Bill O'Brien addresses NIL plans at Boston College

Bill O’Brien understands that NIL is an important part of building a program in today’s age of college football. So as he prepares to take over as the head coach at Boston College, he isn’t taking it lightly.

O’Brien understands that the Eagles might not have the same resources as traditional powers like Alabama and, in their own conference, Florida State. But that doesn’t mean they still can’t compete in that space.

“We have to be a part of the NIL landscape,” O’Brien told ESPN’s Pete Thamel. “Are we gonna be the biggest part of it? No. That’s not what we are. But I do think we have a ton of successful people that care about this football program that either played here or maybe they didn’t play here, but they went to school here and they are about seeing a winning football program. We have to do a good job of structuring it the right way. We’re in the process of doing that right now.”

Boston College has an NIL collective called Friends of the Heights, of which former Eagles quarterback Scott Mutryn is one of the directors. It sounds like O’Brien would like to reach out to other former players and alumni about potentially getting involved.

The location of campus is also a unique selling point, as it gives players the opportunity to live in one of the bigger cities in America. Additionally, O’Brien has connections with the New England Patriots and coach Bill Belichick that he could use to create more NIL opportunities.

His plan is not yet finalized, but he knows he’ll need to find a way to adapt in this new age of college football.

“There has to be a structure to it, a tiered system to it,” O’Brien said. “You’ve gotta be careful about how you set it up relative to who gets what. These kids have a right to be paid based on their name, image and likeness and I think it’s important for the people that donate that they understand how we’re doing it. So that’s gonna be a task for us that we’ve attacked right away.

“We’re not ready to kind of lay it out yet, but we will be soon and we’ll be a part of that. But that’s really not gonna be the be all and end all. We’ll have to be in that world, but at the end of the day this place is about good football, great academics, being a part of the community and I think we can win doing it that way.”