All was right with the world for a few hours on Friday morning.

Boston College officially opened up with their first practice and then Coach Hafley and a few players met with the media in person for the first time since March 10, 2020. No worrying about whether or not there would be a season, no questions about daily testing, just football. There was a true first-day-of-school vibe around Fish Field House and it was awesome to see and feel.

“I’m excited. We’re excited,” Hafley said. “Excited I’m not wearing a mask, excited to see you guys in person…just excited to be around the guys. I feel like I know them a lot better, obviously know the staff a lot better. There’s a lot of excitement, a lot of confidence, just excited to go to work. I couldn’t wait for today, I couldn’t sleep last night, I was up early, guys were up early, it’s just really cool that we’re out here with an opportunity to practice and have a real training camp.”

The BC team became a tight-knit family last season in a very short amount of time. That kind of camaraderie doesn’t just happen over night and now with a full offseason and a real training camp, the Eagles are already ahead of where they were a year ago at this time.

“It’s huge, this is going to be a full training camp, we don’t have to worry about the things we did last year,” said Phil Jurkovec. “Coach can spend his time on football stuff instead of a lot of the outside things. We’re all excited that this is an actual full camp and we’ll be getting a lot of work in this next month.”

One main reason that BC has been able to hit the ground running during the offseason is due to the fact that its dominate offensive line is back for one more run. Leading that group is Alec Lindstrom and it was easy to see just how excited he was for things to get rolling.

“It’s awesome,” Lindstrom said. “Covid was hard and even though we were with the guys in practice we couldn’t hang out as much or do stuff. Even during the school year, now that Covid’s over, after practice or after a game now we can all go to the Grout House and hang out, sit down and just kind of be guys, you know? It’s awesome. It’s my five best friends that I get to hang out with and now without Covid it’s a little more freeing, we can be with each other…it’s so awesome.”

On the field, that chemistry should do wonders for a line that has some extremely lofty expectations for themselves this season.

“We’ve all played three years,” Lindstrom added. “The experience we have and that football knowledge from playing, it just gives us such an advantage coming back. We have that chemistry and we’re back in position, we’re not moving around, it’s going to be exciting to watch us. We pride ourselves on being the best unit in the country this year and we hold a high standard.”

Defensive back Brandon Sebastian also spoke on Friday and he too believes the BC brotherhood is stronger than its ever been now that they have had a full offseason to work.

“I think it’s a lot easier,” Sebastian said regarding building that team camaraderie. “The Covid situation definitely made us closer too, but to have that normalcy back being around the guys, just going into each other’s rooms and stuff during camp and getting to know each other more, getting to know the new guys and help them with the playbook and stuff, I feel like that team camaraderie is definitely coming together.”

Coach Hafley even had time to enjoy Boston for the first time over the last few months too.

“We did one of those duck boat tours with the kids,” Hafley said. “Got to learn a little bit about the city, it was actually pretty cool if you’ve never been on one – and I’m not getting any NIL deals for myself from anyone – my wife and I walked around, went to dinner, took the kids to lunch, we went on like a swan boat down there, went on the carousel.

“So, yeah, did some things in Boston, I’ve got to get to some pro games I didn’t get a chance to do that. What a great city. I’ll check it out more and more, probably not for the next six months though.”

Rich Thompson of the Herald then told Hafley if you win a national championship he may get a parade.

“Don’t get too far ahead of yourself,” Hafley said with a grin.

If this season goes as well as Eagle alumni and fans believe it will, it may be realistic sooner rather than later.