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All right, here we go, second of three hours unfolding on a Thursday night, hanging out a long Next in rich Wood, Lance Pacallister, Rocky boymen, We've covered Bengals. This is the hour we sprayed all fields. Little U see football, a little bit on the high school football scene, the
fantasy football scene, and more. Get into the Bengals in our next segment, and much more at the eight o'clock hour, but without further Ado, let's talk to you see Bearcats number twenty one in the country, winners of sixth straight, one of two unbeatens in the Big twelve, and at home at Nippered for homecoming on Saturday versus the Baylor Bears. For more on that from Bearcat Journal Chad Brendle. How are you?
I'd like to request the trade.
What franchise would you go to? Chad?
Oh, I'm so when Nick got hired at UCLA, I got offered the site to be the publisher of the UCLA site, but Kelly was sick at the time, and Kelsey was little and I couldn't do it. So, you know, give me another year or two, and I'd love to go back to la I lived out there in my twenties and it was fabulous there.
You go, very cool.
All right.
Since I'm gonna ask you, and we're gonna talk a lot about offense, let me start with defense because you're the perfect person to ask this because you deal with it every day. There is a there is a a certain level of hand ringing within the fan base with this bend. But don't break three three five defense? Is it is it nitpicky or is their merit to concern for the defense in your.
Mind, well as a fan, it is incredibly annoying. Let's just acknowledge that right out front, like the other team, almost every time they touch the ball, good duc territory to the thirty five to forty yard line, and then some action happens. Then they start tightening up. They're getting, you know, getting off the field on third and fourth down. Although it feels like nobody's kicked a field goal against Cincinnati all year, everybody goes for it. I think there's
they've played seven games. It's either twenty three or twenty four fourth down attempts in seven games, which feels like a ton. So I think that adds to it. The main thing for me is are they keeping teams out of the end zone? Are they limiting because the point of playing this defense is to keep teams from getting over the top of you, beating you deep. And really, outside of the two plays against Kansas, they haven't given
up a ton of explosives. They have kept teams in front of them, made teams work long drives down the field, you know, and you're more likely at some point in time to make a mistake when you have to do that every series throughout a game, so in that sense it's working, but I get it. It drives me nuts sometimes as I'm watching a game, like are they ever
going to get off? Like this offense is hot? There have been two games where they you know, the Iowa State game, in the UCF game, the other team had the ball at the end of the half, the other team had the ball at the start of the second half, and they went over an hour without the offense touching. That is annoying, but the end result is they are fifth in the Big Twelve in points allowed, and that's the point. You're keeping the other team off the scoreboard.
Does it drive you crazy to watch? Is it? Is it viewer friendly? No? Absolutely not. But it's effective and with the talent that they have right now, they're working with what they've got.
And chat. I'll tell you this just from talking with defensive coordinators you know for the last however many years. You know, the guys they've been around a while used to say or they would say, you know, you used to you know, kind of care how many yards you gave up and what your passing yard was. And they're like, with with modern rules and modern offense, it's do they
score touchdowns? That that's all you care about, right, you know the stats for these defensive coordat and the ones that understand that and don't go crazy when oh my god, we gave it four and fifty yards of offense, but one was it. Don't go crazy on that are the ones that are going to stick around for a while.
And this is why this defense was designed. What people forget or don't really consider. This defense was designed by Matt Campbell and his staff at Iowa State that included Tyson Bite. In a period of time where Big twelve, almost every score was fifty six to fifty three, you know, and they had to come up. They came up with something that they felt like would put an umbrella on the other team's offense and limit the explosive plays, limit
the fifty sixty seventy yard touchdowns. And that's what's happened in Iowa State has been the best defense in this conference year over year for the better part of a decade playing this defense because they don't let you put points on the board. Cincinnati has played seven games the opponent has scored twenty or less in five of those seven games. It's working now you're playing better offenses coming up down the stairs. So we'll see. But so far it's working all right.
On the offensive side, they have so many different weapons, and I was struck by something Scott said and his coaches show this week that they don't with all the weapons, they don't feel the need to have to feed somebody to keep them happy. That a Cyrus Allen can go from one catch for I think minus three yards against UCF to three touchdowns last week, and there's just that general shared success of those weapons on that offense.
Yeah, And I mean Rocky can probably speak to this a lot better than me. When you go into a team meeting and you're scouting the next opponent, the number one thing is the previous game, right. Cyrus Allen was teams at the beginning of the year. Coming into the year, they bracketed Joe Royer because Joe Royer was the big name returning guy. They bracketed him, tried to take him away, and then other guys started having success, mainly Cyrus Allen.
So then team started saying, all right, we're gonna roll coverage desires Allen now, Jeff Caldwell's open now, Noah Jennings is open now, Caleb Good is open now, Joe Royer is back open again. And that's one of the great parts about Sorsby is he does a really and more importantly, maybe the offensive line because Sorsby is having time back there to read the defense. I mean, you go back to that third and sixteen that really kind of put
things on ice against Oklahoma States. Or he said that was his third read Jeff Caldwell over the middle for six for thirty eight yards in a first down. He doesn't get to his third read if he doesn't have the time that the offensive line is giving him. So it's a it's a multi faceted deal. And I mean the twenty twenty one guys aren't going to be happy with me, and we'll see how they finish. But right now, I think this is the best offense I've seen at U seasons two thousand and nine.
