Here's everything O'Brien said on WEEI Thursday morning about staying at BC, recent recruits, the open Patriots job and the difficulties young coaches in the NFL have walking the line between being friends and being bosses to players...

On getting Alabama commits to come to Chestnut Hill

“We want to win. We believe we can win doing it the right way…it’s a very challenging academic school, but it doesn’t mean you can’t win in football. We have a certain way of going about things. We’re not a great football team right now, but we’re a tough, solid football team and we’re going to keep adding guys to our roster that we think fit what it takes to win here…some of these guys, we have connections to because we recruited them at places we were already at. At Alabama, I recruited Dylan Lonergan and I was part of the initial recruiting on Ty Lockwood. So, there’s some connections there. We want to bring in good players that understand what it means to get a BC degree and win in the ACC. That’s what we’re trying to do. We don’t want to be satisfied with 7-6, that’s a brutal way to go through life is to be satisfied with 7-6. We want to try and get better and better every day and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

On what his buyout would be if he wanted to go to Vegas for their head coaching job

“(Laughs), I went on (Adam Schefter’s podcast)…I love Boston College. You guys know that, I’m from here. But, who am I to say…if an NFL team calls me and wants to talk about their organization, I’ll certainly listen. But, again, I’m putting my heart and soul into Boston College. I feel like we can win. We got back from the Pinstripe Bowl, there was no vacation. We were right on the road recruiting and we’re looking forward to winter workouts and to spring practice. I’m just…I’ll be honest with you guys, I’m pushing the envelope here. There’s certain things that we need at BC in the football program that can really help us. Certain positions and things like that. So, look, I push the envelope. I try to tell the powers that be at BC what we need to be successful and they listen. They’re great people and we’re just chipping away at trying to be as good as we can be at BC.”

On how much NFL experience helps in recruiting

“I always try to be careful because I do not want to sound condescending at all, but, when you rise to the level of being fortunate enough to be able to coach the incredible players in the NFL, you learn a lot from those players. You coach them, no question. You worked hard to coach them, but whether it was Tom Brady or JJ Watt or Rob Gronkowski or DeAndre Hopkins, all these guys that I coached, I learned a lot from them. So, I try to impart my my wisdom, what I learned from them on our guys at Boston College with film, with stories, with different things that can help these guys get better, In the end, we have to use that. We have 86 years of NFL experience on our staff here at BC. That’s a big thing for us. We can help you get to that next level. We know what it looks like. We know what it takes and we try to sell that as part of our recruiting vision for BC.”

On what the difference between Vrabel and Mayo would be coaching the Patriots

“I only worked with Jerod for one season. It was separated. They were on defense and I was on offense. We were quite obviously having our struggles offensively, so it’d be hard for me to comment or compare those two. But, Mike Vrabel worked for me…I tried to get Mike to come with me to Penn State, he stayed at Ohio State. When I got the Texans job, he’s one of the first guys I hired. He was the linebacker coach. I would say, to give you some examples, he was instrumental in developing guys like Whitney Merciless, Jadaveon Clowney, because he connected with him. He was a very, very demanding coach, a tough coach but he knew a lot about them as people. He had an ability to connect with them and he was a no BS guy. No BS. When he stood up in front of his position group, they knew he was telling them the truth. He became the coordinator…we struggled the year he was the coordinator. We just weren’t very good. We had injuries, but again, in 2018 he got the Titans job and he took a team in the Titans to the AFC Championship game. We won four AFC South titles in Houston and we didn’t get to the AFC Championship game. We got close, but not good enough. He took them to the AFC Championship game and then whatever happened at the end happened. Mike is an excellent football coach, very smart, great people person. He’s just somebody that I really enjoy my friendship with Mike, Hopefully, the Patriots go down that road, it sounds like they’re going to according to what everybody’s saying. He’s a hell of a football coach.”

On walking the line between being friends with guys and still being the head coach

“For Jerod, he had only finished playing a few years ago. He’d been coaching for five years and he was a hell of a player. A lot of his mentality came from being a player and I think when you’re young and put in that position, it’s very, very difficult to separate yourself from what it was as a player or even as an assistant coach. I think one of the things you learn right away is you have to be up front with these guys and say ‘I care about you guys, I want you to get better, I want to see improvement in all areas of your life, but I’m the coach and you’re the player. We’re not friends. Maybe 15 years from now we can go out and have beer and talk about what it was like to play and all those different things, and to coach. But, right now, it’s my job to get the most out of you as a player. There’s going to be times where you don’t agree with what I’m telling you, but you’re going to respect what I’m telling you because I’m telling you the truth.’ There’s a line there you have to walk. But, for me, I’m 55 years old. I’ve been doing this for 32 years. It’s pretty easy for me to walk that line. Look, I’ll listen to the player to a certain extent, but at the end of the day, I’m the coach, you’re the player. You’re going to do it the way we believe in doing it and if you don’t like it, there’s the door. We walk the line, but there is a line.”