The excited enthusiasm is evident in his voice. There’s no need for FaceTime to know there’s a smiling face on the other end of the phone call.
Welcome back, Phil Jurkovec.
Jurkovec is in a much different place than a year ago, and not just because Chestnut Hill, Mass., is a long way from South Bend, Ind. Jurkovec’s college career gets a restart Saturday when Boston College plays it season opener at Duke. Although Boston College hasn’t officially named a starting quarterback, it will likely be Jurkovec, who spent the past two seasons as a backup at Notre Dame.
These days, Jurkovec is feeling like he used to when he ruled the fields as the QB at Pine-Richland High School. Jurkovec points out that Saturday’s game will be the first with true meaning for him since his senior season, when Pine-Richland won a state championship. Those aren’t Irish eyes that are smiling.
“At this point, I really feel I have it back. The excitement and energy are back,” Jurkovec said.
Jurkovec has gone from the Golden Dome to the gold and maroon of Boston College. But he was mostly blue during that final season at Notre Dame, when frustration was building and confusion was mounting. Jurkovec recently spoke about his rough times at Notre Dame and his anticipation for a new beginning at Boston College, where first-year head coach Jeff Hafley and offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti Jr. have Pittsburgh ties.
“Coach Cignetti is a yinzer, honestly,” Jurkovec said with a laugh.
There weren’t many laughs for Jurkovec last year, his second season at Notre Dame. Things got so bad, the self-doubt so strong, that Jurkovec actually thought about switching positions. This from one of the best high school quarterbacks in Western Pennsylvania history who was highly ranked nationally.
“Near the end at Notre Dame, I was really not liking football. I lost my love for it. I really did,” said Jurkovec, the Post-Gazette high school athlete of the year in 2018. “I brought up to my family about switching positions and not even playing quarterback. I wanted to make it work. I didn’t want to be one of those guys when things get hard, they transfer and run away from it.
“But talking with my family, I had to leave. And after I decided to leave, it was very hard. You understand that you’re leaving your dream school, the team you always watched growing up. But I didn’t really know what Notre Dame was like. I committed to the dream of Notre Dame and not everything else.”
Jurkovec said he doesn’t regret spending a redshirt year and his freshman season at Notre Dame. He insists he learned “about a lot of things” and he grew fond of some people. But Jurkovec believes he went backward as a quarterback under coach Brian Kelly and offensive coordinator Chip Long, who left Notre Dame after last season and is now an assistant at Tennessee. Long wasn’t at Notre Dame when the Fighting Irish recruited Jurkovec, who made a verbal commitment during his sophomore year.
“I was going to eventually play at Notre Dame. I wasn’t going to go my whole career and not play,” Jurkovec said. “But really, the main reason why I left was the frustration of not progressing. I knew coming out of high school, I needed to go somewhere and develop. I thought Notre Dame was the place. I think I developed in a lot of ways. But in quarterback play, I think I regressed in certain areas over time. It was incredibly frustrating. … At times, it got to the point where I could not even throw the ball at all. My footwork was all jacked up.
“Growing up, I was a Notre Dame and Pitt fan. Notre Dame, it was always the appeal of it for me, the Golden Dome and the dream part of it. I wanted to go experience that. But I got to see it for what it is. It’s not just what you see watching games on NBC. But I don’t regret going there.”
Last year, Jurkovec played in six games in mop-up duty for starter Ian Book and completed 12 of 16 passes for 222 yards. When Book decided to return to Notre Dame for his final season of eligibility, Jurkovec decided it was time to transfer.
“I’m glad he stayed because it gave me an opportunity to leave,” Jurkovec said.
Although Jurkovec openly discussed his feelings about his time at Notre Dame, he would much rather talk about the future, his new teammates and coaches at Boston College. In August, Jurkovec received an NCAA waiver that made him eligible to play immediately, rather than sit out a season under transfer rules. Jurkovec has three seasons of eligibility.
Jurkovec entered the NCAA transfer portal in early January and he laughs about his initial thoughts about Boston College.
“Coach Cignetti reached out to me,” Jurkovec said. “Honestly, I never watched Boston College in my life, I never rooted for them and I did not give one crap about Boston College. My first reaction was ‘no.’ Nothing about it was appealing.
“But the more I started talking to coach Cignetti, things changed. He has family in Pittsburgh. I went to Pine-Richland with some of his family. Then I talked to coach Hafley and it was just those two that made my decision.”
Hafley spent the previous two seasons as an Ohio State assistant, but he was an NFL assistant for seven years and also an assistant at Pitt for five seasons under Dave Wannstedt. Besides working on the college level, Cignetti, a Pittsburgh native who attended Indiana High School in the WPIAL, spent 11 years as an NFL assistant and was the quarterbacks coach for Aaron Rodgers at Green Bay and Eli Manning at New York.
“It was not a good situation for me at Notre Dame,” Jurkovec said. “The second time around, I didn’t go for the brand. I went for nothing other than the people. I found really good people in Hafley and Cignetti and I made this decision for a chance to play for them. … Coach Hafley is 100% real. They’re for the players here, and not just in a football sense.”
Jurkovec, who now goes 6 feet 5, 230 pounds, acknowledges that the Hafley and Cignetti ties to the NFL were enticing.
“We’ve watched a Joe Montana footwork tape. We’ll watch tape of Marc Bulger when he was with the Rams,” Jurkovec said. “Those are the types of things I never had access to before. … A lot of what we’re running is tried and true NFL concepts. It’s definitely an adjustment. We have long play calls, checks and protection adjustments. I’m reading off a wrist band. I’m under center. That’s a lot of stuff I never did before, but I like it.”
Expectations are not high for Boston College, at least from the outside. A preseason media poll had the Eagles finishing 13th in the ACC, but Jurkovec said, “I love being the underdog.”
Foremost on Jurkovec’s mind is Saturday’s game at Duke. But in the back of his mind are games against Notre Dame and Pitt.
“I know this story will be in a Pittsburgh newspaper,” Jurkovec said. “I’d like to say I love Pittsburgh and everybody knows that. There was a part of me that was hard to turn down Pitt the first time when I was in high school, and then turn down Pitt a second time (after leaving Notre Dame). But I think with a quarterback, you have to go where the situation is right. This is where it felt right for me.”
Mike White: mwhite@post-gazette.com and Twitter @mwhiteburgh
First Published: September 16, 2020, 2:27 p.m.