Cincinnati head coach Luke Fickell took part in the American Athletic Conference coaches teleconference on Monday. He did a little bit of recapping this past weekend’s win over UCLA and then took several questions about the Bearcats’ upcoming matchup with the Ohio State Buckeyes. Here are the highlights of what Fickell had to say.
+ Saturday was a great win. “Any win is a great win.” The community did a great job. It wasn’t the cleanest game in the world. They didn’t play great, but they found a way to win and battled through the momentum shifts.
+ Very unemotional coming into this game because he can’t allow himself to get emotional. They are staying focused on the preparation and doing what they have to do to win this game. He’s not talking about getting tickets for family and stuff like that. He is avoiding all of that.
+ “We’ve got our hands full.” The FAU game was over before it started. OSU stayed vanilla defensively and didn’t have to do a lot of things offensively. They can still be explosive like that, however.
+ You’re always curious watching a new staff to see how the efficiency works. Not everybody does that well in week one but OSU had no issues there.
+ On adding former OSU receiver Garyn Prater to the roster, Fickell is hopeful to get him back healthy and doing more things with the offense. They recruited him early on in high school, but he was set on being a Buckeye. They are hoping his back is healed and ready to roll. It can be hard to get them back in the mix after the season has started.
+ Being without star safety James Wiggins last week, he said his defense ran around, but wasn’t the cleanest defense. They overcame some mistakes with great effort. UCLA created some of those issues with their shifts and motions. The greatest thing they learned was that they can play through some situations and they don’t have to be perfect as long as the effort is there.
+ Asked if he keeps in touch with the guys he recruited at OSU, he says he keeps up with how they’re doing. The first year, some guys would come down and see him on the bye week. But now in year three, everybody has a lot of stuff going on. He isn’t in contact with them much anymore, but he’s also not in contact with his family all that much during the season.
+ He doesn’t know Ryan Day. They have crossed paths one time at a charity event, but have since talked during some transfer situations for Blue Smith where Day was great to him.