Cincinnati Head Coach Tommy Tuberville
On Cincinnati's performance tonight: Tough night. We didn't start playing, especially on the offensive side of the ball, until about the middle of the third quarter. We just can't get balanced. We didn't block anybody on the offensive line the first half. They [USF] just lined up and whooped us. We knew they'd be the better defense that we'd play all year long, but we thought we would have some answers for what they were doing, but it didn't work. Got a lot of work to do. We'll play better football teams coming up. Don't take anything away from USF, they played hard. It was their first win and congratulations to Coach Taggart. He's worked hard and their football team's getting better, but we have to play better than that. We have to play and coach better than what we played today.
On Cincinnati's defense: Defensively, we played well enough to win. We played hard and we played fast and we played physical, but you can't give up 14 points on the road. It's not going to happen. You give up 14 points on fumbles and it's hard to overcome that.
On Cincinnati's offense: We haven't played like a very positive football team since really the first football game. We just haven't gotten much better, we haven't gotten much more physical on the offensive line. When you get 2nd and one at the 9-yard line, you have to be able to get one yard. We kept turning people loose. Not much leadership on the offensive line. We're going to start getting it. We made changes in the third quarter - changed centers - I thought that helped, but we have to get the right combination.
On Brendon Kay: One guy that did play his tail off was Brendon Kay. The doctors wanted to pull him out at halftime. He got hit in his sternum and he could hardly breathe, but he wanted to go so we gave him a couple of opportunities to end the third quarter and he played pretty good and he got better and better, and it was a gutsy effort.
On if Ben Flick's passing away affected the team's performance: No, our guys were ready to play. You can't go back on what happened. Again, that's a tragedy. That'll be on their minds all year long, but that had nothing to do with them knocking fumbles loose and blocking field goals. We were much more into the game than that. We just have to find a way to quit shooting ourselves in the foot. In both games we've lost this year, we pretty much turned it over and not made any plays of our own to get some easy points.
Greg Blair, LB #51
On how the game turned against them: We got a couple tough breaks. The first drive, we get a forced fumble, we take the momentum. Then, we get a field goal blocked for a touchdown. After that it seemed like a roller coaster, the whole game, it was a lot of ups and a lot of downs. Next game we just have to re-group.
On their recent struggles: We just need everyone to do their job. We have a lot of people not doing their job on every play. The plays that they’re not doing their job, it’s killing us.
On what he thought of USF: I was telling the guys in the locker room that they’ve got nothing to lose, so this is going to be one of the more trap games. Night game, they’ve got their fans here trying to cheer them on, to see them get their first win of the season. We knew it was going to be a dog fight and we prepared for it well… we didn’t execute our calls.
Ralph David Abernathy IV, RB #1
On the momentum shifts early: From then on, we could just never get the momentum back on our side. We would move the ball, move the ball, move the ball, and then we wouldn’t be able to punch it in at the end. We finally scored, then the blocked field goal and momentum back on their side, so it just seemed like we could never get clicking or get in a rhythm.
On whether he was surprised by USF’s performance: No, we knew they were going to fight hard. First conference game, they had been 0-4, so we expected them to come out and play a hard game. That’s what they did, they gave us their best shot.
On the adversity they have faced: Normally the team with the most adversity is the team that comes out on top. To me, honestly, the only way to go, as an offense and as a team, is up.
On the offense coming together at the end: That’s Cincinnati football. We fight, we fight, we fight until we can’t fight any more. That’s something that’s expected from this offense.
