After the game head coach, Luke Fickell started the post-game conference by making a statement about the game and this season’s team. He started out by talking about how the student section and the fans really made it a hostile environment for UCLA to play in. UCLA’s head coach, Chip Kelly told Fickell at halftime that the stadium’s atmosphere and especially the student section were a factor. He then continued on to say “What you saw from us, is who we really are. A team that can fight it out, grind it out, and find a way to be successful. I think the greatest epidemy of that is the play right before half, to see Josiah Deguara run 60 yards and never give up, get a guy down, and give us an opportunity to not lose complete momentum of the entire game. That’s what we pride ourselves on.” The UC defense had four turnovers and showed the picked up right where they left off last season. Two of those turnovers came from Ja’von Hicks and when asked how big that was for him, Fickell said “There’s no better way to gain confidence than making plays.” Next he was asked about how much this game could set the tone for the season and he said “You got to get some momentum and generate it… starting the season is difficult, you just don’t know… but to get this under your belt there’s going to be a lot of growth.” Someone then asked if the University of Cincinnati beating UCLA again was that big of a deal and Fickell replied “Oh yeah, for this program it is. This was an opportunity, and probably one of the first in a while, to show what kind of energy we really have on campus… this is an opportunity to show the country not just our football team, but what our university and energy is behind us.” He then continued on to say that this year’s team has no panic. When they gave up a turnover or a big play on defense there was no panic, and that just shows the growth from last year to this year. To close out the questions, Fickell was asked what he thought of Desmond Ridder’s performance and he said “A lot of people won’t know it, but he lost his voice in the first half. We had to go to a silent count. There were a lot of other things going on with him that made it difficult… but all in all he did a great job managing the game, controlling himself, understanding what we needed to do.”
The Bearcats ended the game with 417 total yards, 242 passing yards from Ridder, 53 receiving yards from Deguara, 99 rushing yards from Warren II on offense. On defense they had two sacks, four turnovers, and Darrick Forrest led the defense in tackles with nine. They had 38:27 total time of possession, and had a final score of 24-14, giving them a 1-0 start on the season with OSU next week.
