It is showtime. A very pleasant, good evening, everybody. Greetings from the original Montgomery In home of the world's greatest rips. Welcome to the Scott Saderfield Radio Show. Now, as you know, this show is normally on a Tuesday night. Because the basketball team played last night, the football show moves to Wednesday night, which, as it turns out, is a very
important night for the coaching staff. So Coach Saderfield is not here this evening, but we've got a couple of great guests that are going to carry us through the next hour. Up first, the athletic director at the University of Cincinnati, please welcome John Cunningham.
And a little bit.
Later in the show we will hear from UC's football general manager, Zach Grant. Great conversations coming up with John and Zach. Let's start with the season tonight for this football program. Seven and two, with three games left in the regular season. If the Bearcats win, and these last three games are all against very good opponents Arizona, BYU and on the road at TCU. But if Cincinnati wins these three games, the Bearcats will play for the Big
Twelve championship in Dallas. It's year three in this league. That would be an extraordinary accomplishment if they can pull it off.
Yeah, it's very exciting. Obviously, there's only a couple schools in the country that can say that everything's still in front of them, and more one of them. I mean, if you think about it, you could just say that the playoffs starts this Saturday, and you just sort of win in advance, win in advance, and you get to the goal, which was at the beginning of the year and really all spring, all summer, everybody all they talked
about was let's get to Dallas. Let's play for a championship in Dallas, a Big twelve championship, because we know when we get there, you're one game away from the playoff and you just kind of take it from there. So exciting to be in this position, really proud of this group to, like you said, in year three, to have this oppportunity.
Coach Sadderfield took over a couple of years ago under challenging circumstances. Whenever you have a coaching change nowadays in college football, everybody's free to leave. A lot of players do. In his case, he was also moving into a much tougher league, so that made things doubly challenging. What has impressed you about the job he's not only done this year, but over the course of two and a half years.
It's been his steadiness. It's just who he is, you know. I mean, he had a system that he wanted to put into place. He knew he was going to take some time. He had to get the people around him and you know, start to recruit his players and all those things. It just takes time to do that, you know,
And so I think his steadiness throughout this process. Somebody asked me, am I surprised by this year, and I told him, oh, I actually I would have been surprised if it didn't go this way, because what I saw leading into this year was a team that was really gelling, coming together. Our best players are our leaders, are captains, and great teams have captain that lead the team. And I just felt like that's what we were experiencing in the off season. And then just talking to people around
the program. You'll hear from Zach Grant here in a minute, but you know, the Nico of the world, and to Zach Grant and the assistant coaches and John Daniel, who works closely with the program. It just really felt like this was going to be a breakout year, that we had the pieces in place to go do this. So really proud of him, like I said, but in terms of Scott who he is as a person, his steadiness is what I think always impresses me about him.
Let's talk about Zach's department, because one of the things you did, and Coach Saderfield did when he took over as head coach was expand the recruiting general manager, et cetera. That entire department. I don't know if you've doubled it, tripled it or whatever, but it is considerably larger than it used to be. You're spending a lot more money in that area. You have to be able to compete at this level. And that decision has paid big dividends.
Yeah, it's been it's been a unit. It's been really fun to see it come together. Obviously, the centerpieces Zach grant able to get him from Western Kentucky has ties to Ohio State, you know, a lot of different connections around the country, and so he he starts to build out his team, brings in Jack Griffith and Casts and and all these guys that are just so talented, and he can talk about each one of them, but they all do a different thing and they all have a
different skill set. One looks at high school recruiting, one looks at portal recruiting, and I think, really, you know, I'd love being around him because they work so hard and they're so knowledgeable. And if you ever want to know what's going on in the country in terms of high school recruiting and or portal recruiting, you talk to
these guys. But I'm impressed, especially with the portal side of things, because that's been the new the new angle to, you know, making sure that you have a roster that can compete is going out and finding the right guys out of the portal that want to be Bearcats and maybe are a little under the radar, under recruited. And we've been able to find those guys and they're they're participating at such a high level and they're some of
our best players. So give them a lot of credit for what we've been able to build over over the last three years.
Beginning on July first, colleges could begin paying players directly. Has it stabilized college sports at all?
