October 22, 2024 • 11 mins
UC radio color analyst Jim Kelly Jr previews Bearcats/Buffs.
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Podcasts of The Mo Egger Radio Show are a service of Longnecks Sports Grill.
Listen to the show live weekday afternoons 3:00 - 6:00 on ESPN1530.
Listen Live: ESPN1530.com/listen
Get more: https://linktr.ee/MoEgger
Follow on X: @MoEgger
Instagram too: @MoEgger
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
What's up?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Four minutes after four ESPN fifteen thirty Moegger broadcasting from
Buffalo Wild Winds in Middletown. We are here till six o'clock.
We just gave away a Bengals hoodie, a Nike golf hoodie.
By the way from bud Light. We've got tickets to
the game on Sunday, Bengals Eagles. You've got to get
here between now and six o'clock. I want to get
right to our guests because he is taking a break
(00:23):
in the middle of a gig and kind enough to
join me. You'll hear him on the Scott Sadderfield Show.
You'll hear him Saturday night. You see in Colorado from
Boulder kickoff at ten fifteen on seven hundred WLW. The
color analyst on UC football broadcast, Our guy, Jim Kelly,
Thank you so much for joining me, Jim. What's going on?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Hey, not much? Mo I'm like you said, here to
break here at the love of Farmers Market. Beautiful day
out of here and all is good. All is good?
Right now?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Are the Bearcats good?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
They are? They really are so. Looking at the Colorado
stats today, they come in averaging thirty two points a game, right,
we know that good they are offensively well, if you
go back and you look at uc UP and you
look at Arizona State, guess what. They were averaging thirty
two and thirty three points a game, and the Bearcats
(01:15):
held them to know, well under twenty points. So this
defense has come to life, and the offense can score
with anybody. The Bearcats are averaging just a little over
thirty They were up around thirty two to thirty three,
but the last couple of games they've been held down
a little bit against good defenses. But they are good.
They are good. And I got to tell you particularly,
(01:38):
I know you know, we talked a lot about this
early in the year with the three three five defense
and new defensive coordinator Tyson Bite, and you know, teams
that seem to run at will against the Bearcats early
in the season, they're not having that success right now.
And the Bearcats look like they've figured out how to
run this defense and they're playing really, really well defensively
(01:58):
right now when their offense isn't isn't killing them.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
It feels to me like on defense. And you and
Dan have talked about this during game broadcasts, and I
have chatted with some players about this. It feels like
there's a comfort level with the system that they're now
reacting instead of thinking, whereas early in the season you
could almost see them trying to figure out where they
needed to be, Are they in the right position, who
(02:23):
are they covering that sort of thing, And it feels
to me like the light bulb switched on during the
bye week. Is that a fair assessment.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Oh, I would agree with you all the way coach
Saderfield said, And remember they lost to Texas Tech forty
four to forty one. He mentioned thirty to forty missed
assignments in that game, which was kind of right before
the bye and at that particular point in time, like
you just said, it seems like, particularly against uc UP
and then this past weekend it gets to Arizona State,
(02:55):
the light bulb came on and they just played really,
really well. And you hear the time, you hear the
term all the time in football, play fast, and that
doesn't mean just because you have speed, that means you
don't have to think about things. You react and it's
just become second nature for you. And I think that's
where the Bearcats are with this three three five defense,
right now. It took a while, but they're there now.
(03:16):
And you know, I'm not saying they're gonna, you know,
shut out Colorado by any means. This team can score
a will. But at the same time, if they can
hold them, you know, down to twenty twenty five points,
they've got a chance to win this football game. They
really do. And you know, the answer to your first
question is they have become good. They really have. At
five and two, three and one in the Big Twelve,
(03:36):
they're good.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I also feel like, and look, it's not like they
execute two perfection offensively. They should have scored more points
I thought against Arizona State, but they can at least
come at you with a lot of different tools, a
lot of different weapons. We've talked about how good Joe
Royer is and that's an NFL tight end, and what
they can do on the running game, and then the
(03:59):
emergence of Tony Johnson in the slot, complimenting what Xavier
Henderson can do. And so they're they're not always clicking
on all cylinders. And maybe that'll come, and perhaps it
has to come on Saturday. But I do feel like,
and this is more of a statement in a question,
I do feel like they've built an offense that has
become pretty difficult to prepare for.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I would agree with you. You know, they they've left
a lot of points on the field and not a lot,
but some points on the field and every game. And
I agree with you against Arizona State in particular, or
they could have put that game away a lot earlier.
