Boston College 41, Georgia Tech 30: Jeff Hafley postgame press conference

Following Saturday’s 41-30 win for Boston College over Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Eagles head coach Jeff Hafley addressed the media. The video is embedded below, followed by selected quotes discussing the game:

Opening statement:

“I told the locker room how proud I was of them — this season, when things haven’t gone well and we went down, we weren’t able to come back like we were today, and that’s a big step for our team...

We went up quick, we gave up a kickoff, and then we went down 21-7, and our guys never flinched... I’m proud of that probably more than anything.

There’s things we have to clean up, and we need to play better and coach better, and we will. But all that being said, very proud of the guys.”

On explosive plays:

“It’s what we’ve been missing... Phil hit some explosive passes and explosive runs, we had some big time catches in the game... we threw the ball for 310 yards with a bunch of long ones - that’s hard to stop. I’m really happy about that.”

On the ability to come back:

“21-7, that’s kind of been a theme for us is that when we go down this year we haven’t been able to come back. The defense early on gave up those two big drives then kind of settled in - I was proud of them for that, that’s an explosive running back [for Georgia Tech]...”

On the defensive playcalling:

“I thought it was great, I thought we adjusted really well... [Lukabu] was aggressive at the right time. They made us think a little bit, they did some different stuff... then we lost Shitta, then we lost Josh DeBerry... losing [all of those guys], you have CJ Burton playing nickel which he’s never played before, so we’re coaching him on the sideline... I thought the staff did a really good job of coaching through the game, and I thought Tem called a really good game...

We didn’t want to see the QB running around, or give him time - we’ve seen enough of that. We wanted to keep him in the pocket... we wanted to be aggressive, we were very aggressive... and the players executed.”

On the GT kickoff return & Jahmyr Gibbs:

“Our strategy was not to kick it to him for the entire game. I’m not sure what happened on the opening kickoff. Our kicker just miskicked it and we kicked it to him. I think he’s the most explosive guy we’ve played all year.... the plan was not to kick it to him, and those were not onside kicks either, we were just trying to squib the ball and we mishit.”

On Jurk’s running game:

“He’s running with more confidence. Holy cow, what he did today... I’m glad he’s back.”

On bowl eligibility:

“They deserve it. I’m being totally honest with you, I have not brought up bowl eligibility one time this season. There was enough motivation to win it, that it didn’t need to be about it. But now that it’s there, what it means to me is more practice time with this team... I think bowls are awesome, and this year we’re going. Now the goal is to get to a better one. We have that in our control and we need to keep getting better.”