Boy loading question I don't know if it has yet, Okay, And so I said this the other day, I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful that it will because I do I do think that you know, every every league it has a soury cap, right, every league has a cap every you know, And that's kind of what we've got to develop in a short period of time. I mean, everybody, everybody. Actually, we've been doing this a long time. The house case that led to us bringing this in house didn't actually
officially get adopted until June of this year. And we all anticipated that it was going to happen, and so we put some things into place to get ready for it,
but it didn't actually happen until June. And so, you know, I'm hopeful that that some of these systems that you know, the NCAA and then this new entity called the College Sports Commission have adopted can be put into place, and then we can get what we what we really signed up for with the house house case, which was a hard cap, a real a true cap in some system around that. And then maybe we look at transfers and whether or not we're doing the right things when it
comes to free transfer. Can we work it back and go back to a time period in which you get to transfer once and that's it. Those types of things. So I do think there's a lot of work being done, and we may need some help from Congress. We may need some different things to finally get it settled, but we're making progress.
The next two football games are at Nippert Stadium this Saturday at noon against Arizona the following Saturday against by U. We don't have a game time yet on that, we'll find out on Sunday. ESPN Game Day was at Utah a few weeks ago when Cincinnati played there, did another Big twelve game this past week at Texas Tech. Kind of feels like maybe it's unlikely they would keep going big twelve games, So maybe that is not in the mix for Cincinnati. But what about the possibility of Fox's
big Saturday pregame show coming to Nippert? Is it you're feeling that that could be in the cards for BYU if things go well?
You know, I certainly think so. You know, we have early conversations with ESPN and Fox and both they're very interested in how this plays out this weekend. Obviously, we've got a really tough opponent. I mean, Arizona is no slouch. They could easily be nine to one right now, and so that's gonna be a game we have to we have to go perform and play well. If we do that,
and then b YU has a tough opponent. I think they're at TCU that you say, yeah, so so if we both win, it could set up a big time matchup. And that week specifically, there's not a lot of games that you point to and say, you know, Game Day or or Fox Big Noon is going to go there. And so we're right in the hunt and we're hopeful that that if those things happen, that would that would be great.
A big twelve championship game is obviously a major goal and has been all year. And if you can get there and win or maybe even lose, now you're talking about playing in the twelve team playoff, which would be amazing to be back in the college football playoff just a few years after going in twenty twenty one. But regardless of all of that, you're going back to a ball game this year. I don't know about you. I've
started diving into the ball projections. They come out early every week, and one nice thing about being in the Big Twelve as opposed to being in the American is that all of these ball games are really attractive. They're in great stadiums against big name opponents on good dates. So you know that Cincinnati hopefully is going to the Big twelve playoff, but even are the Big the twelve team playoff, But even if that doesn't happen, this team is going to be playing in a very attractive ball game.
Always exciting. Feel so happy for our seniors. You know the Gavin gear Hearts of the world that specifically said we got to get back there. We got to get back to a ball game. That's who we are. We go to bowl games, and so yeah, just it'll be fun. I actually haven't dove in do it too much. I think my wife has more than I have because it's always a family trip for us around the holiday, so
she's trying to figure it all out. I know, my boys told me the other day they love pop Tarts, so I don't know what that means.
But well, the Pop Tarts Bowl is in Orlando, so you would have the double dip. Your boys could possibly get to Disney or one of the other theme parks there in Orlando. But some of the other balls that have been mentioned with s where Cincinnati is concerned. There's one in Phoenix, there's one in San Antonio, Houston. So these are great markets, good stadiums, big time opponents. It's going to be great wherever Cincinnati winds up. This is
the Scott Saderfield Show. We're leaning toward football topics tonight. But before we turn it over to the audience, want to ask you about basketball. Wes Miller's team approved a three and oh last night. Beating a good opponent Dayton obviously is always good. You know, by the end of the year, that one's going to be good for Cincinnati's metrics. That was a nice win last night.
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I mean, it was a great atmosphere. It was great to see Fifth Third rocking again the way that we saw it all the whole entire Big twelve season last year. And so really really good win. I'm telling you, Dayton's a really good team.
You know.
We we certainly had the things that are gonna drive Wes Miller nuts today. As he watched the film last night. He immediately watches the film with his staff after the game. So I'm sure he's getting on him about throwing the ball all over the gym a little bit, but every once in a while they threw it in the hoop, which was good. So we were able to get a lot of points and beat a really good Dayton team.
And the other thing is we the defense. The defense really showed up, and we were talking about that before he came on the air. I just I felt like they really played really hard defensively and locked him down and and some really kind of breakout performances. I thought Tyler McKinley was really good yesterday. Is just somebody that was so solid and made a lot of really smart plays. And so I think it's gonna be somebody new every night.
