Cincinnati Bearcats College Football Pregame Quote, 11/07/2023

Just to start off real quick, this past game obviously disappointed and frustrated. A lot of those things. The reality is that we need to play better, need to coach better. There’s no question about it. We have to do a much better job collectively within our building. You only get so many opportunities to show your stuff and we have to do better with it and that includes these next three weeks. We get to go to Houston this week and we’re looking forward to playing this game. Obviously, we’re not going to be in a bowl game this year, which is very disappointing. We can’t stand that. But we’re still trying to go win this game this weekend. We’re trying to go win these last three. We want to finish on a strong note, we were playing for these seniors that have been in this program for many years and I want to send them out the right way, with good things that they’ll remember and not just the bad things. People talk about how I play a bunch of young guys and all this and now we will play some young guys. There’s no question about that, we did last week. We’ll continue to do some of that. But we’re still, at the same time, trying to win the game. So, we’re going put the guys out there that will help us win and do the best job that we can do in all three phases. It’s crazy to think about this year, I look back on it and we’re out gaining opponents. I think six out of the nine opponents and four them over 100 yards. Offensively, I think we’re 23rd in the country right now sixth in the country in rushing. Our defense is top five in the country. We’ve done some really nice things on that side of the ball as well. Obviously, the negative is the turnover margin. I think if you had to point to something, it would have to be one of the biggest things. Last week we were minus two and that was a team that had been turning the ball over this year. But having said that in those games, we’re losing turnover margin, but we’re still right there. There was a chance to go win if we can clean up some of those things. It comes back to being disciplined. That’s what I mentioned after the game Saturday night, we weren’t being very undisciplined. There are things we’re going to continue to work on, being a disciplined football team and cleaning up some of those things. I think I emphasize it big time to our players and our team. We play in Houston, this week, a team that moved up and just like we did. They had a big win last week against Baylor went for two and got it to win the game. I think they certainly have some talented players. Starting with their quarterback, Donovan Smith is a really good player. He’s got great size; I didn’t realize how big he was. He can run he too. He can throw, completed 66% of his passes, which I think is really good. Again, a couple of dynamic receivers I think that are that are awesome players in the return game. #2 [Matthew Golden], I think he’s got two kickoff returns for touchdowns. He does an outstanding job. Their punt returner is really good and #15 [Malik Fleming], he’s a good player as a DB. Then #9 [Nelson Ceaser] leads the Big 12 in sacks. He’s got eight sacks and he’s a big-time edge rusher off the outside. It looks like they’ve tweaked their defense. I think early on in the season, they had given up some yards and some points, that type of thing. But the last three weeks they’ve really tighten that up a little bit better and played more sound. They took Texas all the way to the end, of course beat Baylor so I think they’re playing a much better on that side of the ball as well.

On how difficult it is not maintaining the lead:

Yeah, obviously it’d be a lot better if we had the lead more, because it plays more into the hands of what you want to do want with the football to control the clock. Here’s the other thing, and I think I’ve mentioned this, but we have not started a drive on the plus 50-yard line since the first half of Oklahoma five and a half weeks ago. I don’t think anybody in the country has had that happened. So yeah, you’re right. You’re playing from behind, so it makes a lot more difficult to do what we really want to do. At the same time, we still have been running the ball and had some really good clips, but it would be so much better. If you’re getting the lead, you’re controlling the clock, and then you’re getting the ball back on defense. What that does is it forces the opposing teams to start forcing the ball more, therefore creates more turnovers and more sacks because now we feel like ‚ÄòOkay, I have thrown it more and we can get to the quarterback’ and I think that’s one thing where we’ve been hurting on. We’ve only got four interceptions this year, which is last in the Big 12 and part of that is because they don’t feel pressured to throw the ball late in the games. When a lot of times you can get those interceptions and picks and feel like you’re starting to press a little bit, which we’ve had to do at times. I think that’s where we got in trouble. So yeah, it’s a good point. Hopefully, we can continue to work and get those leads and get ahead of the games so that plan can really help us more than hurt us.

On handling redshirting and the transfer portal era:

That’s a great question. Particularly in the transfer era, a lot of these guys when they come in, they want to play right now, and some of them can’t. It’s hard for them to see why they’re not playing right now. So, we try to have conversations, we try to keep the open dialogue, open line of communications with our players to say ‚Äòlisten, you’re going be a really good player’, because nowadays, these young people, they all want instant gratification. They don’t want to have to sometimes work on that for a year, year and a half. I’ve seen some great players, players that are drafted, that maybe took two years before they even started and all of a sudden now, they’re developed and they’re really good players. It’s about having a little bit of patience and continue to work but some of them are not trying to hear that. Some want to play now, you think about as coaches, we don’t want to redshirt this guy for somebody else because now he may after a year or two decide to go play somewhere else and that not good. So, there’s a fine line there. But if you want to build your program, right, if the players are not 100% ready, then you don’t play them, you redshirt them. Maybe if some are ready, you try to play them in four games to get them some time in the game. Give them some experience, because I do believe that next spring and in that next offseason, they’re going to have something to build off of. They’re going to have something to coach off of for us as coaches. So, I do think that is very beneficial. There are others that you just want to go ahead and play because they’re good enough to help you even if it isn’t a limited role.

