportunity here. Our Catholic Jesuit values, men and women for others. It has to be someone that understands us. We're proud of that. We have a rich tradition and history. A lot of guys have done really well that came in this program. We want to build on that. Someone that understands that. A teacher. Someone that's passionate to teach the game but teach the skills that they need for life. Someone that wins. We want to win and we want to be competitive. And we talk about competitive excellence and that's something that we're going to look for.

Q. Rich is going to coach the team through the bowl, at least.
MARTIN JARMOND: Rich Gunnell is going to coach. He's incredibly talented. I'm excited about Rich. He is an Eagle. He's played here. He understands us. He gets it. Man, he's the right person to lead our young men to go get a 7th win. But he will not interview for the job. And I don't know the time frame. Obviously we have signing day December 18th. Ideally, we would have someone in place by then, but I'm not going to commit to a time. I know not to do that.

Q. Your background's Big-10. Is that one of the areas you'll be looking?
MARTIN JARMOND: I'll be looking everywhere that we can find a head coach that's going to be great to lead our men. So whether it's Big-10, whether it's PAC-12, whether it's whatever conference, it doesn't matter.

Q. This is your first big coaching hire here since you've been here. Did you come in with like a list of guys that you had been watching, or how does, how do you approach it as kind of a big move for you?
MARTIN JARMOND: I think with every one of your programs you always try to have a list in mind or characteristics of the job that you feel are really important. So you always do that with all of our 31 sports. I think, and specifically with football, you do watch a lot of football, but usually in season you're so focused and locked in on your current team and your current staff and what you can do to help them be successful. So it's not something that you're looking at all the time. But it's always in the back of your mind, as an AD you want to be prepared in case something happens, a coach leaves, you have to make a change. So you always have a list or you have people that you're watching. But most importantly it's the characteristics, who is out there that demonstrates the characteristics that really fit where we are and what we need to move forward.

Q. You said signing day is coming up. Could you talk about how, you know it's important not to wait until the end of the season but to do this now.
MARTIN JARMOND: Yes, I think if you make a decision you need to act decisively. I don't think it helps anyone to delay a decision on either side. I don't think it's fair to whoever that coach or that staff is and I don't think it's fair to the institution. When you make your mind up I think you need to act. So I wanted to do that as quickly as we could to move forward because I think it's really important to get in the marketplace when you can, when you know you're going to make a change and start that process.

Q. (No microphone.)
MARTIN JARMOND: We have a capital campaign now called Greater Heights. We talk about greater heights. We want to achieve more. You saw that last year where we were in the top-25, one of our strategic goals in our strategic plan is to be a top-25 football program. That's a goal that I feel strongly about. You saw that last year when we got back into the top-25, we were competitive. And so that, I think, is really important to understand what we can be. And we have got a great rich tradition and history. We have done it before. Sometimes you got to look at your past to see what you can do. And I know we can do that. I think we have a lot of talent, I think we have potential, and I think we got to maximize that. So I'm excited it. This is not something that's a rebuild. This is a retool to go for greater heights and that's what this is about.

Q. (No microphone.)
MARTIN JARMOND: No, we're not taking a step back. This is all about moving forward. Again, this is a solid foundation. If you look at our team, we have a lot coming back, a lot of talent coming back. This is a launch pad now. I really, I don't really get into the how many wins. I know that's important to fans, but I look at momentum. I look at energy. I look at progress. Are we progressing? If you're not progressing then you're either stalling or you're moving back. And we want to move forward. And so that's kind of, when you look at everything, I want a program that's constantly moving forward, pushing it, progressing, and that's what we want to do.

Q. Are you in negotiations with bowls right now? Have you been in contact the bowls and where you might be going?
MARTIN JARMOND: No. You've had a couple conversations, like, there were two bowl representatives at the Pitt game that I met and talked to a little bit. But during this process, now, it's just kind of a feeling out. They might send you questions about, what's your attendance, maybe, or how many alumni do you have in that area. So we have started that process. We're excited about that. But it really just got started because we, when we got our sixth win on Saturday.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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