Here was Willie Fritz's postgame radio interview.
On not being able to win when you make that many mistakes:
"No, you can't. They did a good job. They made some mistakes, too, which was uncharacteristic of them, but as I just got done telling the players, our margin for error is really small. When we go ahead and shoot ourselves in the foot, it just makes it really, really difficult to win. I thought we started off and had some juice to us and did a good job, and they just really did a nice job stymying us offensively and getting us into some tough down and distance situations. Defensively, we were doing a pretty good job until we missed three tackles and they go 81 yards for a touchdown. We had a punt block. Other than that we played a pretty nice game in the kicking game with some good returns and some stuff not bad. We just can't have that (the blocked punt) when you allow a blocked punt and they score on the very next play. It was just pretty disappointing we didn't carry our momentum over from last week into this week at all."
On Amare Jones' kickoff returns:
"He's a good player and we need to get him the ball. When you get him the ball in space, he'll do some good things. We just missed him on a little swing and I think if he had caught that he'd have gone a long way. We don't have a bunch of guys who make you miss, and he's one of them. We've got to get the ball in space to those guys who can do that, and certainly we need to do that with him."
On going with McMillan in second half:
"We were going to go two series apiece. It looked he played a little bit better early in the game. We went back one more time switching the guys and we decided to go with him. We'll look at the tape and see. It might have been a mistake. It was difficult there at the end. There's a little bit of our offense we just can't run with him, and the game was a little bit out of reach. We wanted to give him a little experience. We're looking at that and seeing who should be playing that position without question."
On approach to open date:
"Well, it looks like we got beat up a little bit in the game. We got some guys hurt. We have to get those guys healthy again. We have to really analyze the tape and see who's doing things good and who's doing things bad. One of the big thing that's important is making sure we're playing the right guys. That's a big deal. I think for the most part we are, but I'm sure there are going to some things I'm going to look at and think we should play this guy a little bit more than that guy."
Donnie Lewis was the lone player on the radio interview for the second straight road game (also Ohio State). Here's what he said:
On defensive job but too many big plays:
"Coming into the game we knew he was a great running back, a good running back, physical. We had a game plan to eliminate the big plays and they came out and got big plays on us. That's something we can control. We just gave up too many explosives."
On Cincy QB Desmond Ridder:
'He was a better runner than we saw on film. Like coach (Jack) Curtis told us, don't sleep on this guy, he can actually run, and he extended some plays with his feet. That hurt us a lot of times."
On substitutions defensively:
"We have different packages for different personnel on each down. That's something we've been doing all year. We just have to get on and off the field better."
On locker room message:
"We just have to come out and play like we played last week. Play up, high tempo, fired up. We just didn't come out hot today. We didn't have it in us today."
On approach to bye week:
"We have to take this bye week and learn from it, rest our bodies. Learn from a lot of film, film, film, film, film, correct our mistakes from the first half of the season and come out the second half and fix that."
On not being able to win when you make that many mistakes:
"No, you can't. They did a good job. They made some mistakes, too, which was uncharacteristic of them, but as I just got done telling the players, our margin for error is really small. When we go ahead and shoot ourselves in the foot, it just makes it really, really difficult to win. I thought we started off and had some juice to us and did a good job, and they just really did a nice job stymying us offensively and getting us into some tough down and distance situations. Defensively, we were doing a pretty good job until we missed three tackles and they go 81 yards for a touchdown. We had a punt block. Other than that we played a pretty nice game in the kicking game with some good returns and some stuff not bad. We just can't have that (the blocked punt) when you allow a blocked punt and they score on the very next play. It was just pretty disappointing we didn't carry our momentum over from last week into this week at all."
On Amare Jones' kickoff returns:
"He's a good player and we need to get him the ball. When you get him the ball in space, he'll do some good things. We just missed him on a little swing and I think if he had caught that he'd have gone a long way. We don't have a bunch of guys who make you miss, and he's one of them. We've got to get the ball in space to those guys who can do that, and certainly we need to do that with him."
On going with McMillan in second half:
"We were going to go two series apiece. It looked he played a little bit better early in the game. We went back one more time switching the guys and we decided to go with him. We'll look at the tape and see. It might have been a mistake. It was difficult there at the end. There's a little bit of our offense we just can't run with him, and the game was a little bit out of reach. We wanted to give him a little experience. We're looking at that and seeing who should be playing that position without question."
On approach to open date:
"Well, it looks like we got beat up a little bit in the game. We got some guys hurt. We have to get those guys healthy again. We have to really analyze the tape and see who's doing things good and who's doing things bad. One of the big thing that's important is making sure we're playing the right guys. That's a big deal. I think for the most part we are, but I'm sure there are going to some things I'm going to look at and think we should play this guy a little bit more than that guy."
Donnie Lewis was the lone player on the radio interview for the second straight road game (also Ohio State). Here's what he said:
On defensive job but too many big plays:
"Coming into the game we knew he was a great running back, a good running back, physical. We had a game plan to eliminate the big plays and they came out and got big plays on us. That's something we can control. We just gave up too many explosives."
On Cincy QB Desmond Ridder:
'He was a better runner than we saw on film. Like coach (Jack) Curtis told us, don't sleep on this guy, he can actually run, and he extended some plays with his feet. That hurt us a lot of times."
On substitutions defensively:
"We have different packages for different personnel on each down. That's something we've been doing all year. We just have to get on and off the field better."
On locker room message:
"We just have to come out and play like we played last week. Play up, high tempo, fired up. We just didn't come out hot today. We didn't have it in us today."
On approach to bye week:
"We have to take this bye week and learn from it, rest our bodies. Learn from a lot of film, film, film, film, film, correct our mistakes from the first half of the season and come out the second half and fix that."