You know, we've we've seen that already. Bob I had a great night, and then you know Sean has a great night and Dada has a great night. So it's just gonna be one of those teams. But there really athletic. They're going to get up and down the floor and it's gonna be a fun year.
All right.
This is the Scott Sadderfield Radio Show, Live from the original Montgomery In Home of the World's Greatest Ribs. Our guest in the first half hour is athletic director John Cunningham. We're going to take a time out. We'll open it up to questions from the audience when we come back here on seven hundred wlw.
Oh, that's fun to hear this.
Welcome back to the Scott Saderfield Radio Show, live from the original Montgomery in the home of the world's greatest ribs. Our special guest tonight pinch hitting for Coach Saderfield, Athletic director John Cunningham in the first half hour, and the general manager of the football program, Zach Grant in the
second half hour. We will be taking questions from the audience. Tonight, our man John Daniel working the room with a wireless mike, and he has arrived at Brian's side for the first question.
Mister Cunningham, Cincinnati has not had a lot of years where it feels like football and basketball are really excelling at the same time. And I'm not saying both are excelling yet, but both are really kind of trending up. What does it take in your position to get both of those sports, you know, the big sports, get them trending up the way they are at the same time. You're you're definitely spread a little wide trying to focus on both and getting them getting them rolling.
Yeah, I mean, I think both are unique in what you have to build around a program and the resources you have to give to it. I do think you know, typically football is gonna take it's got to be a little bit more foundational. You gotta you gotta really take your time to build football up from from the ground up.
I think that's that's the way to do it. To get a sustained success in football basketball with the transfer portal and things, it's you know, you've seen these rosters flip, and you just got to have really skilled recruiters, and you got to have a real game plan on the type of roster you want to build, and you got to kind of just you know, really be focused in on on making sure year to year that you've got your your you know, seven to ten guys that can
go out there and compete. So it's a little bit different that way, But certainly it starts with coaching. And you know, both of our coaches are are so good and so dedicated to what they do, love the student athletes. You know, Coach Sadderfield and coach Miller are are you know guys that these players are going to be able to call in fifteen twenty years for help and guidance and that's what you're looking for, and I think that's how you get successful in both.
All right, Phyllis is up next.
I have both an observation kind of slash duvetail on what you just said, John. I think those that stayed really speaks volumes to this football program and people aren't really picking up on that, and I think that that speaks to the coaching staff and to how they feel really into this program. And then I have another question after you answered to that.
I agree, and then you know, that's what I when we were asked sort of were you surprised that That's why I wasn't surprised because I do feel like the culture in that building obviously a brand new, beautiful building, but even before that, the culture was strong and you could just kind of feel feel that around the program.
And I think our student athletes feel supported, and you know, we're trying to make them great football players that are going to make it to the NFL, but we're also trying to really work on them as people and make sure that they, you know, our great fathers and individuals in the community. So all that plays into that. And I believe that those that transfer from other schools see the difference, and then I believe that those are that are here stay here because of that. I think that's true.
Then I want to ask you to speak to the Impact Fund and the impact of that fund and how that is whole different thing than just not throwing money into a whole so to speak, and what that does for especially football, basketball and all of our athletic programs.
Yeah, the Impact Fund in John Daniels holding the mic, he's my my CFO and holds me accountable for money every day. But I always say money is not everything, but it's right up there with oxygen, and it is because we in order to do what we need to do, we've got we've got to have resources to compete in the Big twelve. And so the Impact Fund is really us going out and trying to scale as large as we can to our three hundred and sixty five thousand living alumni to say, this is your program, we want
it to be great in the Big twelve. We're gonna need resources to be great. And you know how I've looked at the revenue share piece to it. I view that as just that's just table stakes. You have to be a full, full revenue share program. What that does is that takes a large chunk of money and puts it into that well. That means everything else needs resources.
So all of our sports are gonna need resources to backfill the amount of money that we're putting into the table stakes of playing in the Big twelve, which is revenue share. So to your point, Phillis, it's really about it's really about just just funding all of our programs and just saying I'm a bear Cat. I want Bearcat athletics to be important because it makes the university better, it makes our city better, and that's what that's all about.
So we're just asking people to look into it, give what you can, obviously, and and try to make us great.
