Luke Fickell Says USF Much Better Than Performance Against Notre Dame

At Wednesday’s press conference, Cincinnati head coach Luke Fickell addressed a wide range of topics. He complemented Army’s performance last week against Cincinnati and emphasized that last Saturday’s win at Nippert was indeed a four quarter battle.

He credited Cincinnati’s scout teams for their ability to present a credible look in practice last week, which helped prepare the Bearcats defense for West Point’s triple option offense.

He expressed his pleasure with Cincinnati’s depth at wide receiver, running back, and linebacker.

The most interesting topic Fickell covered was Cincinnati’s opponent this Saturday, South Florida.

He indicated that USF is much better club than the one that took a 52-0 thrashing at the hands of Notre Dame a couple weeks ago.

“It’s not a very good depiction. They had some issues. Things happened really fast. They’re down really early, really quick,” Fickell said.

“In the three years, we’ve played them. The first one was no contest, where they just beat the daylights out of us. And the other two were dogfights,” Fickell said. The coach expects Saturday’s contest to be much closer to a dogfight than a blowout.

Check out Luke Fickell’s full press conference below: