New coach Bill O'Boyle's offensive line a work in progress
EVANSTON-Bill O’Boyle has been coaching college football since 1987. He worked at seven schools before arriving at Northwestern in January to take the job as offensive line coach for head coach David Braun.
He’s coached a lot of offensive lines over those nearly four decades in the game. But, he said after completing his first spring practice in Evanston, he’s never had a group quite like this one.
“One thing about this group is, this will be my 38th year in coaching college ball, and these guys all buy into everything,” he said after practice last Saturday at Lanny and Sharon Martin Stadium on the lakefront. “You know, they take notes. They're two days ahead of you on the script…
“I love the work ethic, how these kids approach the game. So it's a great, great room.”
But, O’Boyle admits, it’s also a small room because of injuries, graduations and transfers. Very small.
If they were normal-sized people and not gargantuan human beings, you could pile the entire unit into a three-row SUV. There were only eight healthy offensive lineman for the 15th and final practice of spring ball for the Wildcats. That’s about half of what they’d like to have.
The couple thousand fans in attendance at practice no doubt noticed that several offensive linemen were playing different positions than they did last season. Ben Wrather, the starting center for the 2023 Wildcats, was at right tackle. Josh Thompson, the starting right tackle for much of last year, was playing at guard. Nick Herzog and Jackson Carsello, backups last season, were playing on the first unit. The only reserves they had getting reps were Deuce McGuire, who was playing tackle in instead of guard, Anthony Birsa and walkon Braeden Edwards. The only mainstay seemed to be left tackle Caleb Tiernan.
But O’Boyle advised not to read too much into all of the shuffling up front. That was done just to get through the spring intact, he said. Come fall, most of the players will be back at their old positions.
“No, it will not be permanent,” said O’Boyle. “I mean, we knew where we were at [numbers-wise], and just to get through the spring, we had to move some guys around, and they did a good job…
“I told them early, we're gonna have to substitute and guys are gonna have to play where they're not gonna be in the fall, just so we can practice and compete.”
The sparse numbers may have made for a physically demanding spring for the 300-pounders who had to take a lot more reps than they are used to, but O’Boyle said that the one big positive about the entire undertaking is that a lot of guys got to cross-train at a different position. He intends to start the best five players next fall, regardless of position.
“With our system offensively, they're all gonna have to know those spots anyhow,” he said. “Because it's the five best that are going to play. So however it fits in that room – your tackles are a little bit different – but, you know, the five best are always going to compete and play.”
Tackles are, indeed, different. And at least O’Boyle’s best and most experienced linemen is at left tackle. Tiernan, a 6-foot-7, 325-pound senior, started all 13 games at left tackle last season. He should start every game there this season, too, as long as he stays healthy.
But he’s on board with O’Boyle’s plan, while joking that he doesn’t expect to move inside to guard anytime soon.
“One thing that was also stressed is that everyone should be able to play every position,” said Tiernan. “Especially with the low numbers that we have, if someone were to go down, you have to be able to step in and play a position.”
But those low numbers, said O’Boyle, won’t last. The Wildcats have seven more big fellas who will arrive shortly, and they hope to add one or two more tackles through the portal this spring.
Jordan Knox, a guard who sat out spring practice with an injury, will be back in “about four weeks,” said O’Boyle.
They’re adding four more freshmen this summer: three-stars Idrys Cotton and Ezomo Oratokhai, two-star Dennis Rahouski and walkon Jace Borcherding.
Then there are two grad transfers who will join the roster and may step into starting roles next season: Jack Bailey from Colorado and Matt Keeler from Texas Tech.
Bailey, who followed O’Boyle from Kent State (2019-22) to Colorado (2023) and now to Northwestern, will play guard or center, the coach said. “I’m really looking forward to having him in,” he said.
Keeler is destined to play tackle because of his skill set, said O’Boyle. “He's got the length and he's an athlete, and he can run.”
The ability to run is something O’Boyle emphasizes. He doesn’t want an offensive line of plodding behemoths. He wants linemen “that can flat run off the ball.”
“My biggest thing is just the being an athlete,” he said. “I want them to be, not the slow plod, where we're chopping our feet. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but, when the ball is snapped, I want to see these guys running off the football. That takes some work and they've got to trust that.”
O’Boyle thinks that the days of offensive lines with big men “just kind of standing up and moving stuff around like a refrigerator” are largely over, especially for a school like Northwestern that usually isn’t able to get five-star aircraft carriers on the offensive line.
“So, I want guys running,” he said.
O’Boyle himself has been running non-stop since the end of the 2023 season.
“I'm a nomad, man,” he said with a chuckle. “I made three moves in less than about a month.”
O’Boyle coached last season at Colorado, where head coach Deion Sanders brought in nearly 50 transfers in his first year. O’Boyle’s offensive line struggled, and Sanders and the media openly criticized their play last season.
It’s clear that O’Boyle didn’t enjoy his time in Boulder. “I don't even want to bring the name [Colorado] up,” he said.
O’Boyle went from Colorado to San Diego State, following CU offensive coordinator Sean Lewis, who got the head job with the Aztecs and hired O’Boyle as the run-game coordinator and OL coach.
A little over a month later, O’Boyle got the job at Northwestern he was hoping for all along. Right now, he’s living in a one-bedroom AirBnB in Evanston as he tries to sell his place in San Diego.
O’Boyle hoped for the Northwestern job because he and Braun go back. Way back. O’Boyle has known Braun since he was a graduate assistant at Winona State and worked at O’Boyle’s camps, when O’Boyle was the head coach at Division II Chadron State in Nebraska.
“I've known him since he was GA,” said O’Boyle. “He was one heck of a D-line coach. I mean, he's everything you'd want in a head coach right now. He does a great job.”
O’Boyle will have to do a great job to improve the line. Last year, the unit gave up more sacks per game than all but three programs in the country (one of them was Colorado). He also has some big shoes to fill, as previous coach Kurt Anderson was a beloved figure among his players, as well as a great recruiter.
Tiernan, a four-star prospect who chose Northwestern and Anderson over Michigan and Ohio State back in 2021, said that he’s noticed quite a few differences between O’Boyle and Anderson.
Technique-wise, he says that “a lot of what we're doing is more tailored to our needs,” he said. “We're doing, like, 20 different drills throughout practice. Even if it's for a short three minutes, we're still getting that work in for whatever we're deficient in.”
And in terms of personality, Tiernan has noticed what he calls “a big shift.”
“Coach Anderson was, you know, a very high energy, upbeat guy,” he said. “Coach O’Boyle is more of…” Here his voice trails off and he takes a moment to choose his words carefully. “You know, I'm not saying he's not high energy, but he likes good work.”
What does that mean? “He likes when we hit and stuff.” A little more physical? “Yeah. A little more physical.”
That’s not surprising. O’Boyle is a hulking figure on the practice field. He’s a large man with broad shoulders, a bald head and a beard that’s more salt than pepper. He comes from OL coach central casting.
But there’s a softer side of O’Boyle, too. He was a studio art major when he played at Western Illinois. He told NUSports.com’s Lauren Withrow in a recent video that he enjoys working in Prismacolor and has “a bunch” of his works that are in progress right now.
Just like his offensive line. The hope is that, by the fall, O’Boyle will have enough material to work with to finish his latest masterpiece.