Bob. So it's been a little over five years, and I remember you probably didn't anticipate on your first day having to advocate for completing a ballgame in Birmingham if you could, you foresee dealing with all of the isolation of COVID. But other than that, how's the rest of the time worked out for you? And where do we go from here.
Yeah, you throw in an I L and you're throwing collectives and you throw in uh yeah. So I don't know. I had a I had an old uh employee of ours that that is now the CFO at the Big twelve nick Bows, and I don't know, maybe the first three years he looked at me and he's like, I think it's you. I think I think you're the one that has caused everything to go haywire. But my my tenure has been has been pretty crazy. But you know, I think what I've learned being here is that you've
got to be malleable. You've got to be willing to adjust and and change course when you need to. And it's all about people. It's all about people in the building. It's all about coaches, the right coaches, and it's all about these young men and women that that I love being around. If I need energy, I go to the Gold Family Dining Hall and I sit with our student athletes for launch or breakfast, and that's how I get
my juice for the day. Because when you make it about them, you're you're you typically do the right things.
Plus, in the new Football Indoor practice facility, those meals are really good.
They're really good.
Yeah yeah, okay, So keeping on that same tone, what are we doing to advance women's sport? Since women's basketball is on the up and up, what can we do to help further our women's programs?
Yeah, volleyball. Just one tonight, by the way, So another victory by volleyball over UCF. They're having a really good year under under Daniel Tomach in her first year, going toe to toe in the Big twelve, which is really good in volleyball. To I think it's I think it
starts with just supporting the women's programs by attending. We got to get people the fifth third to watch our volleyball program, to watch our women's basketball program, to get to getler to watch our soccer program and our lacrosse program tennis. We've got to get people out and supporting in that way. That makes a huge difference. When you start, they feel it so much more. You know, our men's basketball program is gonna play in front of big crowds
all the time. But when we get a really big crowd for women's basketball, or a really big crowd in volleyball, which we've had already this year, it makes such a big difference for those young women, and so I think it starts there. I think it starts with just getting to the games and telling people about it and doing that.
And then obviously there's other ways to support. Each one of those programs have their own development funds, and again they need funding just like everybody else, and they're trying to be top level in the Big twelve, and so we need to support them financially as well.
I think attendance for the women's game is going to get a big bump when d Alexander is able to play the most highly touted recruited school history, a local player, three time miss basketball in the state of Ohio. Unfortunately, she's going to miss the first half of this season due to injury. But I'm really intrigued by what Katrina
Merriweather is doing. Six freshmen in this recruiting class, two top one hundred freshmen, and it's kind of different from the way many men's programs are approaching it with a quick fix. This is old school. She's getting great players to grow together, and there are gonna be some growing pains early on, but the potential payoff would be tremendous.
Yeah.
I mean, she's been talking about this class for for a couple of years, and she always said that, she said, John, I'm gonna I'm gonna dig deep and we're gonna create something really good, and it's gonna start with this freshman class that's so highly touted and we've seen bits and pieces of it. We haven't seen the Alexander. We have another key injury on that team, so they're kind of down two players, but they've got two freshman guards out
there that are really really good. I think they can drive Katrina nuts at times because they're freshman guards and we understand that, but they are really good, and you know, they're they're all they're They're not off to a great start this year. They've they've battled some you know, battle
Penn State at Penn State and those things. But I think what I told Katrina the other day is that that's the worst games are behind them and it's just gonna get better and better and better because you get young people out there getting experience and they're just gonna they're gonna gel together and start to figure it out. But I'm excited to see d L Lexander as well. She's got some rehab to do, but hopefully, you know, mid season or so we get her back.
All right, we're going to be joined by Zach Grant just a moment, but I just want to wrap this up with you by asking you about the GM that the basketball program has hired. Corey Evans has come aboard from the Oklahoma City Thunder, the NBA champion last year. So now you've gone to this model in football and men's basketball with GMS helping the head coach and the entire coaching staff build a roster.
Yeah, it's been fun to be around Zach Grant obviously, but but Corey Evans is special as well, and Corey's been around basketball. I've actually known Corey for several years. He's there was a guy that they used to call worldwide West and Basketball because he knew everybody. I feel like Corey's worldwide Corey because he knows he goes everywhere in the basketball world. People know who he is, and it's just been such a key to to building this
this roster. Ian. I'm so excited about what he's going to do in the future because he's already talking about, you know, players that he's seen out and about in the future, and he's got ties to Europe, and he's got ties to the NBA, and he's got ties to the G League and all those good things. So it's gonna be fun to watch him and Wes and that
whole crew work together to build the roster. But Cory's a unique individual, very very smart nose basketball top to bottom, and again he knows everybody in the industry.
