Jeff Hafley has mentored Pro Bowl defensive backs on NFL sidelines, coached in the College Football Playoff, been named a semifinalist for the Broyles Award—given to the top assistant in the FBS—and received his first Power Five head coaching job by the age of 40. But a Thanksgiving morning in Montvale, New Jersey, is right up there with all those memories, the first-year Eagles head coach said Tuesday.
Trailing by one point against his high school’s crosstown rival in a game “we should’ve won by a lot,” Hafley threw up a pass for the potential game-winning two-point conversion. It got tipped three times before Hafley’s receiver finally came down with the reception.
Hafley still calls his high school buddies every year on Thanksgiving to reminisce about the play.
“I wasn’t a very good football player,” he said. “But I could always hang my hat on that bad pass I threw that got tipped and was good for two.”
Hafley said that, growing up, Thanksgiving football was something he always looked forward to. When Boston College’s home finale against Louisville—originally set for Friday—was first rescheduled for Dec. 12 because of a COVID-19 outbreak at Miami, he got creative and came up with a way for his players to get the same thing out of the holiday that he did as a kid.
“I was going to do something fun for ’em,” Hafley said Wednesday. “I was gonna have a Turkey Bowl. I was gonna have all the young guys go in the stadium and play a game and get the scoreboards going. I was gonna have the older guys put the headsets on and coach the two different teams. So that was my plan. Again, I like to have fun with the guys.”
Hafley explained that he’d have veterans such as redshirt junior quarterback Dennis Grosel and fifth-year linebacker Max Richardson coach the offense and defense. Richardson thought it was really cool that Hafley approached the team leaders with the idea. He said that, in years past, the team hadn’t done anything of the sort for Thanksgiving.
“I was really excited about that,” Richardson said. “Obviously, the schedule got changed and things happen. But Coach Haf is really looking to empower the players on the team and make them feel as if they are just as important as him in terms of a leadership role.”
Starting quarterback Phil Jurkovec was jazzed up about the prospect of coaching his fellow players, although he conceded that backup signal callers Daelen Menard and Matt Valecce can do the best impressions of offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti Jr.
“I think that would be awesome,” Jurkovec said of the Turkey Bowl. “I love seeing the younger guys compete, so if they had a scrimmage, that would have been a lot of fun. I’d be on the headset. I’d start coaching them up.”
Hafley planned a post-scrimmage feast for the whole team. That’s still happening. The Turkey Bowl, however, was tabled after BC’s bout with Louisville was pushed back to Thanksgiving weekend, this time for a Saturday afternoon kickoff.
Jurkovec said he knew that players wouldn’t have been able to go home regardless if BC had the double bye because of the pandemic and Massachusetts’ quarantine guidelines. Like many college football players, Jurkovec hasn’t been home for Thanksgiving in years.
Yet with COVID-19, the sacrifice is even greater in 2020. For coaches, too.
“Thanksgiving is an important day for a lot of reasons,” Hafley said. “You’d like to spend it with your family. I just shared with [the players], even me for example—my mom, my brother, and my sister, I just—I can’t have ’em enter the house right now and put myself in jeopardy because of everything the team has sacrificed. It’s not fair if I do that and then come around our players.
“Another sacrifice that our players are making. Staying with each other. Campus is kinda empty right now. Doing it for the love of the game and the buy-in. It’s awesome.”
