The modern era of football is obsessed with blending tangible factors into new-school systems. There’s a natural link, but the idea around combining speed with a fast-paced game can maximize the quickness or velocity of an offense. Changes to rules were built around protecting players, and the subsequent demand for high flying athletes with ungodly agility and speed made finding defenders capable of stopping those advances more paramount than ever.
For years, Boston College was one of the teams attempting to buck the trend with a power running game, but Jeff Hafley‘s arrival as head coach further brought coordinators intent on augmenting raw horsepower with the scientific advances in football offenses to Chestnut Hill. Now three years into the experiment, the Eagles displayed the effects on Saturday when wideouts Zay Flowers and Jaden Williams helped lead BC to its 38-17 win over Maine.
“Zay and Jaden are so fast,” said quarterback Phil Jurkovec. “They take the top off any defense, and every defense we go against this year has to respect that. But then we also have Jaelen Gill, who is playing really well, and I think we can get him the ball more. He’s a guy that’s been so reliable with catching the ball. So I think we have a great mix, but that speed really helps because defenses have to respect it.”
Flowers was already a known commodity to even the most casual observer of the Eagles, but his numbers jumped into an elite pantheon on Saturday after he passed Brandon Robinson for fifth all-time in receptions by a BC receiver. He also passed Brian Brennan for fifth all-time in receiving yards, and he passed the first quarter pole of the 2022 season with a legitimate shot at joining Pete Mitchell, Kelvin Martin, Rich Gunnell and Alex Amidon on the Mount Rushmore of BC pass catchers.
“You never know which direction he’s going to go,” said head coach Jeff Hafley. “[Zay] can stop and start and can jump-cut to the left or right, he can accelerate, he can catch the ball, and he can accelerate by people.”
Even if he doesn’t pass those names, the fact that Flowers is challenging them is a standalone success story for an athlete who started his collegiate career as a burner and not a receiver. He was a unique presence, but the 2019 Eagles used his freshman skill set on jet sweeps in a system that gave him more rushing carries than receptions. The subsequent arrivals of Hafley and Jurkovec changed that, but even the head coach admitted the offense needed to find more, different ways to incorporate him into the offense despite his team-leading receiving numbers in each of the last two seasons.
Opening those doors required a good, honest look at how the offense could shift and go deeper than simply allowing Jurkovec to throw the ball at Flowers more frequently. That wasn’t even necessarily the end goal since offense is built around maximizing efficiency, but finding better opportunities required the ball to spread out to other dynamic additions like Jaelen Gill and tight ends Trae Barry and George Takacs.
In Williams, though, Hafley and the offense found a kindred spirit capable of matching Flowers’ athleticism, and the three-star recruit quickly established himself as a leading candidate for the next developmental success story last year when he appeared in all 12 games. He caught at least one pass in nine of those games, and he scored touchdowns against Temple and Missouri as part of BC’s 4-0 start to the season. After Jurkvoec returned from his wrist injury, it was Williams that broke out against Georgia Tech with three catches for 62 yards, and on Saturday, his 58-yard catch against the Black Bears set up Takacs’ acrobatic touchdown to put BC ahead for good.
“I just ran,” Williams said with a laugh. “I don’t think that anybody can run with me, and I think that showed [on that play]. It’s exciting [to make plays], and when you get your number called, you just feel anxious and ready to run. I think that kind of makes me run faster.”
Having those options put some severe pressure on the Maine defense and offered a glimpse at how the Eagles intend to attack the rest of their 2022 schedule. There is a concerted effort to target Flowers as much as possible, but it’s only a realistic expectation if the dynamic athletes continue to develop their roles within the offensive scheme. The other receivers need to get open, which in turn will draw coverage away from other intended targets, while the offensive line’s continued gelling offers the protection necessary to make those throws.
All of this is built on top of BC’s traditional foundation as a power football team, and the ability to play complementary football will prevent opponents from stacking the box against the running game. Within that chess match, the emergence of more than just Pat Garwo will continue to open the opportunities across the board, which in turn is what Hafley envisioned when he began developing this offensive scheme with new coordinator John McNulty.
“Defensively, you have to set an edge [to stop athletes],” Hafley said, “and you got to press and hit. In every defensive design, there’s an edge-set which some people call a forced player, and it’s where you have to set that edge and force the ball back. If you lose that edge and get out of leverage, you’re in trouble because other guys have to press. If they don’t, then they overpursue, which creates jump lanes for the backs. If all of those guys pursue, we can go over the top.
“With the backs, how they see it is in their vision, but they have to have the physical ability to execute it,” he continued. “You can’t tell a back to run here and then jump cut. They have to go one gap at a time and find daylight, and if it’s not there, they have to see things that good backs can really see.”
Boston College and Florida State will kick off on Saturday at 8 p.m. from Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee, Florida. The game can be seen on national television via ACC Network with online coverage available through the ESPN platform of apps.