Eagles Receive Pre-Season Recognition From Athlon Sports

Little late to the party on this one (blame lacrosse season), but BC had six guys named to the Athlon Sports preseason All-ACC team a couple weeks ago.

Donovan Ezeiraku and Christian Mahogany were named to the First Team, while Vinny DePalma was named to the Second Team. Elijah Jones was named to the Third Team and both Kam Arnold and Ryan O'Keefe were Fourth Team nominees.

The bog takeaway early from this one is how much Athlon believes in some of the core guys returning on defense. Ezeiraku was legitimately one of the best players in the ACC last year and could be an absolute force for the Eagles in 2023. Vinny DePalma is like 50, but back for another season and the fact that the publication thought enough of him to put him on one of the teams shows his leadership and versatility isn't being taken for granted. Like Ezeiraku, Arnold has a chance to make quite a name for himself this season. His versatility and ridiculous athleticism has been overlooked, but if the defense is going to succeed, those three guys will arguably be the biggest reasons why.

Now, offensively, there's two ways to look at this. One, is that Emmett Morehead not making the team is surprising, but could you could also look at it as being great for BC in terms of adding motivation for the Cali gunslinger. Obviously, Morehead hasn't played very much, but it's pretty clear he has the talent to lead this team, so I was slightly surprised he at least didn't make a 4th team or something like that.

Now, Mahogany was the most obvious choice. His absence last year derailed the season almost from the jump. Having Mahogany back to stead everyone else up front is going to be massive. There's a really good chance Mahogany could be a first round NFL Draft pick, following in the footsteps the last two years behind Zion Johnson and Zay Flowers. Don't be surprised when everyone starts talking about how good he is by like, October. He was also named an Athlon Sports preseason All American.

Ryan O'Keefe was a very interesting one. He's never played a snap for the Eagles, but he's legitimately one of the fastest receivers in the country and is going to add an element of speed to this offense we haven't seen in a long time. The fact that Athlon Sports has him on a team despite not even putting a BC uniform on yet speaks volumes about the expectations people have for him.

For a team that went 3-9 last season, these six selections highlight how much talent is still there. If the team can put it all together and get some contributions from other guys not on this list, we could be signing a very different tune about the program in November or December.