BC Chooses Holiday Season Over Bowl Season

Days after the Jacob Blake shooting in August, first-year Boston College head coach Jeff Hafley called his team’s Leadership Council together. He knew his players and staff were hurting, and he suggested BC cancel practice in favor of a program-wide discussion about police brutality, racial inequality, and social activism.

The Eagles became one of the first college teams to do so, following in the footsteps of several pro sports franchises that had pressed pause on their respective seasons.

Before BC had played a single game, Hafley had the pulse of his team, despite having to bond with players and coaches over Zoom after spring ball was cut short because of the pandemic.

“The reason we stuck together so well this season is because of the way Coach Hafley’s led us,” fifth-year linebacker Max Richardson said. “What he said to us was, ‘Talk to me as if I’m not your head coach but as if I’m just another guy in the room.’”

Three months later, on Thursday afternoon, that cohesion was more evident than ever when Hafley announced another player-inspired decision that set a national precedent.

Alongside first-year Athletic Director Pat Kraft, Hafley explained that the 6-5 Eagles are opting out of the postseason, emphasizing the importance of his players returning home and caring for their mental health after going, at one point, five straight months without a positive COVID-19 test.

BC is the first bowl-eligible program to remove itself from the bowl selection process this season.

“We’re very thankful for the ACC and our bowl partners,” Kraft said, “but I’m really, really proud of our players to make this decision in doing what’s right for themselves, and I’m proud of what they accomplished this year.

“This was a tough year. It was a really tough year for them. … And I want people to understand, a lot of these young men haven’t hugged their loved ones since June.”

Kraft mentioned that the decision was made as a “Boston College football family.” Hafley elaborated. He said when he went back and watched the tape of BC’s 43-32 road loss to Virginia—the Eagles’ regular season finale—he noticed that his players, who suited up for as many as nine consecutive games without a bye this year, looked a “little different.” This week, he spent time with them on the practice field and sensed their mental and physical strain.

“For them to stay healthy and stay away from COVID, and go through 9,000 tests and have one positive throughout the season,” Hafley said. “It took more out of them than anybody has any idea, including me.”

He added: “The mental health of these kids is more important to me than anything.”

Once again, Hafley rounded up the Leadership Council—a senior-heavy crew that consists of one elected player from each of the team’s position groups—and asked them how they felt about whether BC should participate in a bowl this winter. Hafley also recommended that the players see what their teammates thought about the situation before reporting back.

Hafley wanted the decision to come from the team, and it did. When all was said and done, he brought the program together and had Richardson make the announcement.

“When Max told the team that they were going home to see their families, it was an uproar of excitement and kind of emotional for me,” Hafley said. “At that moment I knew that, 100 percent, this is the right decision.”

Hafley noted that, although BC successfully completed its 11-game regular season with only one minor postponement, things are getting worse throughout the country and, in turn, across college football. Just this past weekend, nine games were postponed or canceled, according to USA TODAY. Already, a handful of highly-anticipated Week 15 matchups have been nixed, namely Ohio State-Michigan, Purdue-Indiana, and Oklahoma-West Virginia.

Several bowls, including four ACC-affiliated postseason games (Holiday Bowl, Sun Bowl, Pinstripe Bowl, and Fenway Bowl), have been canceled as well.

“If we practice three weeks, they miss Christmas with their family, and then we get a call that the bowl’s canceled—I have an issue with that,” Kraft said.

It wouldn’t have been the first time the Eagles were robbed of a holiday season for nothing.

In 2018, the First Responder Bowl was canceled because of lightning, marking the NCAA’s first-ever postseason weather cancellation. And last year, a rain-filled Birmingham Bowl, which pitted the Eagles against No. 21 Cincinnati, was delayed 90 minutes midway through the first quarter, again due to lightning. The teams ended up finishing the game, yet BC never got its offense going and fell, 38-6.

Richardson said those games left a “bit of a bad taste in our mouth,” however, he affirmed that the exhaustion from this season was the driving force behind the players’ decision to not participate in the 2020 postseason.

Kraft said that the potential financial ramifications of withdrawing from bowl competition are “the last thing I’ve thought about.”

“We haven’t even gotten to know where we would be headed,” the former Temple AD said. “Our focus really has always been on where the guys were.”

Hafley shared Kraft’s sentiment that the team’s decision was “bigger than a game.” In addition, he said that, while he’s a competitor and would love to coach every week if possible, he’s not the one putting on the uniform and sitting in a dorm room by himself every night without the chance to go out to dinner or see his family.

“Just imagine how tired these kids are, who are 18, 19, 20,” he said. “Their whole life isn’t football. Mine is right now. It’s my family and football—that’s what I do. But these kids have a lot of other things going on that they put off.”

A players’ coach, Hafley unsurprisingly spent most of Thursday’s press conference highlighting his team, but he conceded that the vigorous testing protocol has taken a toll on him, too. He recounted how, just this week, he came down with a bit of a cold and was faced with decisions like, “Should I stay away from my kids?” and “Do I not go near my wife?” Hafley ultimately came back negative, as he has all season, but only after hours of anxiously refreshing his email inbox to see the results.

It’s an ACC testing protocol that occurs three times a week. Hafley said that it weighs on everyone in the program, especially the players, who haven’t been able to go out with friends, truly engage with the campus community, or see their parents and siblings for months.

Starting center Alec Lindstrom lives in Dudley, Massachusetts, about an hour away from Chestnut Hill. Normally, his parents can watch him play every game in Alumni Stadium. But not this year.

After all, the Eagles didn’t allow fans at home all season, in accordance with state COVID-19 guidelines. The only opportunity loved ones had to watch their BC players in-person was on the road, and, even then, BC instituted six to eight-foot barriers, limiting contact for safety reasons.

“Ever since I've been in high school, I can remember my mom yelling and ringing the bell when I'm running out there and everything,” Lindstrom said. “And I know where she sits. So I'm sitting in the game on my break, and I look up and I can see her. It’s like, ‘Okay, you can do this. You can get through it.’ It just makes you appreciate everything you have.”

With the wide distribution of a COVID-19 vaccination potentially months away, BC will be back in Fish Field House for offseason workouts in January, employing its traditional coronavirus prevention efforts. A bowl game would have likely provided the Eagles with just a week and a half of turnaround time—a plan that Hafley believes would have been destined for failure.

“They’re going to need to go home, take a deep breath, reenergize, and get ready to do it again. And if we pushed them through the 30th or the 28th or January 2nd or 3rd, and told them to go take 10 days off and do it again, I think, mentally, they would have no chance.”

BC is taking an approach that could very well gain traction throughout college football.

The decision comes on the heels of an impressive 2020 campaign that saw the Eagles—who many picked to finish last in the ACC—win five conference games, roll out a new-look offense, improve drastically on defense and special teams, and knock on the doorstep of top-15 upsets against then-No. 12 North Carolina and then-No. 1 Clemson.

Throughout the final weeks of the regular season, Hafley talked to reporters about rewarding his team for its performance, both on and off the field.

Thursday, that reward was revealed.

“A bowl game, in my opinion, is a week away with your friends,” Hafley said. “Being able to go out, meet other teams, meet other coaches, hang out with each other, spend the holidays there with their families together.

“That’s not the case this year. It’s not going to happen. So the biggest reward we could give the team was to be able to go and let them finish finals and spend time with their families.”