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

First of all, thank you for having me. We are excited to get down here, get down to Dallas. Great hotel, beautiful stadium. Definitely one of the biggest that I think all of us have played in or walked in, but we’re excited to get down here and play Alabama and show not only ourselves and, you know, everyone in the country what we can do against a top team.

Kind of a big-picture question I asked you in the beginning of the year, I think after you guys beat Notre Dame. But just to look back at when you went into that game at UCLA as a freshman and getting that win out there to now playing in the College Football Playoff. Can you even recap what this journey has been like for you from that moment to now?

Yeah, I mean, there’s been a lot of ups and downs and, you know, all of our records and rings of championships and bowl wins, you know, they might all says ‘wins,’ but myself and our teammates and others around us in the program, we’ve had doubts too.

But it’s just been a journey. And Coach Fick [Luke Fickell] has always talked about trusting the journey and trusting the process, and that’s exactly what it’s been for myself and a lot of my teammates. So, I’ve had a great experience over my five years here, and I’m just hoping we can seal it off with one of the best experiences there is.

Mike Denbrock talked a lot about the unique challenges that the Alabama defense brings. And you guys have a unique opportunity with having a former Alabama player in Jerome Ford. How much do you tap into Jerome’s experience there or maybe against an Alabama defense, is it kind of limited in what you can actually take away from someone who wasn’t been there a couple of years?

You can learn a lot. You obviously see what they’re like physically on film, but you learn a lot from him more mentally and, you know, how they approach the game, you know, how they’re going to come prepared. He lets you know what the Alabama culture is just so we’re not just hit in the face when we get out there and something may be a little different than what we think. So having Jerome on our team, it definitely helps us a lot and he’s a great addition to our team.

You guys have had about three weeks since the playoffs berths came out. And you guys have heard all about what a great accomplishment it is for you guys to be here. You’ve heard about you’re underdogs. Now that you’re actually here, Coach [Luke] Fickell talked about the opportunity. You guys don’t want to let it go to waste. Talk about the mindset that it’s now game week and what you guys really do want to accomplish and you haven’t done what you wanted to do yet.

We’re taking it day by day. Coach Fick [Luke Fickell] gave a great speech this morning before we came over here in our hotel. He said, you know, lock in from about 7:00 to 1:00, and then we’ll have meetings later on tonight.

But, you know, when we lock in from 7:00 to 1:00, right after practice, it’s all football and then we have meetings later on at night. But those other times after that, you know, it’s for relaxing and resting and, you know, having a good time with our brothers because, you know, for a lot of us, this is our guaranteed last opportunity to go out here and play the game of football. So, you know, we’re going to do everything we can to make the most out ‚Äì make the most out of it and also have a good time while doing it.

What have these three weeks been like, though, getting ready to get to this point?

Yeah, it’s definitely been a long three weeks, especially with a little Christmas break. We played the championship game the first week of December and had a couple days off there and then started to get to practice.

Those first six, seven practices were, you know, attention to the older guys, but then, the later half of practice, it was all young guys. So kind of gave the older guys who have played a lot of ball some time off but also got good work in with it.

But it’s definitely been a long time, especially with the nerves, the excitement, or whatever you may want to call it, just the anticipation of coming down here. So, you know, Christmas was a little more exciting to be able to open up presents with your family and then we drove back to Cincinnati and woke up the next morning, had practice, and was able to fly down here. So, we were all ready to go and excited.

Going to the Cowboys game last night, what kind of flavor did that give you? Did it help you at all to experience the stadium ahead of time and did you get any flak for going out last night?

No, yeah, so it definitely gave it a good aspect of what it’s going to be like. When I went back home, I kind of thought at points it is going to be that loud and at points it’s not going to be that loud. I don’t know how the ticket sales are, but let’s just say they’re 50/50. There was may way more than 50% Cowboys fans in the building last night. There were times where there was an interception or a touchdown where this place got loud. So, I’m excited to see how it gets over the next week.

I just want to ask you about leadership. Obviously, that’s such a big thing for you. You know, you’re the unquestioned leader of this team. But that comes over time. What does the word ‘leadership’ really mean to you and how does that definition really carry into this what could be your last game in a Cincinnati uniform?

Yeah, to me, leadership is not only being the one person that, you know, everyone looks up to, but it’s also being there for people, you know, whether that be in good times or in bad. So, for me, you know, I was a good leader in high school and came in here to Cincinnati not really knowing what to expect as far as from a college football standpoint.

And, you know, for the first couple of months and time while I was there, I kind of just let things come to me and grew friendships and grew in our brotherhood. And it was, you know, kind of towards the later half of my redshirt season, or my true freshman season where I was redshirting at the time, where I really started to open up, started to reach out to some of the older guys and see how they were leading and how they were going about their daily business. So when I knew that I wanted to play my next year as a redshirt freshman I could be the best person, I could be the best teammate I could be and the best leader I could be.

You mentioned in your previous answer leadership in high school. I’m just curious what it was like to be coached by Will Wolford and how formative was that experience for you in terms of carrying you to today where you’re at Cincinnati and you are the leader of this team?

Coach Wolford, at this point, I like to call him one of my good friends. He’s been there for me ever since I was a young kid in high school, and he’s always there for me no matter what I do. He really taught me what it was to be a leader and how to lead a football team. You know, he was in the NFL for a long time and has done a lot of great things in his career.

And so for him to have – to be my first high school football coach, you know, it really showed me what an NFL player looks like, you know, how they go about their daily business. And he made sure that we knew that too, because we had some guys on the team that had dreams and aspirations of going to play in college and going to play in the NFL. So he really set the bar for them.

The people that have been around this team the entire season understand how many next-level players are playing at UC and will play on Sundays maybe even as soon as next year. Do you think the rest of the country might be surprised at how many NFL players are on your team and will play on the field on Friday?

If they’re surprised, then they haven’t been watching our games. So maybe the draft or whatever that may be might help them wake up a little bit, I guess. We have a lot of great players, and it’s just a testament to the hard work that we’ve put in, the hard work that our coaches, our trainers, all of our staff at UC has got us to this point. We’re just going out on Saturdays and Fridays and just showing what we can do. And, you know, like I said again, it’s just a testament to all of our hard work.

Obviously, on the most basic level, this is all about Cincinnati trying to find a way to get to the College Football Playoff final, but does there feel to be some additional pressure of being the first non-Power Five team and representing that dream for other universities around the country who want to try to make it to this stage?

No, not really. And, you know, for us, we’ve already had so much pressure on us throughout the entire season of marking off the checklist, you know, so why add the pressure of every other non-Power Five school that we have on our back?

You know, for us, it’s really just been about us and will always and continue to be about us and the way we go about our way and the way we go about our game. So there’s really no added pressure on us from that standpoint. And yeah, we’re just excited to get out and show what we can do.

What have you learned about yourself in terms of the challenges of dealing with success that might be different than what you personally dealt with the first few years of your career?

That adversity is going to come in many different ways, and the one thing I really look back on this season is not taking things for granted. You know, we did go 13-0 and, you know, the season that everyone had ‚Äì or the season that everyone thought we should have and this and that, but there would be times where I would come into the locker room and the celebration and the joy, and it’s just not there, whether I thought I could have played a better game or didn’t have the game I thought I could have had.

But at the end of the day, looking back and seeing what we did, you know, it’s something to be grateful for and something that, you know, teams may never accomplish and only strive to accomplish.

So, you know, really just not taking anything for granted, not taking any day for granted, no matter how good or how bad a situation may be, and just living every day as it’s just your last.