In this week’s press conference head football coach Tommy Tuberville quickly glossed over Cincinnati’s 52-7 win over Central Florida, spending less than a minute talking about the Knights, and moved right along to previewing the Houston Cougars, who have been garnering our attention for most of the season.
STRAY OBSERVATIONS
- Tommy Sniffles: 0, again!
- Obviously the headliners from Saturday’s drubbing of UCF were Gunner Kiel and his 15-15, five touchdown day, and Shaq Washington becoming the school leader in career receptions, but Tuberville gave left tackle Parker Ehinger some props as well.
- He’s not sugar coating the fact that Houston is a great football team and Greg Ward darn near impossible to stop. Hopefully the players understand that as well.
- Apparently Chad Banschbach isn’t on scholarship and has undergone several surgeries over his time at UC just to stay on the team. Incredible resilience right there and hopefully he’s rewarded with a scholarship sometime down the road.
- “We don’t want [Kiel] to get hurt.” So stop calling so many zone-reads and designed quarterback draws. I get that’s part of the offense but when you see them running 10-15 times per game, that’s a little excessive considering Gunner Kiel’s injury history. This probably isn’t anything Eddie Gran can change this season, as the system is already established, but I hope he takes a hard look at the offense this offseason to see if he can redesign some of those schemes such that the quarterback doesn’t run nearly as much.
- Tuberville has high praise for the secondary and safety Tyrell Gilbert in particular. Part of that is the fact that UConn and UCF aren’t at the caliber offensively of the likes of Miami (FL), Memphis, or even Temple. But the young secondary, whose lone senior is converted quarterback Jarred Evans, has shown signs of improved over the last few weeks. They’ll look bad at times but as a whole will only get better as this season goes on.