Bill O'Brien adamantly defends program as UConn prep begins

If you think Bill O’Brien doesn’t care about how things look right now, you’re mistaken.

Following Tuesday’s practice, O’Brien vehemently defended his players and the program as a whole while answering questions from six reporters.

Here’s everything that stood out:

O’Brien on if there could be a change at QB this weekend

“We’re just going to keep going the way we’re going, keep fighting. We know what’s going on here in this program. That’s what we’re going to do. Keep going.”

O’Brien on fans assuming BC should win ‘just because they’re playing UConn’

“I’d say that’s ridiculous. I’d say that’s ridiculous. I would say every game we play is a competitive battle. I said, the last two weeks haven’t been that competitive on the scoreboard. Right,? But, we’re – I think – two or three catastrophic mistakes…we get strip sacked going in to potentially go down 24-17, that becomes 34 or 31-10. The Pitt game, we’re going in there to go to 10-7, we fumble a long reception and we fumble and now it’s 17-0 the other way.

“We have to do a better a better job of taking care of the ball and when we play defense, we’ve got to play defense wherever the ball is. I think our guys are getting better at that. They’re playing hard. But…the UConn game, in my opinion, they should be favored. They have a better record than us. So, like, they should be favored and we’ve got to show up and play.”

O’Brien on where inspiration comes from at 1-5

“Are you kidding me? We show up every single day. I’m inspired by the players. Every day, they’re ready to meet at 8 a.m. They’re in the building at 5:30-6:00 a.m. If they’re injured, they’re getting treatment. If they’re not they’re in a meeting or they’re getting breakfast. Then, they’re ready to go in the team meeting. Are you kidding me? I’m inspired by them. I’m inspired by the people in the program that work extremely hard to develop a program, which takes a while. It takes a while to develop a program. It takes a long time…they’re inspired. Yeah, they’re inspired.

“I watched the game last week against Clemson, Clemson won the game, they did a great job. But, I think if you called Coach Swinney and you asked Coach Swinney or you ask Coach Rumph, they’ll tell ya Boston College played hard for 60 minutes with great effort, relentless attitude. Scoreboard was what it was. We get it. We understand we’re not where we want to be. But, I’m telling you right now, I’m inspired by the guys I coach. I love coaching this team.”

O’Brien on the students showing up big for Clemson last Saturday

“I feel terrible about that, that they show up and it’s a bad game. Right? It’s not a good game. I appreciate the students, I really do. I really hope that they stick with us because they give us a great home field advantage. But, I do. I feel bad about that. I’m not going to sit here and apologize because we worked very hard, but we just didn’t show up and play the play we wanted to play and the game got away from us.

“But, we do give great effort and we are fighting to get better. I hope our students stick with us because we really appreciate that crowd.”

O’Brien on recruiting

“I think recruiting’s going real well. Guys realize they have an opportunity. Yeah, the record’s not great, the last two games haven’t been great. But, they realize this is a special place, this is a great school, you can get a great education. I think in the class of ’26, I want to say we have upwards of 26 commitments. In the class of ’27 we have, i don’t know…four or five at this point, which is pretty good at this point. I feel good about where we’re at. I can’t talk about specific guys, because I guess that’d be a rule violation. Which, think about that. Think about the different rule violations.”

O’Brien on getting immediate impact players in recruiting

“I think that’s one of the things we talk about. Relative to graduation or obviously injuries. You’re going to have a shot to play here. This ’25 class, we feel very, very good about. They’re getting a lot of playing time. Whether it’s Robert Smith on offense. You look over on defense, there’s a lot of guys. Omarion Davis, Marcus Upton, Ashton Cunningham, TJ Green, Micah Amedee. There’s a lot of really good football players, but they’re young, so you’re going to go through the lumps a little bit of playing those guys, but they’re very good football players. We’re excited about them.

“That’s part of what we say to the ’26 class because a lot of guys will be leaving, so how do you replenish that? It takes a long time to develop a program. I don’t know if you guys know that, but it takes a long time. It doesn’t happen in two years. You know? The sky is falling to everyone outside of this program, but not to anyone inside the program.

“I’m talking about people in the team meeting room. The sky is not falling. We’ve got great kids that care about Boston College that play their asses off. We’ve got coaches working day in and day out to get it right. Outside of the program? Sky is falling. Inside that team meeting room, nobody believes that. We’re going to go out and play our asses off on Saturday against a very good UConn team, very well-coached. That’s what we believe.”