And but all in all, you know, to your point,
you know they absolutely the running game is great and
(04:41):
it's not just Corey Kiner right now. Soorsby had some
nice runs, Evan Pryor had the long touchdown run, and
then you get to the wideouts or you know, the
receivers will call it. You got you. You mentioned Joe Royer,
He's come into his own. Exavier Henderson was having a
great year and all of a sudden they started putting
the safety over closer to him than double Hi. Well
(05:02):
that took him away, but it opened up people like
Tony Johnson or Joe Royer. So there's a lot of weapons,
and you know, you pick your poison on who you
want to stop right now. And I know you know
the feeling today is Colorado's going to do what they
can to put people in the box. And stop the run. Well,
I got to say, you know, right now, you know,
(05:23):
Shude or Sanders is really really good, but brendan Swersby's
not far behind him. He throws a really really nice ball.
He does a very efficient job of running this offense.
He's got good receivers and a lot of weapons to
throw to.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Has he exceeded I mean, I think the answer is, yes,
he's exceeded your expectations. But but can you just talk
us through what you've seen from him relative to what
you thought you were going to be seeing.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Well, I mean, I think it's like anything we really
didn't know. He, you know, is a young freshman at
Indiana last year. He's played six games in his career.
He won one out of six, I believe. I think
he started seven games, but one out of six last
year he was able to win. And there's a lot
(06:08):
of people saw something. But think about think about the
big ten teams that went out looking for quarterbacks. Okay,
like let's just take one that we know pretty well, Wisconsin. Okay,
they didn't come after him. They saw him last year.
I don't know if they saw him, you know, play live,
but they saw him on film. They didn't come after him.
They went after somebody else, and from that perspective, you know,
(06:30):
I think he snuck up on some people. But I
have to give the Bearcat coaching staff a ton of
credit for being able to select this guy out of
all the different quarterbacks that are out there. And I
think if you look at percentages of players that go
into the portal every year, not necessarily number of players,
but percentages of position, I think quarterback would be number
(06:50):
one by by by far, you know, as opposed to maybe,
you know, wide receivers, sure in the numbers, because there's
three or four in every team. But at the same time,
they did a great job of finding Brendan sowersby recruiting him,
doing the things they needed to make him feel comfortable.
And I just you know, Scott Saderfield took a lot
of slack last year, earlier in the year, and maybe
(07:13):
rightfully so for the Pittsburgh game, you know, and I
don't know that that was his fault, but that's a
game they should have won. But that being said, this
team's come together very very nicely, and he's done it
in a number of ways. Good quality football players but
also good people that like to be around each other
and it's you know, I think that's going to be
rarer and rarer in these days of the nil and
(07:34):
these days of the transferred portal where you even talk
about chemistry and team unity and things like that. But
somehow the Bearcats have been managed to do it and
it's certainly helding them along this year.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
How do they fix their issues closing out halves, whether
it be in the kicking game or just the overall
function that for the for the games they've played in
this year, they've missed a kick at the end of
the half. They had the issue against Miami where Royal
fumbled at the end, kind of a flukey play, but
it's come back to bite him twice. Is it merely
a matter of make the kicks? And then I guess
(08:07):
along with that, is there a kicking problem?
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Well, you know, we've seen Nathan Hawks, who's the kicker,
performed very very well. We've also seen him even on
some short wins and an extra point and then of
course some longer kicks miss and you know you're going
to be down the stretch, You're going to be in
some tight games, and quite honestly, this could be a
(08:31):
you know, a thirty four to thirty one game this week,
and it may come down to a kick. And I
think I don't want to say it's a problem because
he's shown that he can do it, but at the
same time, he's got to be able to do it consistency, consistently,
and I think we've all gotten to the point when
we watch the NFL kickers, they're so daggon good anymore,
you know, from long distances and as far as their
(08:53):
accuracy that we think everybody's that way. Well, we saw
this past weekend with Arizona State, you know, two field
goals that were absolutely kind of the ugliest kicks I've
seen in a long long time that they missed, and
not that it would have won the game for him,
but it would have put him into the game, you know,
and they had. Anytime you're close like that, you've got
a chance to come back and win. So kicking is
(09:15):
very important. And Kenny Dillingham made a comment after the
game about, you know, having a tryout for kicker, and
he regretted it, came back and apologized to the young
kicker at Arizona State that he shouldn't have said that.
