UC Running Back Zylan Perry No. 6 Utah Week Interview

Russ Heltman of Cincinnati Bearcats Talk here chatting with the star rusher of the show alongside Cole Tabb this past weekend, Zylan Perry. Zylan, kind of your biggest breakout game, I would say, so far as a Bearcat. You posted, I want to start with this, a career high from what I saw in terms of single-game receiving yards. Going into the contest, did you have a feeling you might be kind of utilized out of the backfield like that? Was that just kind of a game flow thing, a read flow thing for J.C.? How were you able to tally that much yardage through the air? I didn't know I would get opportunities to catch the ball off the backfield. But I didn't know it was gonna be as many as it was. It was crazy. When you're getting targeted like that, on the third, fourth target, are you like, all right, it's just my day today. The ball's coming my way and I gotta just keep making plays. I caught the first one, I think that's what it was. I think it was to convert for down, but I didn't know if it was. I didn't know what down it was or nothing, but after that one, everything started going great. On the ground, I think you had roughly right around 40 yards, complemented Cole Tabb well. It just seems like the rushing attack is flowing in a really great way. From your view, being on the inside, how would you compare maybe how well this team's executing their rushing scheme compared to teams that you've been on in the past years? I would just say everybody just stood together. Everybody just won. And so, never one mess up, the next one, I'll make it right. The pregame speech, I think it was the Friday night speech from Coach Satterfield. They showed snippets of it on the Clifton Cut. What was your view? How did that kind of fire you up? How did that make you feel going into the game of him acknowledging you guys are underdogs? None of that matters. It's about hitting somebody in the mouth and who's going to be the most physical from the kickoff. It really fired me up, man. We were talking about it all week, that we could really upset them. Of course, Pascal told us a story when it was It was Friday about a shark. It's a shark story, but I don't remember what he said, but it was a good story, and it really fired us up It was like about a shark attack, a prey or something? No, I forgot it was like The mentality going into the game, how confident were you guys internally and then coming out of the first quarter down 6-3, just what was the feeling on the sidelines going into the game, coming out of that first quarter and then obviously I mean everything flipped it may have been the best second quarter in the history of Nippert Stadium on Saturday after the first quarter well after the first drive for real we knew we had a chance to win the game but as the game went on uh second quarter like you said it was good but going into halftime before halftime we scored I think we knew it was over from there the halftime mentality how how pumped up was that locker room going into that break like what well take me inside that locker room going into the the 20 minutes you guys had in between quarters it was just uh not getting complacent yeah because we knew we still had to fight the whole game like the second half we uh came out two turnovers but after that we just had to stay together top 10 team last week another top 10 team coming to Nippert Stadium this week this has never happened in the history of Nippert Stadium a top 10 actually i don't know that any top 15 or top 25 teams have ever gone back to back for Cincinnati opponents at home let alone top 10 it's definitely never happened that two top 10 opponents have played here how exciting is that for you guys and is it does it make it easier to to move on from that win and and look forward to that excitement of the upcoming matchup when you know you can't you can't worry about what happened last week when you got such a great Utah team coming in. Yeah, we just got to stay locked in until this week and not worry about what happened last week. Coach always say we're as good as our next game. Don't worry about the last one. The kind of mentality in the running back room. You guys are not interchangeable in a bad way, but in a great way. You guys can step in for one another. G-Payne goes down for a week or two. You step in. G-Payne fills in for you points in the in September Cole Tab has been stepping up and been one of the most electric rushers in the nation how like how close are you guys as a running back room take me inside the relationships and how you guys have bonded over what's been a short time I mean you guys all met each other for the first time I'm sure in January late December uh once you first got here we didn't know each other but as time go on we bonded we spent a lot of time with each other outside of So we just became close, like say Cole, he's been putting on a show. I know, G went down, I had to take advantage of my opportunity. Everything, everything was good and we like brothers for real, so. Zylan Perry, biggest attribute factor in your game, you're trying to shore up or tune up for the final five weeks of the season here. Honestly, as healthy as I can, cuz I never finished the season healthy. All right. So that's the biggest thing for me. Love it. Zylan Perry, everybody. You see running back.