Boston College Football Coaching Updates

With spring practices kicking off today, the Eagles are officially announcing the coaching vacancies on both sides of the ball. Hafley will be addressing media today after practice for further clarity.

As has been rumored, Steve Shimko will be taking over as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Darrell Wyatt, current wide receivers coach, will also work as the pass game coordinator. Rob Chudzinski, who has been assisting Hafley from the shadows for a few years now, will emerge as an associate head coach for offense, as well as offensive development (titles, titles).

After spending his first two season on the Heights as tight ends coach, Shimko returned to coaching quarterbacks last season. He was an assistant quarterbacks coach with the Seahawks and played the position at Rutgers, where he first crossed paths with Hafley. Chudzinski has been offensive coordinator for three NFL teams and the University of Miami, his longest stint being from 2015-17 with the Colts.

On defense, Paul Rhoads will enter the fray as an outside linebackers coach. Rhoads was the defensive coordinator for a high school in Alabama this past season, but was more notably a seven year head coach of Iowa State. Rhoads brings plenty of experience, recently serving as a defensive analyst at Ohio State, defensive coordinator/interim head coach at Arizona, and prior to that DC at Arkansas, Auburn, and Pitt — where he initially linked with Hafley.

With Tem Lukabu moving on to the Carolina Panthers, Sean Duggan and Aazaar Abdul-Rahim will serve as co-defensive coordinators. Duggan has been the Eagles linebackers coach, while Abdul-Rahim has been coaching defensive backs. Both will retain those titles in addition to their co-coordinator roles. Special teams coordinator Matt Thurin will add on safeties to his responsibilities as well.

Glad to see we have that all squared away finally. Not too many fresh faces as expected, but beggars can’t be choosers with the start of spring practices upon us. Hopefully then this enduring coaching staff, fortunate to have plenty of familiarity with the players, can still get the most out of them and instill some fresh ideas.

My two cents is a bit all over the place. On the one hand, defensively I’m fine with what Hafley had to say. He believes in the progress and happy to maintain consistency on the staff — rather than bring in someone new and have them adapt to the existing scheme or vice versa. Hafley himself will be taking on more of a role here as well. Offensively, though things clearly did not click. It’s good that Chud has been in the building and now properly enters the mix, but how much will he really change? There’s general consistency with players plus a few new additions, but the standard wasn’t even average last year. However, most were very young, and now all of a sudden there’s a level of experience. We’ll continue to proceed with caution.

In the brightest of news, please stay tuned for updates on Zay Flowers and his NFL Combine performance tomorrow!