On the team dynamic on Sunday:

They all showed up and that was good. That was a positive. But it was a heated team meeting. Several coaches spoke up in the meeting, even players. Listen 85-90% of our players are doing exactly what they need to be doing but some are not. The key, as coaches, we have to do the best job we can to get everybody pulling in the same direction, doing the things that it takes to win and to play disciplined football. When you don’t, there are consequences. You’re going to get called out, you’re going to get coached hard. That’s what it was a lot of the time. To be able to point that out in a team meeting and in a team setting so everybody can see it. You put it all out there on the table. So, we all know what we’re working with. We all know how we need to get better. Because maybe you’re a guy who had made those mistakes, but you’re hearing what mistakes you’ve made so you’re saying, ‚ÄòI don’t want to make them.’ They need to hear that. It’s not just a one-on-one conversation. The whole team needs to hear it and that’s kind of what we had, and it was a really good meeting. The guys are coming out hard and trying to continue to compete. I thought Sunday night was that way at practice and I think today it will be those guys coming out and competing hard.

On challenges in the first nine weeks of the season:

The biggest challenge is when you come in as a new coaching staff because you don’t know what you have until you start playing games. As you continue to play football, you don’t know in the league how the other teams are built and what they are trying to do. The challenges are particularly in the secondary when you lose a guy like Sammy [Anderson] who is one of our best corners and now we are having to play some younger guys and even older guys who have not played a lot but now have to go out there and play. I also want to put our guys in good positions to make plays and not get exposed and that has been the challenge all year. I think we have done a good job in a lot of things but also a poor job in some other things that has really cost us.

On Kalen [Carroll’s] first career start and his performance so far:

He played very solidly and it’s the best he has played this year. He had a couple of batted balls and he played with a lot more poise, he didn’t get rattled. That was great to see because he’s a freshman and he is continuing to build off these games. The biggest thing that I want to see as a coach is for our guys to stay on top of receivers because we have gotten in trouble a lot this year with letting the receivers get behind us and the quarterbacks make you pay. If we stay on top of receivers and not give up the big play, then that is the key to not giving up points and we have done a poor job with that all year. Kalen [Carroll] did a really good job in that regard on Saturday.

On how keeping the team mentality:

I mentioned earlier, we want to send the seniors out on a high note. We don’t want to just, you know, continue to limp through the rest of the three games. We want to go out there and play our best ball. I thought DP [Deshawn Pace] played his best game on Saturday. I thought Kalen Carroll, Braden Smith, and Ryan Montgomery played their best game. We want to see guys that really show up. At the end of the season, we want guys to play their best games. Let’s go out and do the very best we can and send these seniors out on a high note. A lot of times, pride comes into play, you just want to go out there and lie down. We’re not doing that we’re not built that way. We have a lot to continue to play for and in general, people say well, we don’t have anything to play for the play, every time we step onto the field, to we have to have something to play for. We have not played great this year completing games so let’s try to do that. We have got enough guys in that room that have enough pride about themselves. They want to go out and do that.

On how impressive the run game is even without winning:

If you go back and you look at the last several games where they have a lot of people in the box and we’re still able to run the football, we have to credit or offensive line, tight ends, and running backs. They continue to hit it and make those plays. On Saturday we moved the ball well minus the two turnovers, we played me to maybe as efficiently offensively as we played all year. I think we threw the ball well. We had the second most passing yards that central Florida had given up and we still rushed the ball for 250 yards. We moved the ball really well. If you take those two turnovers away, we were there close to Red Zone and we are looking at some points. We did score in our red zone this past weekend, so if we came away with points there, we come away with the win. Without the turnovers, we would have more momentum because one of the turnovers was right before the half. We felt like we’d get some points going into halftime.

On the end of season goal:

We just want to continue to improve and do the things it takes to win the games. We’re going to play three teams that are very solid football teams. We have two of them on the road, so obviously it is going to be challenging. If we continue to grow as a football team and get better, we’re going to have a chance to win. We want to see growth out of these guys. We have a lot of guys back coming back on offense and several on defense as well. Continuing to get growth out of our guys as we finish the season, is going to propel us into the offseason. We’ve already been meeting with Coach Nikko; we have a great plan, for when we get back in January for our guys in the offseason. Our recruiting staff has done an unbelievable job of securing high school players that are coming in here. Half of them are coming in January. In about two and a half weeks the transfer portal is going to open back up and we’re going to be able to fill some gaps as well. When December hits for recruiting, we have a great plan. I think that and the next two and a half weeks of playing these football games, we can get some great momentum headed into December which will be great for this football team.