BC linebackers coach Paul Rhoads brings expertise to Eagles front seven

Outside linebackers’ instructor at a Power 5 program sounds like a strategic introductory position to launch a college coaching career.

That is certainly not the case for Boston College first-year OLB coach Paul Rhoads.

Rhoads brings over three decades of experience as a head coach, defensive coordinator and position coach at the Power-5 level to the BC program. Rhoads has done previous stints in the Big East, the Pac 12, the Big 12, the Big Ten and the SEC.

Rhoads served as head coach at Iowa State for seven seasons, defensive coordinator at Auburn, Pittsburgh and Arizona and defensive backs coach at UCLA and Arkansas. Rhoads’ last job was defensive analyst for head coach Ryan Day at Ohio State.

Following a team scrimmage at Alumni Stadium, Rhoads held court for the first-time during BC media day on Sunday afternoon inside the Fish Field House. The first topic on the agenda was what brought him to the Heights.

“This one just happened to be the right time and place,” said Rhoads. “I wanted to get back to this level just one more time on the field as a full-time coach.

“You never know if you are going to get to finish on your own terms and having your own choice. But just to get back to it and have that opportunity. I just think this is an opportunity to be a mentor. There was no way I could turn it down. It was a no-brainer for me.”

BC head coach Jeff Hafley reshuffled his staff after going 3-9 last season, dismissing some coaches and coordinators while elevating a few incumbents to positions of greater authority.

Defensive backs coach Aazaar Abdul-Rahim and linebackers coach Sean Duggan were elevated to co-defensive coordinators while retaining their positional responsibilities.

Adding Rhoads to the mix helped ease the upward migration for Duggan and Abdul-Rahim in training camp as the Eagles prepare to open the season against Northern Illinois on Sept. 2 at Alumni Stadium. The makeover was necessitated when defensive coordinator Tem Lukabu decamped Chestnut Hill to become the linebackers coach with the Carolina Panthers.

“He (Rhoads) is unbelievable,” said Duggan, who played inside and outside linebacker at BC for four seasons and was team captain in 2014.

“Obviously his experience as a head coach and defensive coordinator at multiple places and just him as a person. He has been an amazing addition.”

Hafley hadn’t fully made up his mind to enter the coaching ranks when he first met Rhoads. They eventually worked together for two seasons at Pittsburgh when Rhoads was the Panthers’ defensive coordinator. But the relationship was established long before their shared time on Dave Wannstedt’s staff at Pitt.

“My story with Paul began when I was probably 21 or 22 years old and I saw him speak at a clinic,” recalled Hafley. “I thought “man, I want to be him when I grow up.”

“Then I saw him two weeks later at another clinic and I sat in the front row and two weeks later I saw him at another clinic. He finally looked at me and said ‘are you stalking me?’

“I started getting up there and helping him and I started working with him at a camp. Every year he invited me back to work the camp and then he hired me to be a GA (at Pitt).

“When he went to Auburn to be defensive coordinator (in 2008), I got hired to be the (Pittsburgh) defensive backs coach at 27 years old. So, when Tem left, Paul was the guy and the timing was perfect. He is a friend, a mentor and now he is my next-door neighbor.”

The two stayed in touch after Hafley went his own way, a journey that would include quality NFL time in the secondary with Tampa Bay, Cleveland, and San Francisco. He returned to the college ranks in 2019 working for Day as co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach with the Buckeyes.

Hafley secured his first head coaching position when then BC athletic director Martin Jarmond brought him aboard for the pandemic-shortened and problematic 2020 season. Jarmond and Hafley enjoyed a previous relationship at Ohio State.

“He (Hafley) just always had the relationships necessary to be a head coach and the intelligence necessary to be a head coach and the recruiting ability,” said Rhoads. “And, he showed all of that at a young and inexperienced age.

“He had all the recognizable traits early that he would somebody be a head football coach. We had so much fun working together and we wanted to do it again ever since then.”