Michael Pratt practiced Wednesday and Thursday and appears likely to start against UCF, although official clearance will not come until Friday from Tulane's medical doctors. He needs to play and play well for the Green Wave to have a chance to end its six-game losing streak as a 13-point underdog. UCF's defense has played well the last two weeks, limiting Memphis and hapless Temple to seven points apiece for its first stretch of single-digit defensive performances since 2016, which involved Tulane (37-6) in the first one. That was the game where Glen Cuiellette ran the option and pitched it right to a UCF defender, who happily ran for.a touchdown. I've watched a ton of football in my life, and the only other time I saw it happen was when the slowest player on my dorm-league team at the University of Florida did it against the eventual dorm champion in flag football, although the dude did not score on the play.
But I digress. I don't like Tulane's chances Saturday because the Wave has been terrible on the road this year, stopping absolutely nothing defensively against Ole Miss, East Carolina and SMU, but at least UCF has a freshman quarterback who was ineffective until exploding against Temple. Tulane is capable of playing the run well, and the Knights rely on their 6-foot-1, 225-pound bruiser Isaiah Bowser, who has carried 45 times for 200 yards in the last two games. Thats the thing about Gus Malzahn's offenses. They run a lot, and often right up the middle on zone reads, despite all of the motion and trick plays he became known for early in his career. The Wave absolutely, positively needs to be physical from the opening snap to give itself a chance to win late.
FRITZ (Thursday)
On Tyjae Spears recovery:
"He had a pretty good attitude during rehab. At times he got discouraged. He wanted it to happen sooner than later, but I kept talking to him about hey, man, you get better and better and better but it's a process. He got hurt in the last week of September, probably didn't have surgery to the middle of October, so he's just over a year by now. He's very competitive, though, and that's good. He attacked rehab, and if a player doesn't do it, it doesn't ever happen. We're going to always do a good job with our trainers, strength and conditioning and everybody else, but he attacked it and did a really nice job. I think he's doing about as good as he can right now."
On road struggles:
"Oh, build upon last week. I don't know if it had anything to do with playing on the road or not. We just didn't play well but there were some things to build off last week. We need to continue doing the same thing. We only had a couple of times where we had a bust where a guy was supposed to cover a guy and that's going to occur every once in a while in a game, but you hope it doesn't occur very often. We tackled and played with leverage and played pretty well, We are going to have to play that way this week against Central Florida. They have a very potent offense, and we are going to have to play well."
On finding out about Pratt's availability Friday:
"We should. I'm hoping."
WEDNESDAY
“Today we had a good practice. We were off yesterday, the NCAA had it where you couldn’t practice because of election day. So we took yesterday off and came out today, so the guys are pretty fresh. That’s a little bit of a different schedule for us. I thought we had a good, spirited practice, and we’re just working on UCF. They’ve really played good defense, particularly in the last couple weeks, and offensively they’re a much better running team than they get credit for. They do a good job running the football. They have two backs that have contrasting styles. One of them is a quick, fast guy and the other is a big dude who's got power. We’re going to have to do a good job against the run as well.”
On if UCF offense is different from past:
“Yeah, they’re totally different. They’re also a little different with (Dillon) Gabriel, their lefty quarterback, getting hurt early in the year. They’ve had to change it, they have a lot of the same plays but there’s some things they aren’t doing quite as much. So they are totally different. Under (Josh) Heupel they had really wide splits, they were running that Baylor offense from Art Briles so it’s totally different now. Coach (Gus) Malzahn does a great job running the offense and he’s got a lot of window dressing. He’s got motion and shifts and adjustments.”
on progress last week?
“You hate to say that after a loss, but I feel like we did. I felt like we tackled better. I thought they were the No. 2 team in the country, but I guess they’re the No. 6 team in the country, but it’s a good ball club and I thought we did a good job defensively and offensively we ran the ball effectively, particularly in the first half. We did have a couple minus plays and got behind so we had to start throwing the ball a little bit there at the end. The score was a little skewed but I thought we made some real progress against a real quality opponent. They’re probably one of the top three defenses in the nation. They’ll probably have four or five guys drafted and playing in the NFL, so they have a good defense. Offensively they run it. We had a couple missed assignments but otherwise we really played well. We almost had a pick in the end zone. There were some things to build on and we need to keep improving.”
