Boston College football building scary roster with Jaelen Gill addition

After adding Phil Jurkovec earlier in the offseason, Boston College football added yet another huge piece to the roster in Jaelen Gill.

When thinking of ACC contenders, Boston College doesn’t exactly pop into the mind.

That could soon change.

Not many coaches have risen the ranks quicker than Jeff Hafley, going from Albany to Pitt to Rutgers all on assistant coaching jobs and then to the NFL as an assistant back to Ohio State as a co-defensive coordinator for a year before getting hired by Boston College to be the next head coach. He has zero head coaching experience, but you wouldn’t know that based on the kids he’s been bringing in.

After taking over with the No. 64 recruiting class in the nation for 2020, Hafley has already improved on that, landing 10 kids in the 2021 class as of May 21 for the 35th-best class in the nation, according to 247Sports.

Recruiting has been better and Hafley is even drawing interest from top-tier transfers. Earlier this offseason, he landed Notre Dame transfer and former top-100 quarterback recruit Phil Jurkovec.

On Tuesday, he picked up another big-time transfer in Ohio State receiver Jaelen Gill, a former top-30 recruit who was brought in as a running back out of high school.

The move made sense because Gill already had a relationship with Hafley at Ohio State but it’s huge for the Boston College program as a whole. A future roster with Gill catching passes or taking handoffs from Jurkovec will be dangerous.

No more Boston College football mediocrity

When Jurkovec made the decision to transfer to Boston College, it seemed as if the roster was slowly improving and the program found its future quarterback. When he would actually be eligible would depend on a waiver.

And then Gill was just the cherry on top.

With Hafley recruiting at a higher level and potentially bringing in consistent top-30 and top-40 classes, we can expect to see Boston College back to competing in the ACC. The Eagles haven’t won a conference title since 2004 when they were members of the Big East and the last ACC Atlantic title was in 2008. It’s been too long.

While Jurkovec and Gill may both sit out this season, the 2021 campaign for Hafley and Co. will be the most telling about the future of the program. From the looks of it, Boston College is no longer an ACC pushover.