Boston College football will be looking for its new head coach now that Jeff Hafley is heading off to become the Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator.
The move came a bit out of left field, more so probably for Boston College than anyone else. The four-year head coach had brought in a mild bit of success during his tenure in a place that has had little over the past 20 years or so. The 44-year-old was just coming off his best season in Chestnut Hill, boasting a 7-6 record and the Eagles' first bowl win since 2016, not to mention their first bowl game since 2019.
It's likely that Hafley was using Boston College as a stepping stone job with the hopes of earning a better job sometime in the near future. The assumption was that the next job would be at the college level and not in the NFL. However, Hafley has had his successes at the pro-level, where he was mainly a defensive backs coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Cleveland Browns, and San Francisco 49ers.
Moving on to the NFL now for Hafley means that there is yet another opening in the college football ranks. No offense to Hafley or Boston College, but his departure is a much lesser blow than some of the others that occurred recently. However, there still could be massive ripple effects from Hafley's actions that cause a new trend in college football coaching. That is if it hasn't already started.
Jeff Hafley's leaving Boston College could be only the beginning of new trend between College Football and the NFL
If you're a college football fan, you're probably seeing the massive amount of changes happening within the sport just over the last couple of years. But as fans (I, myself, being one of them), we're only seeing this on the surface level — there's much happening below that's probably not even being discussed at a public level.
We've seen how far the sport has been formed, re-formed, and perhaps misshapen by things like name, image, and likeness (NIL) and the transfer portal. We've seen the lack of structure due to no single governing body. We've likewise seen the damage from the one so-called body (NCAA) that wants to govern the sport, yet continues to be completely incompetent in their actions and approach.
We've also seen just how this sport is a 24/7, 365-day, year-around job, where most likely family, friends, and faith can unfortunately take a backseat to everything that doesn't involve the job of head coaching your team, which in and of itself has been completely redefined — and not in a positive way.
“He wants to go coach football again in a league that is all about football,” a source told ESPN's Pete Thamel concerning Hafley's decision to leave Boston College for Green Bay. “College coaching has become fundraising, NIL, and recruiting your own team and transfers. There's no time to coach football anymore.
“A lot of things that he went back to college for have disappeared.”
College coaches are now being stripped of what they got into the profession for in the first place, as plainly stated in their job title: coaching. Their jobs are now becoming less about X's and O's or even the Jimmys and Joes and are instead losing ground to off-field responsibilities, prompting seasoned professionals, like Hafley, to seek refuge in a league where the focus remains on the players and the game itself, or at least in a more structured atmosphere.
Just this year, some of the sport's biggest names have left in some capacity. Jim Harbaugh decided to leave Michigan for the NFL, Nick Saban retired, and now Hafley is heading to the Packers to become their defensive coordinator. Granted, you could say they each had their reasons. Harbaugh wanted a Lombardi Trophy that he came short of years ago (and avoid future suspensions), Saban was at retirement age, and Hafley wanted to coach at the NFL level. But their decisions were likely also heavily impacted by the current landscape in college football, which is a bumpy, treacherous terrain of uncertainty.
“CFB in its current state will be seeing more and more coaches heading to the NFL,” ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit wrote on X. “Without boundaries and regulation that make sense coaches that get real opportunities in the NFL will be gone.
“This trend will continue until there is a new governing body and it creates a CBA with a player's entity or union that would include issues like NIL-Transfer Portal-and eventually revenue sharing. The sport is spiraling out of control as we know and many these coaches are not sticking around and waiting. Just a new reality for the sport.”
The reality of the sport is that there are now only three remaining head coaches with a national championship to their name that are still apart of it. They are Georgia's Kirby Smart, Clemson's Dabo Swinney, and North Carolina's Mack Brown, who won his last and only national title with Texas back in 2005.
It's unlikely that Hafley would have ever competed for a national title at Boston College, where they only have one claimed in their history that dates back to 1940. But still, you have to consider the implications of his actions and how other head coaches (or even assistants) like him see the writing on the wall and are taking off at the first opportunity they get to leave college football behind them while it attempts to figure itself out.
Follow Us
Subscribe