But I think it just emphasizes the importance of the
kicking game in the college game, and the Bearcats are
going to need that down the road. So I don't
know that it's a problem because we've seen that Nathan
(09:36):
Hawks can do it. Whether it's a mental thing, whether
there's a physical thing. You know, that's up to you know,
Kerry Combs and in the special team staff to try
to figure out what's going on with him. But you know, honestly,
I think he sooner or later this year is going
to kick one of you know, forty to fifty some
yards to win a football game.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah, I hope. So, I know you have a lot
going on, man, I appreciate you carbon had some time
travel safe the Boulder. We'll see out there.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, we'll see you out in the Boulder. Okay, Mo, Thanks,
I look forward to it.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
That's Jim Kelly. He's got the game with Dan Horde,
Tony Pike and myself on Saturday night. U see in
Colorado from Boulder kickoff late night, twen fifteen. Our pregame
coverage will start after the nine o'clock news and more
tonight in the Scott Sadafield Radio Show from eight to
nine on seven hundred WLW. We're at Buffalo Wild Wings
(10:29):
in beautiful Middletown. It is a gorgeous day outside. We're
having fun inside. We've got buy one, get one half
off traditional wings. We've got ice cold, bud light, we've
got Bengals Eagles tickets were given away. We've got a lot.
But you can't get any of it if you're not here.
So when you get off work, come on out and
hang out with us. And again, if you're going up
seventy five, certainly from where I was coming from, just
(10:53):
keep it, keep it within. I didn't get pulled over,
but I could have. The guy had me did and uh,
hopefully he had powers of persuasion. I haven't gotten a
knock on wood. I haven't gotten a speeding ticket in
sixteen years. It was in South Bend, Indiana, and so
it's been a while. But a lot of revenue enhancement.
(11:15):
And they don't like it when you call it that,
by the way, they get mad at me when I
you'll warn people revenue and not revenue enhancement. Yeah, anyway,
just be cool up seventy five and you'll be fine.
Then get here and hang out at Buffalo Wild Wings.
It's a quarter araph for four. I'm gonna, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna ask you to give somebody a chance when
we come back on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station,
What's up?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Four minutes after four ESPN fifteen thirty Moegger broadcasting from
Buffalo Wild Winds in Middletown. We are here till six o'clock.
We just gave away a Bengals hoodie, a Nike golf hoodie.
By the way from bud Light. We've got tickets to
the game on Sunday, Bengals Eagles. You've got to get
here between now and six o'clock. I want to get
right to our guests because he is taking a break
(00:23):
in the middle of a gig and kind enough to
join me. You'll hear him on the Scott Sadderfield Show.
You'll hear him Saturday night. You see in Colorado from
Boulder kickoff at ten fifteen on seven hundred WLW. The
color analyst on UC football broadcast, Our guy, Jim Kelly,
Thank you so much for joining me, Jim. What's going on?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Hey, not much? Mo I'm like you said, here to
break here at the love of Farmers Market. Beautiful day
out of here and all is good. All is good?
Right now?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Are the Bearcats good?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
They are? They really are so. Looking at the Colorado
stats today, they come in averaging thirty two points a game, right,
we know that good they are offensively well, if you
go back and you look at uc UP and you
look at Arizona State, guess what. They were averaging thirty
two and thirty three points a game, and the Bearcats
(01:15):
held them to know, well under twenty points. So this
defense has come to life, and the offense can score
with anybody. The Bearcats are averaging just a little over
thirty They were up around thirty two to thirty three,
but the last couple of games they've been held down
a little bit against good defenses. But they are good.
They are good. And I got to tell you particularly,
(01:38):
I know you know, we talked a lot about this
early in the year with the three three five defense
and new defensive coordinator Tyson Bite, and you know, teams
that seem to run at will against the Bearcats early
in the season, they're not having that success right now.
