THE WORST DECISION Dylan Lonergan made in high school was throwing a pass across his body while Travis Hunter lurked in the secondary.
Lonergan rarely made mistakes as a quarterback for Brookwood High School in Snellville, Ga. He proved that with a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 32 to three his junior year.
But making a bad decision with an eventual Heisman Trophy winner on the other side of the field was bound to have calamitous consequences.
The other two interceptions Lonergan threw in 2022 resulted from a ball which hit off of his receiver’s helmet, and a tipped ball which gave the defense time to make a play.
“It’s just because of his brain,” P.J. Katz, Lonergan’s high school offensive coordinator, said. “Like the kid is just highly, highly intelligent, you know. He takes care of the football. And what taking care of the football means is just not making egregious mistakes.”
Oftentimes, physical attributes and statistics are the determining factors of a high school football recruits’ “worthiness” at the next level. The same is true for college football players looking to play in the National Football League, which is why the NFL has a combine to test out a range of physical qualities, including size, speed, strength, and even more specialized factors like hand width and arm length.
Acumen is not as glaring as the physical attributes, however.
Intelligence is not taught in the weight room or on the practice field. Some players possess it more naturally than others, according to Katz, and Lonergan’s acumen was more advanced than any player Katz has ever coached.
“I mean, it was something he was born with,” Katz said. “It made me better as a coach, and it made me have to find things to make all of us rise up to where his mind was at. … Mentally, he’s so much farther ahead than you.”
In an excerpt from the book The Price: What It Takes to Win in College Football’s Era of Chaos, which Katz shared with Boston College Eagles On SI, the authors, Armen Keteyian and John Talty, describe the quarterback dilemma which Nick Saban was challenged with in his final year of coaching the program.
“For the first time since 2015, Alabama had a wide-open quarterback competition,” says the book. “Jalen Milroe had the most experience after starting against Arkansas the previous year when [Bryce] Young was injured, while Ty Simpson, a former five-star recruit, had the best pedigree.”
Neither quarterback had won the job in spring ball, which resulted in Saban recruiting Tyler Buchner in the transfer portal from Notre Dame. Buchner was familiar with Tommy Rees, the Crimson Tide’s new offensive coordinator at the time, who coached Buchner as a quarterbacks coach in South Bend, Ind.
But Saban felt there was a fourth option which he could rely on if it came down to that. His rule of thumb, though, was starting the veteran until someone younger clearly beat them out.
“Saban told those close to him that the quarterback he liked best was actually true freshman Dylan Lonergan, who had impressed during fall camp,” says the book. “But he was resigned to going with a more experienced veteran option.”
Katz has a feeling that Saban identified the unteachable trait in Lonergan which helped Brookwood win a regional title in 2022.
Lonergan’s career in Tuscaloosa, Ala., never panned out, but had Saban remained at the school, there is a high chance that Boston College football’s potential starting quarterback in 2025 would have stuck around in the crimson and white threads instead of the maroon and gold.
LONERGAN LIKES TO keep his life simple, according to Katz. He isn’t too big on social media, and he comes from a traditional football upbringing due to his dad playing at Penn State in the 80s.
Dan Lonergan, who Katz said is a man of very few words, was the backup to Todd Blackledge on the Nittany Lions’ 1982 national title team.
“When he signed with ‘Bama, some people were like, ‘Well, who is he?’” Katz said. “He’s just not big in social media. He doesn’t care about that stuff. He doesn’t care about being a self promoter type guy. He just wants to work and let his play speak for itself.”
Lonergan has been that way ever since he arrived at Brookwood as a ninth grader, when Katz saw something in him that he hadn’t identified in a quarterback of his before.
Lonergan started the second half of his freshman season before becoming the full-time starter for the remaining three years he had left, barring some injuries he sustained along the way—including a torn tendon in his toe which he played through his senior year against Brookwood’s rival, Parkview.
He ended up accumulating 250 rushing yards and 220 passing that game after telling the school’s trainers to tape it up and let him go back onto the field.
“The next morning, he sends me a picture,” Katz said. “His toe is absolutely massive, and he’s done for the year now. And I’m like, ‘You played with that the whole time?’ I know people talk about kids being, you know, ‘I want to be a dog’ and all that. Well that’s what he is.”
ON JUNE 11, 2022, Lonergan officially committed to Alabama’s football program after driving more than 2,000 miles to universities which sent full-scholarship offers to the former four-star recruit, per 247Sports, who was the No. 4 quarterback in the class of 2023 during the time that he took the majority of his visits.
According to an article posted by The Athletic, Covid-19 sped up the timeline for Lonergan’s recruiting cycle, which forced him and his dad into a period of long, arduous car rides to visit multiple schools in the span of a few days—schools that were sometimes nowhere near one another.
With baseball tournaments going on at the same time—Lonergan originally thought about playing for the baseball and football program at Alabama with a 90 mile-per-hour fastball in his repertoire as a side piece to football—June of 2021 involved meeting more college football coaches and players than Lonergan could ever remember the names of.
The list of schools with interest in Lonergan spanned from LSU, Clemson, Tennessee, and Alabama to Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State, and over a dozen more.
