Battle between three-time transfers
Friday night’s matchup will feature a pair of starting quarterbacks that are both on their third school which is something you don’t see quite too often in the college football landscape. Like Emory Jones, BYU quarterback Kedon Slovis is on his third school after starting his career at USC, before transferring to Pittsburgh for the 2022 season. Slovis, a pro styled quarterback who can really sling the rock has the Cougars off to a great start to kick off the 2023 season and is someone who has a lot of eyes on him to start the season. “Kedon Slovis is a very solid player and has helped them get off to a great start that they are currently on right now. Slovis is a guy that has won a lot of football games throughout his career. He has great poise, and we will see that on Friday night,” said Scott Satterfield.
Can the Bearcats defense embrace the elevation levels?
The Bearcats defense is coming off a performance where they held one of the nation’s top offenses in Oklahoma to just 20 points after averaging nearly 55 points in their first three games of the season. However, the Bearcats know the elevation levels will be something to keep into factor come Friday night, but if they can come out and dominate the point of attack like they did on Saturday, should be interesting.
The Bearcats defense has caused a lot of problems this season especially last week vs Oklahoma as we mentioned above. “There’s definitely a presence that they are a very tough team, very well coached, tons of athleticism and speed. I think they have a really good front on both sides of the ball. I have been really impressed with their defense,” BYU head coach Kalani Sitake said. “I have been really impressed with their interior defensive lineman. You talk about Dontay Corleone, he’s a physical presence on the line of scrimmage. You can see the physical presence of Cincinnati’s front seven especially the defensive line is going to be a tough matchup, but I like it.” This is a dangerous team, a power 5 team, with a lot of skill. We have seen it in our scouting that they are a really well coached team with lots of talent.”
BYU has really struggled getting the run game going here in the first four games of the season, however, expect them to try to get that going early come Friday night. If the Cougars can establish the run game, it will take some pressure off Slovis to move the ball downfield, but the Bearcats know their true identity on defense and what Bryan Brown likes to do, and that is get downhill and attack the quarterback, and disrupt the passer.