All right, we'll take a time out. We'll be joined by general manager of the Football Program, Zach Grant, when we con continue. This is the Scott Sadderfield Radio Show. We're live at the original Montgomery In home of the world's greatest ribs, on seven hundred WLW. We are back on the Scott Satderfield Radio Show a Wednesday night this week instead of the normal Tuesday night. As a result, we've got a couple of special guests taking us through
the show this evening. We had Athletic director John Cunningham join us in the first half hour, and now we are joined by the Football Program's general manager, Zach Grant. Here in the second half hour. We'll take questions from the audience and just a bit we also have stuff to give away at the end of the show. Here at the original Montgomery d Zach. I want to start with your quarterback, Brendan Soresby. He had good, not great statistics at Indiana. He wasn't that highly recruited coming out
of his high school in Texas. What did you and your staff see on the tape from the limited playing time he had at Indiana that made you say, this guy can be a great quarterback for us.
Yeah.
The first thing when we were looking at what we need to do at the quarterback position after the twenty three season, we knew we needed to go get a starter, and it was my job to kind of evaluate the whole country, all the quarterbacks in different situations who may or may not leave.
So I'm just.
Initially grading all of them. When I hit on Soresby, the number one thing that stood out was his toughness. I think that's an underrated thing the quarterback position that not a lot of people look at it.
You know, you're looking.
At his arm strength and this and that. But if you are the leader of the football program and you want your players to play hard for you, you need to be really tough. And his toughness showed out at Indiana. We'd watch his postgame press conferences. He was playing through an ac joint spraint on his throwing shoulder, and he never complained. He never missed a beat. But beyond that, you know, he had good feet in the pocket. He
was calm operating from within the pocket. He was able to elude and avoid sacks playing with you know, an average offensive line, and you know Indiana was making a run through the season with that. Eventually they were getting fired as a staff, you know, that's how it ended. But when Brendan took over the job, I saw a noticeable difference in the way the players around him played. And I simply thought that when when wideouts were open, he was hitting them, So I thought he saw the
field well. Truthfully, I think getting him here and it's probably due to the injury, his arm talent is better than I thought, But everything else has been a dream come true. And it's a testament to coach Siderfield and coach Thomas developing him from year one to year two. I mean, everyone can see the jump he's made, and a lot of it's the pieces around him, but you know he'd fit our offense perfectly, and they've done an incredible job.
Similar question about Jake Gold Day. Dame Brugler from The Athletic came out with his top fifty NFL draft board this week. He's got Jake going number forty two. I think, so that would be a high second round pick in next year's draft. He played at Central Arkansas. He was not heavily recruited out of high school, kind of a rush end type player as opposed to an off the
ball linebacker. What did you guys see in Jake gold Day that made you think this guy can play that position and play it well for us?
Yeah, honestly, that one was pretty simple. When we showed him to our defense of staff, it was like three clips and it was like, this is the biggest freak there is the portal. He never got tweeted about, there was no publicity around him, and he never got ranked, and all those situations are perfect, Like we were convicted about what we saw in the person he was. His path to get to where he was playing the linebacker position probably helped us, and that it was a little
unique out of high school. He was a COVID recruit, so that's how he got lost. When we go back and evaluate why we like these portal players, now, what did they look like in high school and how can it inform our decisions? Then he showed everything on high school tabe you would want. I think he just got lost in the shuffle, and he played two years as an edge rusher at Central Arkansas on one year off
the ball. The instincts playing off the ball have improved now in year two in the system, but the athletic gifts have always been there. And I would predict that his draft stock increases once he runs.
The forty, because it's going to be very fast for guy who's two hundred and forty pounds. I happened to talk to Jake for a podcast earlier this week, and on the flip side of this, when he enters the portal and you guys try to recruit him to Cincinnati, he mentioned that a member the coaching staff flew down to where he was three times in the first week to take him out to dinner.
Yeah, I think Jake was embellishing that a little bit. I remember it being too. Due to the specific NCAA rules surrounding you're allowed to do it once a week, so coach brads went on either like a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday, and then the following Monday, which was the New week. But the rules always changed in college football.