And the Bearcats look like they've figured out how to
run this defense and they're playing really, really well defensively
(01:58):
right now when their offense isn't isn't killing them.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
It feels to me like on defense. And you and
Dan have talked about this during game broadcasts, and I
have chatted with some players about this. It feels like
there's a comfort level with the system that they're now
reacting instead of thinking, whereas early in the season you
could almost see them trying to figure out where they
needed to be, Are they in the right position, who
(02:23):
are they covering that sort of thing, And it feels
to me like the light bulb switched on during the
bye week. Is that a fair assessment.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Oh, I would agree with you all the way coach
Saderfield said, And remember they lost to Texas Tech forty
four to forty one. He mentioned thirty to forty missed
assignments in that game, which was kind of right before
the bye and at that particular point in time, like
you just said, it seems like, particularly against uc UP
and then this past weekend it gets to Arizona State,
(02:55):
the light bulb came on and they just played really,
really well. And you hear the time, you hear the
term all the time in football, play fast, and that
doesn't mean just because you have speed, that means you
don't have to think about things. You react and it's
just become second nature for you. And I think that's
where the Bearcats are with this three three five defense,
right now. It took a while, but they're there now.
(03:16):
And you know, I'm not saying they're gonna, you know,
shut out Colorado by any means. This team can score
a will. But at the same time, if they can
hold them, you know, down to twenty twenty five points,
they've got a chance to win this football game. They
really do. And you know, the answer to your first
question is they have become good. They really have. At
five and two, three and one in the Big Twelve,
(03:36):
they're good.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I also feel like, and look, it's not like they
execute two perfection offensively. They should have scored more points
I thought against Arizona State, but they can at least
come at you with a lot of different tools, a
lot of different weapons. We've talked about how good Joe
Royer is and that's an NFL tight end, and what
they can do on the running game, and then the
(03:59):
emergence of Tony Johnson in the slot, complimenting what Xavier
Henderson can do. And so they're they're not always clicking
on all cylinders. And maybe that'll come, and perhaps it
has to come on Saturday. But I do feel like,
and this is more of a statement in a question,
I do feel like they've built an offense that has
become pretty difficult to prepare for.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I would agree with you. You know, they they've left
a lot of points on the field and not a lot,
but some points on the field and every game. And
I agree with you against Arizona State in particular, or
they could have put that game away a lot earlier.
And but all in all, you know, to your point,
you know they absolutely the running game is great and
(04:41):
it's not just Corey Kiner right now. Soorsby had some
nice runs, Evan Pryor had the long touchdown run, and
then you get to the wideouts or you know, the
receivers will call it. You got you. You mentioned Joe Royer,
He's come into his own. Exavier Henderson was having a
great year and all of a sudden they started putting
the safety over closer to him than double Hi. Well
(05:02):
that took him away, but it opened up people like
Tony Johnson or Joe Royer. So there's a lot of weapons,
and you know, you pick your poison on who you
want to stop right now. And I know you know
the feeling today is Colorado's going to do what they
can to put people in the box. And stop the run. Well,
I got to say, you know, right now, you know,
(05:23):
Shude or Sanders is really really good, but brendan Swersby's
not far behind him. He throws a really really nice ball.
He does a very efficient job of running this offense.
He's got good receivers and a lot of weapons to
throw to.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Has he exceeded I mean, I think the answer is, yes,
he's exceeded your expectations. But but can you just talk
us through what you've seen from him relative to what
you thought you were going to be seeing.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Well, I mean, I think it's like anything we really
didn't know. He, you know, is a young freshman at
Indiana last year. He's played six games in his career.
He won one out of six, I believe. I think
he started seven games, but one out of six last
year he was able to win. And there's a lot
(06:08):
of people saw something. But think about think about the
big ten teams that went out looking for quarterbacks. Okay,
like let's just take one that we know pretty well, Wisconsin. Okay,
they didn't come after him. They saw him last year.
I don't know if they saw him, you know, play live,
but they saw him on film. They didn't come after him.
They went after somebody else, and from that perspective, you know,
(06:30):
I think he snuck up on some people. But I
have to give the Bearcat coaching staff a ton of
credit for being able to select this guy out of
all the different quarterbacks that are out there. And I
think if you look at percentages of players that go
into the portal every year, not necessarily number of players,
but percentages of position, I think quarterback would be number
(06:50):
one by by by far, you know, as opposed to maybe,
you know, wide receivers, sure in the numbers, because there's
three or four in every team. But at the same time,
they did a great job of finding Brendan sowersby recruiting him,
doing the things they needed to make him feel comfortable.
