BC wide receiver Ryan O’Keefe burning it up in spring ball

Boston College wide receiver Ryan O’Keefe came of age in a football culture.

O’Keefe is a graduate transfer from Central Florida who torched the turf during the Eagles’ 14 spring practice sessions while learning a new system. The 5-10, 170-pound pass catcher from Austin, Texas will put his stretch-the-field speed on display in Saturday’s (11 a.m.) Jay McGillis Memorial Spring Football Game at Alumni Stadium.

“I am looking forward to the spring game and just seeing what the offense has gotten so far,” said O’Keefe, following the final spring practice on a warm and sunny Thursday morning at Alumni Stadium.

“I want to be a force in our plans and just to be able to learn a new system and watch the team operating as a group together. This will be the first time we will be going full speed together so it should be exciting.”

O’Keefe began his rise at Round Rock High School in Round Rock, Texas Round Rock is a nationally recognized scholastic program in a part of Texas where football is a religion and church services are conducted under the lights on Friday nights in the fall.

“Football in Texas is second to none,” said O’Keefe. “It was really fun and it was a great atmosphere, it was really like a college atmosphere playing high school.”

The O’Keefe clan could be viewed as the first family of Dragons’ football.

“My whole family is football oriented,” said O’Keefe. “My dad was a football guy and my little brothers and my older brother. My sister was even involved in football as an athletic trainer.

“I knew at a young age I was going to play football and when I got Round Rock, I was all in. It was a football environment.”

O’Keefe’s arrival at the Heights coincides with the departure of Zay Flowers, the most productive wide receiver in BC history. Flowers broke every significant receiving record despite a carousel of quarterbacks over the past two seasons.

Flowers, who is projected to be the second or third wide receiver selected in the upcoming NFL Draft, leaves a huge void in the Eagles’ passing game. BC head coach Jeff Hafley is counting on O’Keefe to become quarterback Emmett Morehead’s featured down field threat.

O’Keefe established himself as an all-purpose split end and special teams’ performer at UCF over the last two seasons. O’Keefe caught 84 passes his junior year and 73 as a senior while earning All-American Athletic Conference honors both seasons. In 2022, O’Keefe had 725 receiving yards, 448 kickoff return yards and 222 rushing yards on flanker reverses and jet sweeps.

“They went through the same recruiting process and they have known each other for awhile and followed each other on Twitter,” said BC’s venerable receivers’ coach Darrell Wyatt. “They had a pre-existing relationship and obviously following Zay Flowers is a tremendous thing to ask of him.

“But Ryan has got his own skill set and Zay has his skill set and I think Ryan will have a great season.”

O’Keefe say the new system installed by the Eagles’ new co-offensive coordinators, Rob Chudzinski and Steve Shimko, is more extensive and demanding than the one he thrived under at CFU. O’Keefe’s most noticeable traits are creating separation at the line, contesting 50-50 balls and accumulating yards after the catch.

“I feel that the BC system is more complex, it is more like an NFL style offense,” said O’Keefe. “The previous offense I came from was more run and gun and RPO-type options. But up here it is more of and NFL style of play and I like it.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/iMfPTWl