Currently we're not able to see the portal players like that was in the spring, I guess, but you know it was an open period when he was able to go and anybody was like, you're able to do it. So this past cycle you weren't, okay, But as the rules change, we're going to take advantage of every possible thing we can. And you know, when you go to see a kid in person one day after they go in the portal, I think that's pretty impressive and shows.
The commitment to him.
And you know, the moment he went in the portal, we knew we wanted him, and coach Breswell shot down and did a great.
Job strictly by the rules. Just to be clear. So when you identify somebody who is quote unquote on under the radar type recruit. Maybe he's at a smaller school, maybe he's had injury problems, but you've seen stuff on tape that you like and you want to bring him to Cincinnati. How do you keep it secretive? How worried do you get about you know, the word getting out on a guy?
Yeah, I think it starts with our just the way I came up being at Western Kentucky for five years, Like we're never I.
Was never in the limelight in any way. Nobody was ranked. There was none of that.
It was just purely the conviction you had about the player, their skill set, and what you wanted as a team. How we try to manufacture less publicity in the recruiting process, you know, we're just not advertising what we do. Some people try to artificially do that to gain like Hooplin publicity and.
Buzz.
You know, there's two ways to do it. That's a positive decision in some ways. Certainly for us, we just want to acquire the player and it doesn't have to come with four stars. As a matter of factly some schools will lobby the two four seven reporters to make the rankings higher for them. We would rather do it the opposite way, both to have a chip on the shoulder on our guys and just to keep them away from other teams that might just look at that stuff
and want to recruit them. So we'll let the ranking fall how they are. For us, it's about the person and about the player and the fit.
At Cincinnati, one of.
The real success stories on the team this year is the wide receiver position. You brought all these guys basically in five guys in the transfer portal, and it's not like, all right, you hit on one and the other guys are okay. They've all made major contributions. How did you pull that off with this group? What were you looking for? And why have this? Why have all five of these guys been successful.
Yeah, when you're trying to build a receiver room, it's it's like a basketball team. Everybody has their own specific skill set and what you need. We have one of the fastest players in the country in Caleb Goodie. You know, we have a point guard so to speak, in Cyrus Allen. You know, there's a do it all type player, and
Noah Jennings. There's a scorer at you know, power forward or shooting guard or whatever you want to call it, and Jeff Caldwell and I don't know if there's a basketball term for it, but the best one with the ball in his hands is Isaiah Johnson. So it all worked out in that way. You're trying to fit different pieces together so that you have different answers to things. Defenses new but the key to it all truly. Number one obviously was VJ. Stingley. He did an incredible job
recruiting those guys. But Brendan Soresby I saw him grow as a leader as he helped recruit those players. He took ownership of it. He knew if he was going to be really good, he needed guys to throw the ball to that not only were good, but we're there because he talked to them. It like talked him into it and could lead them once he's there or once they're there. And you know, they all watched the tape and they saw the arm talent Brendan had and he was a big reason for it.
Is Cincinnati unusual in the way that you have veteran leaders more or less vet the transfer players that you're considering.
I'd be shocked if more teams don't do that. I just think it's so obvious. But we make an intentional focus to make that happen. You know, we talk about coach Sadderfield's philosophy in terms of team building and leadership, and it's a player driven program.
You know, John.
Cunningham made mention to this. But you know, we're good because we have incredible leaders on this team. Starting with Gavin Gearhart and the the number of the players that were here you know, even before coach that got here and since jac mentioned it, I want to give name to those guys. There's ten players on the team that
we're here when Coach sat arrived that have stayed. And when you talk about the culture and the fibric of the team and guys being through the fire, it doesn't like it doesn't get more than that after surviving a coaching change, going three and nine, staying here throughout all
of it, for us, it's really special. And that's Brady Lichtenberg, Gavin Gearheart, Ethan Green, Dante Corleone, Rob Jackson, Drew Logan, Jonathan Thompson, Jack Dingle, Sincere Lewis, Ben Blevins, and you know, those ten guys truly like some of more like high profile leadership roles than others.
But you know they control and.
Monitor the locker room at a high level, along with some other transfers we brought in. And if it's going to be a player driven program, we need to make sure those guys are around them or the transfers when we bring them in just to self select the right types of players.