On Cincinnati's No. 6 playoff ranking:
“I was disappointed. I think they are definitely one of the top four teams in the country, they’ve proven it on the field, and I think there is some big time bias. I don’t know why they aren’t in the top four.”
On if Pratt has been cleared:
“We’re still waiting. There’s a protocol that we have to follow and that’ll lead all the way up to Friday.”
On if Pratt would make trip if not cleared:
“I’ll bring him for sure. He’s from down that way and unless they tell us it would be bad for him to be on the sideline he’ll go. I didn’t have him on the sideline last Saturday, I didn’t think it would be good for him and neither did the doctors.”
On Ryan Wright’s performance
“He’s just doing a good job. We call it a 1.0 punt, we create it on location, hangtime and distance. A 55-yard punt with a 3.0 hangtime doesn’t help you a bit. A guy’s going to have 30 yards of turf in front of him when he catches the ball. Ryan (Wright) is just doing a better job of location and hangtime, and getting a good distance.”
On looking at bad season in the big picture:
“You look at all sorts of things in a season. I spend Sunday reflecting back on the previous game and then you have to look forward to the next upcoming opponent. There’s a lot of things that you’d like to do differently and wish you’d done differently, but you can’t change what happened 8 weeks ago. There were some good things we did at the beginning of the season. And we’ve got to keep recruiting at a high level, we have to keep coaching and doing what’s good for our personnel. We’ve got to match our strategy with our personnel and sometimes you do have to change things on the fly with injuries, but we can play better than this and we know that. All of our attention is on finishing the 2021 season well. We’re not going to plan or look back totally until the season is over.”
On importance of bringing in some wide receivers for next year?
“It’s always important to bring in good players, but we have to bring in good fits athletically but also academically. We need to bring in guys who are going to fit our values on the field, off the field and in the classroom. That’s important. If you bring in a grad transfer or a regular transfer you want him to be a guy who can come in and play for you. If he doesn’t you screwed up. You can develop the high school kids, but with the transfers you’re looking for guys who can contribute right away.”
On signing class projected size:
“Somewhere around 20. That’s the tough thing right now. You’ve got to figure out at the end of the year exactly where you’re at.”
But I digress. I don't like Tulane's chances Saturday because the Wave has been terrible on the road this year, stopping absolutely nothing defensively against Ole Miss, East Carolina and SMU, but at least UCF has a freshman quarterback who was ineffective until exploding against Temple. Tulane is capable of playing the run well, and the Knights rely on their 6-foot-1, 225-pound bruiser Isaiah Bowser, who has carried 45 times for 200 yards in the last two games. Thats the thing about Gus Malzahn's offenses. They run a lot, and often right up the middle on zone reads, despite all of the motion and trick plays he became known for early in his career. The Wave absolutely, positively needs to be physical from the opening snap to give itself a chance to win late.
FRITZ (Thursday)
On Tyjae Spears recovery:
"He had a pretty good attitude during rehab. At times he got discouraged. He wanted it to happen sooner than later, but I kept talking to him about hey, man, you get better and better and better but it's a process. He got hurt in the last week of September, probably didn't have surgery to the middle of October, so he's just over a year by now. He's very competitive, though, and that's good. He attacked rehab, and if a player doesn't do it, it doesn't ever happen. We're going to always do a good job with our trainers, strength and conditioning and everybody else, but he attacked it and did a really nice job. I think he's doing about as good as he can right now."
On road struggles:
"Oh, build upon last week. I don't know if it had anything to do with playing on the road or not. We just didn't play well but there were some things to build off last week. We need to continue doing the same thing. We only had a couple of times where we had a bust where a guy was supposed to cover a guy and that's going to occur every once in a while in a game, but you hope it doesn't occur very often. We tackled and played with leverage and played pretty well, We are going to have to play that way this week against Central Florida. They have a very potent offense, and we are going to have to play well."