Wow.
Wow, big statement. Ched. Look, obviously this time of year, as you're getting into November, health is a big part of this thing. You look at the UC injury report, no injuries they you know Corleone's back that had no real devastating injuries. How big of a factors I'm moving forward.
It's a major factor. And it's a huge testament to Nico Palace that eat the strengthen conditioning coach, to Aaron Hendler, who I've never been around someone better at their job
than Aaron Himler is at his He's phenomenal. And also there's a reason you spend one hundred and fifty million dollars on that training facility because those guys get to get in there on Sunday and Monday and Tuesday and they're in the recovery tubs, and they're they're in the cryo chambers, and they're doing all the different things that help guys rest and recover. So you're not playing on lingering injuries as much as maybe you have been in
the past. I think it's been a huge factor, all three of those things working in Unison to have gotten them to this point. They're seven games in knock on Wood. They haven't really dealt with it. A Ton.
Baylor's offense productive, Baylor's quarterback dangerous. Yeah, tell Bearcat fans what they need to know about that Baylor offensive attack.
Well, if you didn't like the defense giving up a bunch of yards, might want to watch something else. Saturday at four because Baylor's gonna get a lot of yards. But guess what, when you dig into the numbers, they are not good scoring touchdowns in the red zone. And that has been one of the strengths of Cincinnati's defense. So keep an eye on that. If they don't, let you know, they can keep Baylor from doing what Kansas
did and hitting a couple of those splash touchdowns. If they can make them work all the way down the field and get into the red zone and score, that's been a strength of Cincinnatis. It's been a weakness of bailers. It also means the bailer's going to chew up a crap ton of yards between the twenties and you're probably gonna want to pull your hair out. But that's where
Cincinnati can win this game. They kick a lot of threes and leave points on the board when they do get into the red zone, because obviously the field shrinks and now you've got eight guys in coverage and people aren't running into open spaces, and you can make them earn it a little bit more in the red zone and Sorwyer Robertson's not standing back there just picking you apart.
So that's gonna be the interesting part for me. But they've got a great quarterback, they've got really good wide receivers, and the running game is okay. But they run so many plays that they're still averaging one hundred and forty yards a game on the ground, So you can't forget about the run game. But they want to pass, make no mistake. They want Robertson to stand back there and throw the ball all day long. You just have to make sure it's for ten fifteen yards, not forty fifty.
Last question, it's got to be about hoops. And as much as I learned my license last year of not putting much stock in exhibition games, after what they did, do Oiowa State give me a takeaway, just something that jumped out at you. In the win over Michigan last week, I was.
Really impressed with there's two true freshmen and a red chair freshman. I was really impressed with how they handled the atmosphere. Shawnabajev, Keshan Tillery, Tyler McKinley. I thought all three looked like they belonged the other big thing for me, and those three were a part of it. There were moments that different guys took over and had their little window. They had their period. It was bobon Miller early and Shawnabiev right before halftime, and Dayde Thomas towards the end,
and Kurt Curse. They hit a couple of big shots. We talked at nauseum last year about that team just failed to have others step up. Felt like every game and there was one guy that was playing well, one guy's playing okay, and then like seven guys that couldn't Tyler shoe and chew gum at the same time. This team needs three for I mean, there were six guys in double figures against you know, a Michigan team that's gonna be really good. Nobody's good at defense right now.
They're not where they need to be yet. But I felt a lot better about the number of guys that have the ability to step up and have those four or five minute stretches where they're playing really well.
All right, tell everybody about Bearcat Journal dot com. Keagan Nickolson been kicking butt this week, and while I'm thinking of it, congratulations on the the five hundredth edition of the Bearcat Journal podcast last night.
Nice that's a lot of Dave Simone and I talking like I is. Thank you, thank you for all the people that have listened. But my god, what are you doing with your life? Kegan? I missed being in my early twenties, Lance, I said, Keegan to Kansas City. So he's driving sending to Kansas City for Basketball media Days, he laughed, basketball media days today. When to Sayethville, Arkansas. They'll be there for the UC Arkansas exhibition tomorrow night and then he's got roughly sixteen hours to make the
ten hour drive back to Cincinnati. He said his goal is to be in his seat at four o'clock for homecoming.
Holy cow man.
Oh to be twenty four again, no doubt about that, no doubt he is.
Chad Brendel, Bearcat Journal, Bearcatjournal dot com. Yes, finish your thought up.
Sorry, go and support Kegan. He's working his butt off, no doubt, no doubt.
Thank you, sir. We'll talk next week.
Thanks gentlemen, appreciate it.
Chack Brendel, Bearcat Journal, Bearcat Journal dot Com. Up next, a little bit of what Charlie Goldsmith told me last night on Sports Talk about this Bengals run game. The decision to go with you from the defensive side of things and thoughts on what has happened to Cam Taylor Britt. That is all Ahead, He's rocky, I'm Lance.
It's long.
Next to in Richwood for the Roundtable Show seven hundred WLW