It's good stuff. We're going to take a time out. Questions from the audience when we continue. Our guest is the general manager of the seven and two U SEE football team, ranked twenty second in the country, Zach Grant. Big game coming up for the Bearcats this Saturday at noon against six and three Arizona Wildcats will continue from the original Montgomery In, home of the world's greatest rips. In just a moment on seven hundred WLW, we are back at the original Montgomery In, home of the world's
greatest dribs and the Scott Saderfield Radio Show. Here in seven under WLW. We will be back here tomorrow night for the Wes Miller Radio Show eight to nine tomorrow again on the Big One. Time for questions from the audience for the general manager at football program, Zach Grant.
Bob is up first, Hi, Zach.
If you're like me, I want a team full of players that really want to be here and want to be Cincinnati Bearcats. But they don't all start out that way. You got to sort of sell them on the idea. So what point in the process to you to you sort of switch from selling to evaluating how badly they want to be Bearcats.
It's a great question.
We're always evaluating them throughout the process. We get very limited exposure to like seeing them in person, just because we either have to go to them or they come to campus, so seeing how they are as people during
that time were constantly evaluating them. But within the ever and never ending cycle of recruiting and the different touch points that they have with people on our staff, Cass Simmons and tyg Leach, along with the gas QC's interns and the position coaches are typically selling the players so that they want to come up here and visit right
But once they sit down with coach Sadderfield. This is frustrating for me at times because I'm like, go close this guy, But his philosophy is I want to make sure they want to come here and want to play here, so he's never going to beg anybody to come. I think now that we have started to have the success that we knew was coming, it's easier to operate that way out of a position of power, certainly, but that's one way to self select the right types of players.
We're just going to be as authentic and real as possible, make sure they know what they're getting into when they sign up for it. It's a hard program. The offseason is going to make them better, but it's brutal with coach Nico, So they need to know that coming up. And if a guy, if you see the look in their eye that they want that fire, then then let's go. And that's one good way to know Fellas.
Zach, everybody has been so amazed and impressed and everything else you can think of with Jake Golday, is there another player that also has been an absolute gem that not just met your expectations but exceeded it even.
When you're comparing him to Jake Golda, that's tough. One guy that doesn't get a lot of, you know, publicity, I'd say, is Trey Gola Collard. He's a safety in his second year. Came from Southern Utah. He was at University of Mary before then. But he is an extremely consistent player playing the boundary safety position. He's put in a lot of conflict situations but always plays fast and physical. But he's an incredible teammate and an incredible human being.
Similar to what makes Jake great beyond the physical gifts is his his intentionality and want to become the best version of himself. And you see the same thing in Trey and a number of our other players. But to single one out especially that doesn't get a lot of love.
I'd say Trey, all right, I see where John Daniel is so that I know the mic is in.
The back of the room, and we're got to Elijah.
Okay, sorry, what was your name?
I didn't get it?
You're Zach grant Is.
Two questions. First off, other than because Xavier is not a football school, the Xavier doesn't have football, but I say that's our biggest rival, like in basketball, but in football, who would you say when I consider like, who do you really get pumped up to play against? Because obviously we don't play Louisville as much as we used to or Pitt. I mean I consider UCF, like when we play UCF, I get pretty pumped up, or maybe Houston. What other schools do you get pumped up to play against?
In the players? And then secondly, do you think uc could ever be on the level of competitiveness is like a Big ten school like Ohio State or Michigan, Because I mean you look at now compared to ten years ago. I mean we're in the Big twelve or you know, our facilities are much nicer. So do you think that could ever be a possibility in the future.
Yeah, First question number one for us, it's still Miami. You know, we don't play them this year, but when we play them, I thought you guys probably saw it last year. Our team was incredibly enthused both before the game, going into it, during the game, and after the game with the celebration within conference. I'd say UCF or Iowa State, Iowa State, there's a lot of similarities in the way we do things. We're gonna play them again next year.
It'll be four straight years. I don't think we play UCF next year, but that rivalry, despite not being me being here when we're in the in the AAC, I've still felt that since I since I got here, and I think that will continue. So i'd say those three in my book, And then question number two, I absolutely think we can get there.
That's not gonna happen overnight.
To me. We need to continually climb the ladder and you know, meet every ring of that ladder in terms of like meeting the next goal in front of us, then the next goal and the next goal, and uh, you know, I think we have everything available here to do it.
We're gonna have to, you know, harness the.
