The Bearcats jumped out to an early lead and capped off non-conference play with a win against Indiana on Saturday afternoon. During the postgame press conference, Luke Fickell discussed the double digit win via Cincinnati Athletics.
"“It’s an undefeated 3-0 opponent that’s a good football team. Another opportunity for us to play in front of this crowd and continue the streak we have here at home. As we’ve said since we’ve been here, there’s no difference between us and the guys in the Big Ten. We have expectations and in some ways, we even expect to play a little better.”"
Even though the Bearcats secured a third straight victory, it wasn’t a very clean performance in the second half. Following the win, Fickell explained what his team can improve on moving forward including offensive balance and penalties.
"“I don’t know that we did a good job of finishing. I’m not pointing my finger at any one side of the ball. This is a team that has to play together. I know we’re still growing. This was an opportunity for us to grow because we hadn’t been in that position. You have to be able to come out and finish things off by running the football and play clean defensively.”"
Cincinnati Football: Luke Fickell, Bearcats break down win over Indiana
Tyler Scott became the first receiver in school history with three touchdowns in one half as the Bearcats took a 38-10 lead at halftime. After finishing with 10 receptions for 185 receiving yards, Scott talked about the historic showing.
"“I owe that to the coaching staff for trusting me and developing me. Just really taught me how to be a receiver and a football player. They played a lot of quarters so there’s going to be a lot of one on one outside. It’s up to me to win some of those post routes and deep balls. That comes from film study and watching to see how the defensive back comes down.”"
The offense was scoring with relative ease in the first half before struggling to move the ball after halftime. Despite coming away with a blowout win, the Bearcats seem focused on getting better as Ben Bryant mentioned in the press conference.
"“They adjusted to what we were doing. We just have to execute better and learn from those mistakes. We struggled to run the ball too. I’m really happy we won. That’s obviously the goal every week but I’m really nit picky on myself and the offense in general so we’ll definitely go back and look at the tape to see what we have to do better.”"
Cincinnati is continuing to move in the right direction but Fickell and the program knows they have to execute at a higher rate in order to win another conference championship. The Bearcats are set to begin AAC play with a road trip to Tulsa next Saturday night.