Boston College returned to Fish Field House for the third practice of preseason camp Saturday morning. The two-hour practice featured the Eagles in shoulder pads for the first time and the sounds of pads cracking again.
The first day in shoulder pads also gave Jeff Hafley and his coaching staff the chance to see the team in a more physical setting with another level of contact added with the pads coming on. With the new staff, the process of still learning what the players strengths and weaknesses are on the field is still coming into play. “No, not yet,” said Hafley. “That's huge, just because you want to really find out what you're good at. Then you can make your game plans awesome, you can really get good at that. And that's going to take us some time. The spring would have been so important to really see what this team can handle mentally, what they can handle physically. For example, on defense, what coverages we're really good at, what pressures we're really good at, because then as you get closer to the season, you start to really know you shrink your package. It's going to be so important in this camp we figure that out. And week one might look way different from week eight.”