Power of the city and you know, leverage those relationships with big businesses as we you know, increase our just financial capacity to meet, uh, the competition level at that level in terms of you know, nil and revenue share. But I think we have everything in front of us and every resource possible to eventually reach that goal. We just gotta it doesn't happen overnight. We got to hit every ring of that ladder.
First, Brian, how many hours a week do you think you spend watching video and what do you do in the other hours that you're not watching video?
Yeah, well those four hours, you know, in my role, especially depending on the time of year, I don't get to watch as much as I want to, like when you when I say that, I would like to do it like twenty four hours a day. But I'm blessed with an incredible staff that I'm able to work with, and Carter Wilson doing scouting for high school, Jack Griffith doing scouting for the portal, Cassimmitson and Taiji Leitch and Peter Abrams doing a lot of communicating and recruiting and
then Caroline Tart doing our like visit setup. A lot of people in my role that I talk to across the country aren't as fortunate as I am where I truly trust those people to do what they do and they do it at as high of a level as anybody out there. That frees me up to not worry that I'm not uncovering the unheralded player from an hour up the road. I know Carter is already doing that,
you know what I mean. So in terms of hours, I probably try to make sure I'm watching film for three or four hours a day and the rest of the time, there's different conversations with our coaches. The communication with them has to be on point for every specific recruiting situation. You know, agents are becoming a big thing
in college football now. We talk to them a lot to gather information more than anything that the name of the game and knowing how the market's trending and all that for what it will cost for positions and different things like just being on the phone and letting them talk and then you know, different meetings according to you know, what our strategy is in terms of revenue share stuff, and like different stuff like that. That's how I kind
of wrap it up. And then part of it's just sitting down and making sure I'm prepared for different meetings and trying to lead my team in the best way I can. Like, I feel like I have six people that operate at such a high level. As long as I can give them the correct direction and way to go, good things will happen. So I try to be as intentional as I can about that. And then in my free time, I want to spend as much time as I can with my wife and my six month old and my dog.
Winning.
So don't neglect winning what recruiting has done this time of year where the coaches are involved, Are you meeting with them and showing them people during this time of the season.
Yeah.
Right now in season, every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning, we spend thirty minutes with the offense and the defense presenting recruits. It might be guys we've watched before, it might be our current commits. We see their role being information and knowledge is power, so we want them to be exposed to everything we're seeing and every critical player that.
Needs to get in front of them.
That's the time to do it, and then I have a little bit more time with coach sat during position meetings. When the coaches are in position meetings, we can sit down together and you know, strategize on our roster and and different recruits that he needs to see.
What impact is the shake Lee indoor practice facility having.
Oh, it's been tremendous from a recruiting standpoint. I think it just ties everything together for the recruits. We became a big twelve team, we've started winning, and now they see the facility, and some that have come before and didn't now they're like, Okay, this legitimizes everything. It checks every box that Cincinnati's legitimately in the in the ballgame.
Being a real power for team. From the team perspective, I think it's even more critical as much of a recruiting advantage it is our players rehab, I call it prehab, that's probably not the right word, but like training their bodies to not get hurt ahead of time, like what Aaron Himmler does and what Nico palace EDDI do down there in our training room, in our weight room. Like you talk about the elite of the elite, they're as good as it gets. So we have so many resources.
I think I read an article this came out like six years ago, so the numbers might be a little different now. But James Harrison, the Steelers ed rusher, he used to spend I think it was like five hundred thousand dollars every off season doing different modalities to.
Get his body right.
We have every single thing he used and more in our facility. And when you tell that to recruits, it's like, we're going to invest in you in your personal development, your football development. We're going to invest in you in rev share and nil. But you're gonna have every resource right at the tips of your fingers in an extremely functionalit building. It's a compelling deal for them and it really really helps.
That's a great nugget because I remember James Harrison spent one year with the Bengals, okay, and I remember all the stuff he was doing for that freakish physique that he had back then. Zach, this has been a lot of fun. Always appreciate your time. Congratulations on the job you and your staff along with the coaching staff, have done and putting together the roster of the twenty second ranked team in the country with a chance to play for a big twelve championship in a few weeks.
Thank you. It's a lot of work still to be done.
All right, let's hear it for Zach Graft that is just about going to do it for our show tonight. Thanks to Joe Strecker, our on site engineer. Thanks to Joe Waddell back in the studio, we've got stuff to give away for the folks who are here at the original Montgomery in you've been listening to the Scott Centerfield Radio Show on seven hundred WLW