On finding out about Pratt's availability Friday:
"We should. I'm hoping."
WEDNESDAY
“Today we had a good practice. We were off yesterday, the NCAA had it where you couldn’t practice because of election day. So we took yesterday off and came out today, so the guys are pretty fresh. That’s a little bit of a different schedule for us. I thought we had a good, spirited practice, and we’re just working on UCF. They’ve really played good defense, particularly in the last couple weeks, and offensively they’re a much better running team than they get credit for. They do a good job running the football. They have two backs that have contrasting styles. One of them is a quick, fast guy and the other is a big dude who's got power. We’re going to have to do a good job against the run as well.”
On if UCF offense is different from past:
“Yeah, they’re totally different. They’re also a little different with (Dillon) Gabriel, their lefty quarterback, getting hurt early in the year. They’ve had to change it, they have a lot of the same plays but there’s some things they aren’t doing quite as much. So they are totally different. Under (Josh) Heupel they had really wide splits, they were running that Baylor offense from Art Briles so it’s totally different now. Coach (Gus) Malzahn does a great job running the offense and he’s got a lot of window dressing. He’s got motion and shifts and adjustments.”
on progress last week?
“You hate to say that after a loss, but I feel like we did. I felt like we tackled better. I thought they were the No. 2 team in the country, but I guess they’re the No. 6 team in the country, but it’s a good ball club and I thought we did a good job defensively and offensively we ran the ball effectively, particularly in the first half. We did have a couple minus plays and got behind so we had to start throwing the ball a little bit there at the end. The score was a little skewed but I thought we made some real progress against a real quality opponent. They’re probably one of the top three defenses in the nation. They’ll probably have four or five guys drafted and playing in the NFL, so they have a good defense. Offensively they run it. We had a couple missed assignments but otherwise we really played well. We almost had a pick in the end zone. There were some things to build on and we need to keep improving.”
On Cincinnati's No. 6 playoff ranking:
“I was disappointed. I think they are definitely one of the top four teams in the country, they’ve proven it on the field, and I think there is some big time bias. I don’t know why they aren’t in the top four.”
On if Pratt has been cleared:
“We’re still waiting. There’s a protocol that we have to follow and that’ll lead all the way up to Friday.”
On if Pratt would make trip if not cleared:
“I’ll bring him for sure. He’s from down that way and unless they tell us it would be bad for him to be on the sideline he’ll go. I didn’t have him on the sideline last Saturday, I didn’t think it would be good for him and neither did the doctors.”
On Ryan Wright’s performance
“He’s just doing a good job. We call it a 1.0 punt, we create it on location, hangtime and distance. A 55-yard punt with a 3.0 hangtime doesn’t help you a bit. A guy’s going to have 30 yards of turf in front of him when he catches the ball. Ryan (Wright) is just doing a better job of location and hangtime, and getting a good distance.”
On looking at bad season in the big picture:
“You look at all sorts of things in a season. I spend Sunday reflecting back on the previous game and then you have to look forward to the next upcoming opponent. There’s a lot of things that you’d like to do differently and wish you’d done differently, but you can’t change what happened 8 weeks ago. There were some good things we did at the beginning of the season. And we’ve got to keep recruiting at a high level, we have to keep coaching and doing what’s good for our personnel. We’ve got to match our strategy with our personnel and sometimes you do have to change things on the fly with injuries, but we can play better than this and we know that. All of our attention is on finishing the 2021 season well. We’re not going to plan or look back totally until the season is over.”
On importance of bringing in some wide receivers for next year?
“It’s always important to bring in good players, but we have to bring in good fits athletically but also academically. We need to bring in guys who are going to fit our values on the field, off the field and in the classroom. That’s important. If you bring in a grad transfer or a regular transfer you want him to be a guy who can come in and play for you. If he doesn’t you screwed up. You can develop the high school kids, but with the transfers you’re looking for guys who can contribute right away.”
On signing class projected size:
“Somewhere around 20. That’s the tough thing right now. You’ve got to figure out at the end of the year exactly where you’re at.”