“But when it came down to it, it’s like if Nick Saban wants you, I don’t know how you say no to that,” Katz said. “He’s a Nick Saban type of kid. … He’s not big into the fluff. He just wants to show up and grind and get better. And at that time, where else would you go to do that?”
Another piece of the puzzle which drew Lonergan to Tuscaloosa was Bill O’Brien, the former offensive coordinator for the Crimson Tide when Young, the Carolina Panthers’ starting quarterback, played there.
Lonergan wasn’t planning on backing down to any player in the Crimson Tide’s quarterback ranks when he arrived on campus as a true freshman in 2023.
Milroe eventually became Alabama’s quarterback that year after starting the first two games of the season before sitting out of the Crimson Tide’s win over USF in Week Three. Saban finally came to a firm decision on Sept. 18 to roll with Milroe for the rest of the season after claiming he had “earned the opportunity to be the quarterback.”
But at that point, Lonergan was not cited as an option who was in contention for the job despite reports that Saban favored him in the early stages, resigning Lonergan to taking a redshirt year and mulling over his next steps.
“Dylan pushed every single day to play,” Katz said. “Internally, there’s a lot of things that were coming back to me from those guys of how close he was to being ready, but was the team ready for him, you know? And then, of course, the rest is history with Jalen. … Dylan never really got a chance to show what he could do.”
ABOVE ALL ELSE, Lonergan’s loyalty is what stands out the most to Katz.
“I was a part of every decision that’s been made,” Katz said. “It’s his decision, but [he’ll let me] give him my opinion.”
When Lonergan came to the conclusion that Alabama wasn’t going to give him the opportunity he was looking for, he confided with Katz about the components that would go into his decision to transfer.
“Number one, you don’t chase money,” Katz said. “That’s idiotic. Chasing money will always get you beat. Number two, you don’t chase because they say you’re going to be the starter, because that can get you beat. So what do you chase? You chase people.”
Both Lonergan and Katz relied on the personal relationship they had developed with O’Brien during Lonergan’s high school recruitment to Alabama as a foundation for his eventual departure from the program.
Like Saban, O’Brien was the type of guy Lonergan sought to play for in the first place.
“His relationship with coach O’Brien, my relationship with him, it’s like, this is the right one to sign up with because he’s got to get this move right, you what I mean?” Katz said. “So it was a pretty heavy decision, it’s far from home and all those things, but BC is a freaking awesome place to live and to go to school.”
In addition to that, there were the obvious factors which stuck out about O’Brien which reassured Lonergan, his family, and Katz that transferring to Boston College for his redshirt sophomore year was the right move.
“I mean, coach O’Brien coached Tom Brady,” Katz said. “Many Super Bowls, with coach Belichick. Like what else are you looking for? If you want more flash or pizzazz, he had everybody in America calling him. But what are you looking for to get out of your experience?”
Katz is confident that Lonergan is bound to lead the BC football program to more than seven wins this season, which the Eagles haven’t attained since 2009.
“I think Dylan will bring stability to that position that’s going to make everybody around them reach heights they haven’t done before,” Katz said.
THE LONERGAN EXPERIENCE all withers down to what Katz was unable to teach—the traits which only a few quarterbacks in the college ranks are able to translate to the professional level, which Katz believes Lonergan is capable of doing.
Katz said there is a reason players like Brady, Kirk Cousins, Matt Stafford, and Jared Goff, which are the examples he listed, have played in the NFL with long-tenured careers despite lacking in superior physical qualities, like a 6-foot-5 frame and the type of trucking power a quarterback like Josh Allen possesses.
“The biggest thing is he’s not going to hurt Boston College in terms of turning the ball over and being a renegade quarterback,” Katz said. “He’s going to keep them on schedule. … That was one of the big things coach Saban liked when he first got to Alabama, just how well he operated the offense, how well the offense moved, and how he did the little things right.”
Lonergan’s heavy lower body makes him suitable in both the passing game and the run game.
From his sophomore to senior year at Brookwood, Lonergan produced at least 300 rushing yards and four touchdown runs, topping out at 645 rushing yards and seven rushing touchdowns in 2021.
“He’s a specimen now, like his arm strength and his ability to change the velocity on the football is something that you really can’t coach,” Katz said. “His ability to put touch on the ball, take off, put on. He’s extremely gifted when it comes to, you know, the lower half and having that base that can provide all the power that you need.”
Lonergan is currently in the process of a quarterback competition in Chestnut Hill with senior Grayson James, who made six starts for the Eagles in 2024, but Katz said that he has no doubt O’Brien will go in the direction of his redshirt sophomore.
“I guess I’m biased, but I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen at all, [losing the competition],” Katz said. “But if it did, I would just anticipate him to, if there’s another level to take it, take it to that next level.”
The opportunity to earn it is all that Lonergan could have hoped for, according to Katz.
“Go earn it, and if you don’t then whatever opportunities you get in practice, you show them why they made the wrong decision,” Katz said. “He won’t tuck his tail between his legs and go run and hide. His response would be to work even harder.”
In Katz’s eyes, Lonergan won’t just be starting Saturday’s at some point in his football career.
“I have never coached a Sunday quarterback, but this one’s it,” Katz said. “And I might not be right. That’s a big thing I’m putting on the kid. But that’s really and truly what I think he is.”
