CHESTNUT HILL - Replacing Zay Flowers is impossible and fans shouldn’t expect anyone to do what he did.Having said that, the Eagles believe they may have a guy that can come close.

Transfer wide receiver Ryan O’Keefe was ironically - or maybe not so ironically - learning No. 4 during the first day of spring ball last Friday. O’Keefe left UCF and became an Eagle during the offseason. O'Keefe caught 184 passes for 2,002 yards and 15 touchdowns in four seasons at UCF. The speedy wide out also had offers from TCU, Oregon and Houston, but only visited BC. One of the biggest reasons - if not the biggest reason - why O’Keefe chose Boston College was because of Darrell Wyatt, his former position coach at UCF who now holds the same role on Jeff Hafley’s staff.

O'Keefe is 5-foot-10 and 175 pounds, caught 73 passes in 2022 for 725 yards, and 84 passes for 812 yards in 2021. O’Keefe graduated and then enrolled at BC in January with an eye on a master's degree in psychology.

The excitement in Hafley’s voice when talking about him was evident. There’s a lot of excitement about what O’Keefe should bring to the table. Hafley also talked about the recruitment process too.

“He might be the fastest player in the ACC,” Hafley said. “They (O’Keefe and Zay) are different. I think Ryan this way (signaling vertical) is as fast as I’ve seen. I still don’t know if I’ve ever seen a guy stop and start like Zay. I think you can use them in similar ways. I think there’s some things that can be different. I’ve only seen him practice one day, so I think at the end of spring and as we get to the spring game, hopefully you’ll see him move around a little bit. I think you’ll see some similarities. He’s fast. A ton of credit to Coach Wyatt.

“When he went in the portal, Coach Wyatt said ‘we’re going to get this kid,’ and I was like, really? I put his film on and this guy’s returning kicks. Now, we’ve got a guy back there who could hit a home run. Coach Wyatt was like ‘yeah, we’re going to get him,’ and I asked who’s the competition and he listed off the teams and I was like, alright, let’s go fight. We went down to his house to visit him and after I left I was like, ‘we are going to get this guy.’ Darrell had a great relationship with him. Coached him at UCF, recruited him out of high school and Ryan knows what a good coach he is and wants to be developed by him. You get one of those guys, the guy’s had like 1,000 all purpose yards and can return kicks.”

Perhaps more importantly, the quarterback who needs all the weapons he can get this year is also extremely excited about how much easier O’Keefe might make his job.

“That guy can move,” Morehead said with a grin following the first practice. “He flies. He’s going to be really, really explosive for us. I think at UCF they were using him as more of just a bubble screen, kind of quick pass guy. We’re going to stretch it out and have him run deep routes because he can take the top off. I mean, he ran 23 MPH in a game, that’s faster than Zay and some other really fast guys. He’s going to be really exciting. He’s got a lot of time to get comfortable. It’s good, I’m excited about him.”