Cincinnati Bearcats College Football Pregame Quote, 12/27/2021

Dylan, thanks for joining us. Please, if you would, provide us an opening statement about the excitement of playing in the College Football Playoff before we open the floor for questions.

Obviously, this is an awesome opportunity. The first Power Five to break through the College Football Playoff. We’re just excited to get to the 31st and play some football.

Dylan, your impressions of AT&T Stadium, what it’s like to step on a field where they have had Super Bowls and how you guys reacted to being on there?

Yeah, it was pretty cool walking through that tunnel. We came here for the Cowboys game last night. We were sitting in the nosebleeds and it was still awesome to see everything, awesome to see the crowd go crazy. Really excited to see that on the 31st.

You guys are obviously the big underdog coming into this game. I’m curious if that motivates you at all, if you guys feel like you need to prove yourselves a little bit on this stage for the first time.

Not really. We’re just kind of focused on being on us. We’ve heard a lot about this David versus Goliath talk. The fact of the matter everybody puts their pants on the same way. Everybody plays the game of football. We just want to go out and be us.

When you look at your running back (Jerome Ford), he obviously comes from Alabama. He was there two years. How motivated do you think he’s going to be for this game?

Yeah, I’m sure Jerome will be pretty motivated. I think he’s just going to go out and do his thing that he does on every Saturday. He’s going to run the ball, hit the holes, run hard.

What, if any, are your impressions on film of Alabama’s defensive front? And what are the challenges of their pass rush with Will Anderson and guys like that?

Yeah, obviously it’s Alabama. They’re big, strong, physical. We’ll have a challenge ahead of us. But we’re up for it. And we’re going to do our best to block their defensive line and get our running backs to the second level and keep our quarterback on his feet.

Obviously Alabama’s Will Anderson has a record for tackles for loss, and they’ve gotten after the quarterback pretty well. What have you seen out of their pass rush and the challenge you guys face?

Well, I think they get up the field really well. I think they have some good pass rushers. They like to squeeze the pocket pretty well. So, we’re just going to have to take good sets and try to take care of them.