UC's Scott Satterfield, Peek Jr., French, Tengesdahl, Tyo | Big 12

It's been a great summer, it's Coach Nico and the guys have really gotten after it. If you talk to some of our players, they know they're putting a lot of great work in, they're very competitive in everything that they're doing this summer. And it's a time for everybody to come together. As we all know, we've got a new building. It's been about a year now since we've been in it, and it's tremendous of what it does for our players. And the recovery aspect is such a huge part of that, with the hot tub, cold tub, steam room, sauna, red light, all the things that we have in there. It's hard not to walk away from that building. And I think for that reason alone probably is why we're not going to higher ground. Obviously, I know for sentimental reasons, higher ground is an awesome place and it served a great purpose during a time when we didn't necessarily have the facilities that we needed. It was great to get away, to be able to go to higher ground and there's a lot of great things that happen out there. But this building is so nice. And our administration, our school has put a lot of money into this building. And I think for us to be able to utilize that all through camp to get ready for a season will be huge for us. Will you still go outside? Yeah, yeah, we'll still utilize outside. We have a practice field right outside of our facility. And then we'll make our way down to Nippert as well to have a few practices there, cuz I think it's important, obviously, to be in your stadium to where you're gonna be playing your games. And then defensively, I mean, it's new, it's a new scheme. It's gonna be a new communication piece. Coach Woody's coming in and really has learned a lot about our players throughout the spring. And still learning this summer as well, what they can, can't do. Figuring out what we need to do with that. But it will be different. This defense is more of a three, four. It's gonna be a little bit more pressures on both sides. Right side, left side, field and boundary. Mixing up the coverages in the back end. We wanna be a more aggressive defense and we wanna create havoc. And I think that's something we didn't do much of that in the last two years and try to create more turnovers. One thing, we were not very good at creating turnovers the last couple years. And so we gotta get more of them. Maturity, number one. I mean, this kid's coming in from Georgia Southern, all-time leading passer there. He's come in very humble, but very competitive, accurate passer. Throws a beautiful ball, really good deep ball. Puts the ball where it needs to be. JV Gibson, I think, is gonna be a guy. I think he's a guy very similar to for Cyrus. Cyrus was at La Tech, went to Texas A&M. JV was at a smaller school, goes to Oklahoma. And hopefully, he'll have a breakout year at our place. I think he'll do some really good things. Cade Wolford's a guy who really showed, I thought, this spring some great speed. A guy who's put together as well. He's close to 200 pounds, but he can really, really run. A big play threat. I think Gio is a guy who's, I think, is just a dog. He's got a linebacker's mentality playing wide receiver. I love the way he competes each and every day. He's kind of the leader of that group out there. I think that from top to bottom, this is the best tight end we've had since we've been here to Cincinnati. And I think I'm excited about what they'll bring to the offense. If everybody's asking me about how we're gonna finish in November, and now we're three out of fours on the road, it's gonna be difficult. It's hard to go on the road in this league and win, especially if you gotta go all the way out west. Especially if you're playing at night in a late kick. Those are all factors, and I know it is what it is. We gotta find a way to win. I love our running back room. G Payne, to me, surprised me as much as anybody this spring. I thought he had an outstanding spring from Notre Dame. And Cole Tabb had a great spring as well before he got hurt. Zion's had a great back. So we got a lot of, I thought we had an outstanding offense. We just didn't get the ball. We ran probably some of the least amount of plays in the country last year. And Tom Possession was the least in the country. And we didn't get the ball back. We had two interceptions all season from our defense, which is last in the country. We have to create turnover. We have to get the ball back. Give our offense an opportunity. We were top ten in the country in yards per play. Top three in rushing yards per play. And then we didn't give up any slacks, we lost two. I mean, we did a lot of great things. So hopefully, we'll be able to continue that and just get the ball more. And so we can get more yards, more points. Definitely a little different, coming from the middle safety spot to closer to the line of scrimmage. To be honest, I actually kinda like it more. Just being able to rush the quarterback and being able to be close to the line of scrimmage so I can make more plays. It makes it a lot easier knowing that my dad played a similar spot. So he's been giving me a lot of tips and pointers into my game. So it makes it a whole lot easier. I think it's helped probably the most. They're older guys, they're leaders of this team. They're the backbone of this offense. And having them kind of in that offense with you brings you comfortability. When you go out there, they're gonna make their plays. They're gonna do exactly what you think they're gonna do and what their coaches do. Because they've had success, and they're getting celebrated for it as they should. I think they're the best O-line in the country. And I'm excited that they're blocking for me this year. It's definitely doable. We could definitely replicate what we did last year, but we definitely wanna improve on that. We did a lot of good things last year, but we also did a handful of bad things that we wanna improve on and fix our imperfections that we had last year. We can definitely get much better than we did and go farther than we did last year. And I think that's a big emphasis going into this offseason and into the season is get 1% better. So we wanna get better and fix those things that we slacked on last year. And so just understanding that Gavin's not here anymore, and he was the man, been here for five years, and he played center all five years. And I'm moving inside to center, and it's like somebody's gotta fill that gap where he was so good at. So that's where me, Evan, and Joe come in. And we're kinda like a trio that kinda takes care of everything. Just like he said, our strength and weaknesses. We have strength and weakness on the field and off as a leader. And so where I might not be so good at, he is, or Joe is, and vice versa. So just understanding our different roles and how we can help the team out the most is the biggest thing.