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August 1, 2024 14 mins
UC's fall camp is underway. Chad Brendel of Bearcat Journal joined us to discuss. 

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Twenty minutes after four o'clock.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
This is ESPN fifteen thirty broadcasting from the Madewell Restoration Studios.
We'll have a poll question here momentarily maybe two thanks
to United Heartland Insurance, the greatest place in the United
States to get insurance. Uhis dot com holding pattern for

(00:24):
our friend Chadrandall from Bearcat Journal dot com. Scott Saderfield's crew,
otherwise known as the UC football team, practicing this morning
at Nippert Stadium, second day of fall camp. They'll move
things to a higher ground this weekend. Full coverage of
that as they get ready for the season opener in
thirty one days against Towson. Bearcat Journal dot Com we

(00:47):
chat with Chad in in just a few minutes a season.
It is to a degree remarkable. Three years ago at
this time we were ramping up for what we thought
it would be a legitimate push for a college football
playoff bid for the Bearcats, which.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Ultimately they acquired.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
And you know that amid all the excitement about the
announcement of going into the Big twelve, and boy, the
air really has come out of the balloom quite quickly.
Perhaps this season the Bearcats can put it back in
Chad is here and he's with us to a talk
you see football.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
What's going on?

Speaker 3 (01:26):
I don't know. Apparently my phone once again does not
like this number, as it was sending you straight to
voicemail while I was awaiting your call.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, uh, you know, perhaps we could have mitigate it
that by calling you before we came back from break.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
It happens. But I'm here now and we're all good.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
That's right, yes, all right. Two days in what has stood.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Out team is significantly more athletic than a season ago.
No like that. That was the concern a year ago
is you know, did they have enough speed in the secondary?
Were they Were they fast and up at linebacker? The
answer to all of those questions orre they fasten up
at wide receiver. It was a resounding though, and that

(02:08):
you know, they also were not physically big enough, which
I think is still a little bit of a concern
of mine, especially you know, along the defensive front. But
the one thing that's you know, pretty abundant out there
if you know what you're looking for, is you can
go in the transfer portal and you can you can
recruit speed, and they did a lot of that, and

(02:29):
it is so far evident on the field. Would you
like some numbers? Now, I have numbers four last year,
Get how many players they had hit twenty two miles
an hour? You know that that little vest that they wear, Yeah,
looks like kind of like a sports brawl that tracks
your speed. Get how many players they had hit twenty
two miles an hour last year on the tracking system?

(02:52):
One one this year eleven. Wow. Last year, twenty two
guys hit twenty one miles an hour. This year thirty
seven over twenty one miles an hour, including the quarterback.
And how about this one though, this is the one
that blew me away. Everyone that they expect to play linebacker,

(03:15):
that they think is going to get minutes this year
was faster than all of the safeties and most of
the corners from last year. So you're not going to
be able to get that type of size right away
because some of that needs to be recruited and developed.
But you can go get much more athletic, and I

(03:38):
think they did that and that has been clear.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Is is there a legitimate quarterback competition or is that
just something Scott Saderfield alluded to on Tuesday because he
had to.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
My opinion is it's going to be Brendan Soresby. But
I will say this, Brady Licktenberg through the first two
days is having a really good camp. So if there
is not a quarterback competition, the way that you force
one is to go out there and throw the ball
really well, and so far that is what Brady Lichtenberg
has done. So we'll see. I mean, I will be

(04:15):
legitimately shocked if Brendon Sorosby is not the starting quarterback
for this football team. But at least Brady Lichtenberg is
it something to talk about.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
With his play so far, Brendon Sorosby has arm talent
that perhaps Emery Jones did not, which is great. How
significantly of a better quarterback could he be?

Speaker 3 (04:40):
The biggest thing for me, and it's one of the
more difficult things to do as a quarterback. He is
able to has been in practice. We'll see in games
he's been able to utilize the middle of the field.
That's one of the things I thought, whether it was

(05:01):
they had as much trouble as they did the getting
open or protecting the quarterback, like you can list the
myriad of issues that were out of out of the
control of Emory Jones a year ago. They could not
make defenses respect the middle of the field. So you
load up on the run and you put your your

(05:21):
defensive backs on an island and tell them watch the sidelines,
and you pretty much could shut down this passing game.
Especially that was one of the biggest problems I thought
in the red zone, like they just they could not
open up the middle of the field to open up,
you know, the other things that they wanted to do.
Back the linebackers off a little bit and get the

(05:41):
safeties out of the box. And that is the thing
I have seen from Soresby that makes me probably the
most excited about the potential of this offense. And we
talked about not not throwing the ball to the tight
ends or you know, I thought they had a pretty
good slot receiver last year that we didn't really hear
a whole lot from because you know, that's where slot
receivers work, is they get open in the middle of

(06:03):
the field and you hit them in space and you
let them run. And that was not a part of
the offense really at all last year. That is something
I think can help. The other thing that has had
me excited through the first couple of practices is watching
stores be spread it around. I mean, yesterday alone in
the first like real live action, they did his first

(06:25):
five passes. One went to Xavier Henderson, one went to
Tony Johnson, one went to Tyron Smith, Joe Royer, one
went to Corey Kyner. And you know, when you're seeing
a quarterback that's able to kind of keep the defense
off balance. And the other thing was when teams figured out,
well they're only throwing to Xavier Henderson, so we'll double
him and everybody else is out of the mix. Like

