Rich Rodriguez Cincinnati postgame 2026

Boy, I told the sideline reporter, I think I've been physically ill for three and a half weeks, but no, it's really been three and a half weeks and three and a half quarters that just tickled to death to sneak one out of there, and I looked all against all kind of odds it looked like, and I'm going to really enjoy this win. This year, to pull one out like that? Yeah, and it looked like the same story, right? I mean, just, you know, they scored, and we couldn't, you know, get over the hump. You know, we tied up, and then they'd score, and we tied up, and then they'd score, and it looked like, ah, the same old thing. And then we got up to the fourth down and then almost blocked it. I think it was a read, I think, for him if he was going to run it or kick it, and he kicked it and rose down to the one, and I'm like, you know, I've been here before. And so we – the big key was the pass, of course, and how about Mike Hawkins? He was phenomenal. I mean, he was – I didn't know he threw for 464, but he made some great throws, and we hung in there. And once we got into Jack's range, you know, we could have maybe tried to score and all that, but I felt good with ball in the middle field, trusted Jack, and he nailed it. Cincinnati did a good job of slowing down your run game. They forced the throw, but did you know going in you'd have to, and how did you – No, it just – you know, there's certain ways. You know, sometimes when they trigger the safeties quickly and they got people in the box. And I got to watch the film. I didn't think we had our best game blocking-wise. And, you know, you got to give them some credit for that. But it also opened up some big pass plays too. So I felt comfortable, you know, even though the first couple drives were terrible, I felt comfortable that we could move the ball. It was just, it was the same kind of, I don't know if pressure is the right word, the same kind of like, oh, my gosh, we got to answer it. We got to answer it. We got to answer it. And you just needed one shot at the end. I didn't think it would start at the one, but, you know, it's hard. It's hard winning. It's just hard, and it's very frustrating to know that we have some pieces in place, but we also have a lot of work to do, obviously, to clean up if we want to win any games going forward. In terms of having them success through the air, was that something you saw even in the game plan going in, or is that how the game unfolded that you had both? You know, it's kind of checkers, not chess. You know, if they play a certain way in a run game, or fit a certain way with your safeties or your nickels or your whatever, then it's going to give some space. But also our guys, I think, you know, made a lot of open field plays. D.J. Epps was phenomenal in the open field. And I don't know what his – okay, he had 10 catches for 163 yards. He made a lot of them miss in the open field. I mean, Prince made a couple great catches, the one at the end. I thought Ryan Ward was really good after the catch as well. So, you know, we didn't run the ball as well, I got to watch the film, but Mike never panics, and he was seeing the field pretty good, especially in the pro game. Cincinnati's running back had 100 yards in the first half, but only 18 in the second half. What can you say about the adjustments that you guys made to slow him down? Yeah, I don't know if we made any adjustments. They just threw the ball. You know, we didn't. Yeah, but we made some stops. You know, the thing that was frustrating is that, you know, I'll question myself. We had third, they had third and five, and they got a holding penalty, and they threw it out of bounds, and they said fourth and five, and I'm like, but they're in field goal range so do you want to make a kick a field goal and take the lead or make them fourth and 15 and get a first down I move them back and they they get the first down you know what I mean and so it could be really really frustrating and i don't think our guys aren't playing hard but we give up some big plays that are just you know head scratching and i've got to watch the film and find out how it happens if if we're playing cover three how does it happen you got a wide open deep ball and those are the kind of things that you know we're lucky i say fortunate it to win uh when you give up some of those like that you talked about the way that mike was seeing the field and kind of you know his confidence does that kind of put that in perspective just the way he played yeah because mike and i've said it over the year he can make all the throws and we got pretty good wide outs but he's such a dynamic runner people say well you know but you know we want to we didn't run the ball well today i'm looking at it we did not run the ball well but i want us to see the film because the way they were playing it the way they were blitzing you know the way they were playing their nickel sam and the and the they were giving us some bubble screens and stuff like that so you know we had we had to do uh a different thing but you know there's we have i have no hesitation on any pass play if mike can make the throw and uh today he made made a lot of and the best one was the one on on the two yard line with you know whatever it's a minute something going to game a deep ball to prince i mean that was we tell them Don't overthrow it. Give them a chance. Prince is a big, strong guy, and it was a great throw, and I think that was the play of the game for us. Rich, what did the stop at the end of the game from the defense do for Zach's confidence that the whole defense was over? Yeah, I hope so because they had to get a stop to win, and they got a stop. Yeah, I thought we'd have decent field position and then, you know, the road punt on the one-yard line. But, yeah, we don't have that chance to win, right, if our defense doesn't make that key stop, and that was – and if it went to overtime, I felt confident. there because we got you know our crowds into it speaking of which i mean every game we've had this year we've had great crowds and it's hard to kind of get them it's hard to keep a crowd into it if you let them or not say let them score if they're scoring right your crowd gets into when you're playing great on all three sides of the ball but you know our fans are are phenomenal and it it made a difference i think in the end of the game what were you were you so animated about it looked like in the final minutes with your guys trying to get into the sideline look like there was a delay Yeah, I was waiting to see how long you would take before you asked the first negative question. I don't even know that's negative. No, in fact, if I'm not animated, there's something wrong, right? No, I would tell you exactly what it was because we were going to – it was fourth down, we were going to go punt safe. And every time we huddle on a timeout, you know, like everybody involved in the defense gets in the huddle and there's 50 guys in there and all that. And I'm like, we're going to go punt safe. Only the 11 guys that are in punt safe go out there Because the last thing I want to do is have 12 on the field and give them a stupid penalty for a first down. And so when one guy kind of creeped up in there and tried to beat it, you know, man, get out. You know what I mean? So that's all it was. It wasn't that bad. No, it wasn't that bad. But for me, I'm like hyper-vigilant on not having stupid stuff happen. Rich, Jack Cassidy with the pressure kick, I mean, he'd never done that before. What did you think? Yeah, and I think he's kicked – I mean, he's kicked well all year. His kickoffs were really good. He had one bad kickoff and the wind kind of took it out. But I felt really good. He was – in a way, he was banging the ball all day. I mean, it wasn't just in the goal post. It looked like it was in the middle of the goal post. So – and it was a – what was it, 35-yarder, something like that? Yeah. Yeah, he's been really good with that. So – but the operation was good. And I think the hold was really good. I don't know if the hold was out. But, you know, those guys – we made some special teams plays today. It was good. Coach, what kind of growth have you seen from DJ Epps this season leading up to a game like this? Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of questions, I think, last week or some week about he didn't get a lot of balls. It was a lot of the way they were playing us. The way they were playing us today, the slot was going to have a lot of opportunities, whether it was bubble screens or some play-action passes. But he's got great ball skills. But he even showed me something today more in the open field than I had seen. I mean, he'd made people miss before, but today he made a lot of guys miss. you know we missed a lot of tackles too it was really it wasn't good but you know dj uh made them miss a lot of tackles as well and that was uh that was the key okay thank you very much all right thanks guys