And I just you know, Scott Saderfield took a lot
of slack last year, earlier in the year, and maybe
(07:13):
rightfully so for the Pittsburgh game, you know, and I
don't know that that was his fault, but that's a
game they should have won. But that being said, this
team's come together very very nicely, and he's done it
in a number of ways. Good quality football players but
also good people that like to be around each other
and it's you know, I think that's going to be
rarer and rarer in these days of the nil and
(07:34):
these days of the transferred portal where you even talk
about chemistry and team unity and things like that. But
somehow the Bearcats have been managed to do it and
it's certainly helding them along this year.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
How do they fix their issues closing out halves, whether
it be in the kicking game or just the overall
function that for the for the games they've played in
this year, they've missed a kick at the end of
the half. They had the issue against Miami where Royal
fumbled at the end, kind of a flukey play, but
it's come back to bite him twice. Is it merely
a matter of make the kicks? And then I guess
(08:07):
along with that, is there a kicking problem?
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Well, you know, we've seen Nathan Hawks, who's the kicker,
performed very very well. We've also seen him even on
some short wins and an extra point and then of
course some longer kicks miss and you know you're going
to be down the stretch, You're going to be in
some tight games, and quite honestly, this could be a
(08:31):
you know, a thirty four to thirty one game this week,
and it may come down to a kick. And I
think I don't want to say it's a problem because
he's shown that he can do it, but at the
same time, he's got to be able to do it consistency, consistently,
and I think we've all gotten to the point when
we watch the NFL kickers, they're so daggon good anymore,
you know, from long distances and as far as their
(08:53):
accuracy that we think everybody's that way. Well, we saw
this past weekend with Arizona State, you know, two field
goals that were absolutely kind of the ugliest kicks I've
seen in a long long time that they missed, and
not that it would have won the game for him,
but it would have put him into the game, you know,
and they had. Anytime you're close like that, you've got
a chance to come back and win. So kicking is
(09:15):
very important. And Kenny Dillingham made a comment after the
game about, you know, having a tryout for kicker, and
he regretted it, came back and apologized to the young
kicker at Arizona State that he shouldn't have said that.
But I think it just emphasizes the importance of the
kicking game in the college game, and the Bearcats are
going to need that down the road. So I don't
know that it's a problem because we've seen that Nathan
(09:36):
Hawks can do it. Whether it's a mental thing, whether
there's a physical thing. You know, that's up to you know,
Kerry Combs and in the special team staff to try
to figure out what's going on with him. But you know, honestly,
I think he sooner or later this year is going
to kick one of you know, forty to fifty some
yards to win a football game.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah, I hope. So, I know you have a lot
going on, man, I appreciate you carbon had some time
travel safe the Boulder. We'll see out there.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, we'll see you out in the Boulder. Okay, Mo, Thanks,
I look forward to it.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
That's Jim Kelly. He's got the game with Dan Horde,
Tony Pike and myself on Saturday night. U see in
Colorado from Boulder kickoff late night, twen fifteen. Our pregame
coverage will start after the nine o'clock news and more
tonight in the Scott Sadafield Radio Show from eight to
nine on seven hundred WLW. We're at Buffalo Wild Wings
(10:29):
in beautiful Middletown. It is a gorgeous day outside. We're
having fun inside. We've got buy one, get one half
off traditional wings. We've got ice cold, bud light, we've
got Bengals Eagles tickets were given away. We've got a lot.
But you can't get any of it if you're not here.
So when you get off work, come on out and
hang out with us. And again, if you're going up
seventy five, certainly from where I was coming from, just
(10:53):
keep it, keep it within. I didn't get pulled over,
but I could have. The guy had me did and uh,
hopefully he had powers of persuasion. I haven't gotten a
knock on wood. I haven't gotten a speeding ticket in
sixteen years. It was in South Bend, Indiana, and so
it's been a while. But a lot of revenue enhancement.
(11:15):
And they don't like it when you call it that,
by the way, they get mad at me when I
you'll warn people revenue and not revenue enhancement. Yeah, anyway,
just be cool up seventy five and you'll be fine.
Then get here and hang out at Buffalo Wild Wings.
It's a quarter araph for four. I'm gonna, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna ask you to give somebody a chance when
we come back on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station,
Mo Egger News
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