(06:48):
that's the kind of thing that really can can take
an offense from. It was rough last year in the
passing game. It was it was very difficult to watch
at times, and that has not been the case that
so far.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Things are looking very very good for Dante Corleone. Should
I expect to watch him on August thirty.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
First, I would be doubtful about opening day. I mean, one,
if you need him against an FCS school, you're probably
in trouble. But you know, I think you know there's
probably a timeline that they're working with on what they
have to do each step along the way to get

(07:30):
him back from you know, the specific thing that he
is dealing with. But my I was pleasantly surprised yesterday
and today to see how active he has been in practice.
He is not doing anything live yet, but he is
doing most of the individual stuff, the stuff that they're

(07:50):
doing with their position groups. He has been out there
quite a bit, and that gives me some optimism that
he is, if not ahead of schedule, is at least
right on schedule to be back somewhere fairly early in
the season. But week one, I wouldn't hold your breath
a little bit after that, Week two, week three, getting

(08:12):
into you know, closer to Big twelve player, it looks
like things are on track for that.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Who are these guys in the secondary.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
Well, I have been very pleased with what I have seen.
At safety. I think Makay Miller is the name that
you need to know. I think josh Mincoln's is that
you need to know. The safety can team that is
a pretty hot wild is another guy that I think
will will prop I think those three guys are your

(08:44):
starters at safety. I've spent a bunch of time over
the first two days watching that group because I we
talked about corner, but I thought they were even worse
at safety last year, and they were bad at corner,
and I thought they were worse at safety. Yeah, the
linebackers this year faster than the safeties last year. You can't.

(09:07):
You can't have that, right, So I paid a lot
of attention there. Another name of safety that I think,
you know has a chance to be to be pretty
good is Logan Wilson. Uh. And then there's a freshman
that that continues from the spring to catch my eye,
and that's Jaquan Thanks. When you get out to practice mode,

(09:29):
I'll point out Jaquan Thanks to you, and you will
look at him and he looks like he's been a bodybuilder,
like in his lower body for like a decade. Like
it's just freakish what his leg like. So those I've been,
you know, pleased with what I've seen at safety corner. Uh.
You know, Jordan Young has been pretty good. And then

(09:51):
there's a bunch of new names that that you know
they're trying to to work in and figure out. And uh.
One of those names that that makes me kind of excited, mo,
because I you know, it'd be good to be interesting, right,
there's nothing more interesting than having the nickname gravy. Yes,
and uh gravy was the second fastest guy on the

(10:15):
measuring system at twenty two point five miles an hour.
Uh so hopefully, well we'll maybe get to see some
gravy this season.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
When you think of the nickname gravy, speed and elusiveness
is not exactly what comes to mind.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
No, it was. It's it's it's a thin gravy.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, it's not.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
It's not like, uh, like sausage gravy. It's more like, uh,
like a what's the red eye gravy like the coffee.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, no, no, I'm no, I'm about gravy.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Very good is.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
I think most fans have settled into an area where
they feel like, uh, they got to get to a
bowl game and best best case, maybe seven victories.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Is that where we should be?

Speaker 3 (11:07):
I think I think that right now, Like I still
worry of the team. Just flashback Iowa State and Kansas
and West Virginia. You know, when you looked at the
size of those teams and compared them to Cincinnati, it
really wasn't a surprise as the game started, but they
were able to push Cincinnati around. They were significantly bigger.

(11:29):
So I still worry a little bit about that. When
they get to that back half of the schedule, which
is much tougher than the first half. I think all
of this mo comes down to the first five weeks.
You know, if they're four and one, and I think
we feel pretty good because that means they took advantage
of a the favorable portion of their schedule going into

(11:51):
the second half of the schedule, which is which is
more difficult, and hopefully at that point you're four and one,
you're starting to get some confidence, your team is starting
to to gel and play well together, and that leads
you in that you know, six seven win territory, but
getting higher than that, I mean you're looking at you
know that that trip to Kansas State, that trip to
Iowa State in the back end of the schedule where

(12:17):
much more significant improvements than anticipated would have to be
made for them to take that kind of leap on
the back half of the schedule. But the front half
it's right there for you. You beat Pit last year at
their place and kind of controlled that game. Now they
probably won't have a tight end playing but you get

(12:42):
them here and look me, they were bad at differt Stadium, yes,
like they were bad bad at different stadium. You need
to show that something that you're ready to defend on
a Historically, the past twenty years been one of the
toughest places to play in college football. That was not

(13:04):
the case last year. They won the FCS game and
then that was it. That was it, and you need
to beat pit here to build some momentum. And then
you get Houston here, you go up to Miami like
there's there's just a runway for this to start in
a pretty favorable fashion. But they have to they have
to step up and take care of it. So that's

(13:26):
that's the path I think is get out early and
then hang on late and try to get to a
bowl game and maybe improve it a little bit.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
Chad Brendel bearkat journal dot com joins us on Thursdays.
You see football a month away. Awesome stuff, man, Thank
you as.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
Always, appreciate you.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Bow you got one here you go. Follow Chad on
Twitter at Chad Rendel Chad. I think calling in from
Neptune to talk to you.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
You see football, you see in towsand in thirty one
days we are late twenty six from five ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
Thirty, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 4 (13:58):
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