Boston College’s 2026 season opener has finally arrived, and Mason McKenzie sounds like a quarterback who’s done waiting around for it.
The Eagles’ starter said the long stretch from January to Week 1 has been a grind, but also a useful one. McKenzie arrived through the portal and spent six months getting himself ready for this moment, and now he says the buildup has him feeling the kind of excitement football players chase all year.
“Yeah, it’s exciting,” said McKenzie. “It feels like just yesterday when I came in.
It was January. I was in the portal, and now it's come fast and it's exciting.
It was a long six months of getting ready, getting prepared, but I think we're ready to go.”
That preparation has stood out to Boston College’s coaching staff. Bill O’Brien said McKenzie has been locked in from the start and credited his background at Saginaw [Valley] State for helping him settle in quickly.
“I mean, they obviously, at Saginaw [Valley] State, taught how to prepare, because he’s been preparing from the minute he walked in here,” head coach Bill O’Brien said. “I think that the one thing about Mason and all these guys, Grayson [Wilson] and Femi [Babalola], [is that] they’ve really embraced what we’re trying to teach, and they’ve come into each meeting prepared and ready to go. That’s what’s been fun to coach.”
McKenzie says the job at quarterback demands a short memory, and he’s leaning into the mindset O’Brien wants from the whole team. Whether the first big moment of his BC career is a touchdown or a turnover, he plans to keep firing.
“No matter what the position is, everybody’s gonna have a bad play in a game, and you got to move on from that,” McKenzie said. “And especially at the quarterback position, because there’s a lot riding on your decisions and whatnot.
So, I mean, [you] make a bad decision, you throw a pick, just go out there and keep slinging. You have to have a gunslinger mentality as well.
It’s what I’ve kind of looked at my whole life, is just if you make a bad throw, it’s [onto] the next one.”
That approach is going to be tested. Cincinnati head coach Scott Satterfield made clear Tuesday that McKenzie’s dual-threat ability caught his attention, saying his staff had even considered him in the offseason.
“Yeah, he was actually a guy that we looked at in the offseason about potentially trying to bring in as well. I think he's a very talented player. Dual-threat, can really run.”
McKenzie will also be carrying the pressure that comes with being the quarterback fans are hoping to believe in. But he doesn’t sound like someone burdened by the moment. If anything, he sounds eager for it.
“I’ve got a lot of confidence,” McKenzie said. “I’ve got a lot of confidence in our team.
I think that we’ve done a great job preparing throughout the spring, all summer. We put in a lot of work, so I think we have a lot of confidence in what we can do.”
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