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BREAKING: Boston College Football Expected To Hire Ohio State Co-DC Jeff Hafley As Head Coach, Per Reports

The Eagles may have locked up their top choice

COLLEGE FOOTBALL: AUG 27 Ohio State Press Conference Photo by Adam Lacy/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

The anticipation has been excruciating, but this time around it looks like the high hopes many of us have had in the hiring process for the next BC Football head coach have been fulfilled. Credible reports are finally surfacing on Twitter that AD Martin Jarmond is expected to hire Ohio State co-defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley as the next head coach of the Boston College Football program.

The hire is expected to be officially announced at College GameDay on Saturday morning, and BC will likely introduce Hafley to the BC community at Monday’s “Pep Rally.”

Jeff Hafley is a rising star in the world of college football coaching, and if you believe what you read on social media, he was reportedly BC’s top target from the beginning. He certainly ticks just about every box for what you want to see as a head coach. He’s been around the block in college, serving as an assistant in his earlier years with time spent at Albany, Pitt, and Rutgers (and WPI of all places, where he got his first coaching gig for a stipend of $2,500). He’s also spent a lot of time in the NFL as Secondary Coach with the Buccaneers, Browns, and 49ers serving under Greg Schiano, Mike Pettine, Chip Kelly, and Kyle Shanahan from 2012 through 2018.

His experience in both college and the NFL propelled him to the role of Co-Defensive Coordinator at one of the top college football programs in the country at Ohio State, thanks in no small part to former BC coach Ryan Day who made the call to Hafley and pulled him out of the NFL.

If you want to get excited about the future of BC football under Jeff Hafley, look no further than this video where Hafley speaks as a finalist for the Broyles Award, given annually to the top assistant coach in college football:

Hafley brings a more polished type of emotion and heart than we saw out of Steve Addazio the last few years at BC. It’s good to see that BC didn’t go in the opposite direction with this hire after moving on from Addazio. This is the kind of coach you’d want to play for.

So aside from his college experience, his NFL experience, his palpable but tempered emotion, and his experience as a rising star coordinator at a powerhouse program, what else does Hafley bring to the table? Perhaps his most important quality is that he’s already established himself as one of the top recruiters in the country — 247Sports.com identified him as the 3rd best recruiter of the 2020 class in their rankings.

It’s hard not to get excited for the future of BC football. Hafley gets to come in with a strong returning roster to build on in the coming years, and the Eagles get the man who was reportedly their top choice for the position from the beginning — as well as who the fans were hoping to see get the gig.

Assuming this gets finalized in the morning, there’s certainly no feeling of let-down this time around. Welcome to the Heights, Coach Hafley!