How close are we to Hafley Armageddon?
On Tuesday, two Boston College football recruits decommitted from the program: TE Jaxton Santiago and ATH Christian Zamor. Both players are three-star prospects and Zamor is a Massachusetts native. With those decommitments, the Boston College football 2024 recruiting class is down to just 8 total players and has fallen all the way down to 106th in the country, per the 247 composite rankings. That’s last (17th) in the ACC, behind new additions SMU, Stanford, and Cal, too.
It’s clear that BC’s recent shortcomings, including a 3-9 season in 2022 and an underwhelming 6-6 season in 2023, are having an effect on the recruiting trail. One of Hafley’s strengths up to this point has been his ability to recruit and get better classes than what the Eagles have seen in over a decade. He especially was able to get some impressive WR recruits to commit after what Zay Flowers was able to do for the program in recent years. But that success is starting to collapse now that the results on the field are worsening. And with a few current BC players already announcing their entry into the transfer portal, with likely more to come, the BC roster looks like it could be in very rough shape in 2024 under Hafley. He’ll have to go into the transfer portal with aggression to replace some of these losses.
When the Boston College administration has to come to a decision about keeping or firing Hafley, recruiting and continuity were going to be one of his biggest advantages in keeping his job. But it’s starting to look like a change at head coach might actually benefit recruiting, not hurt it.