Eddie George Monday Press Conference Transcript (Cincinnati)

Liberty

Sep 13 (Sat)

5 p.m.

Eddie George Press Conference 
Sept. 1, 2025
Bowling Green, Ohio 

Question: Coach, with so many players getting an opportunity Thursday night against Lafayette, is there anything new you learned about this group that maybe you didn't know before?
Coach George: Yeah, we had to find out who we were in in a real game against somebody other than ourselves.

You see us on a consistent basis every single day. You see players make plays and you see the adjustments. You see the competitiveness of each match up and you're like, OK, well, what's really real when we get out there? So, it was exciting to see some of the guys get opportunities. Cam Pettaway, for example, first time he touches the ball in his college career goes for a touchdown. We have nine guys, I believe, on defense that all had their first starts. So, we wanted to see how disciplined their eyes were going to be, how they would respond under pressure.
They responded pretty well for the most part. How well do you tackle? All the fundamental things that we work on day in and day out. You want to see that in real time when the lights are on and against another opponent, a different body with different tendencies. How do you adjust and make adjustments in real time? Can they be coachable? Can you stay cool under pressure? So, it was exciting to see a lot of that this past weekend and now we have to build on that. This is just the starting point.

Question: Coach, after the game against Lafayette, you talked about the offensive game plan being very vanilla, very basic. Do you expect it to get more complex for them going into this week because it is against a Power 4 team in Cincinnati?
Coach George: Well, we're going to do what we do. I don't think it was the point of it being vanilla because it's a Lafayette. We just didn't have enough information on Lafayette to say, OK, this is what we can scheme up based off of their personnel. It was 9 or so new bodies, 11 or so new bodies out there. So, we didn't know till got to that game.

Now, once we saw what we were able to do against them, we were able to make adjustments and do certain things schematically to take advantage of some opportunities. Now, with Cincinnati, it's a little different or any second week opponent. You have tape on them, you know who they are to some degree. You have their injury report. Who’s in and who's out. You can see it up close and personal on the film, and now you can say, OK, here are our opportunities, here are our strengths. This is the guy we want to stay away from. This is the guy we want to expose. These are the matchups that we want to try to create. So now we can really build on top of that.

Question: What do you see from Cincinnati that you've got to prepare for?
Coach George: Well, what jumps off the tape is their aggressiveness. They play really hard, they’re a well-coached football team, and they played Nebraska tough. That that's going to be a challenge for us across the board.

Looking at their defense, they've got a really good front three, front four. Their safety, #9, really rocks out. He's a fitter and shows up in their runs support. He makes a lot of plays
They're a situational football team. They know the situation, and they play to that. They get burn up a lot of energy to make those stops and on key downs and so forth.

Offensively, quarterback is a go. He's got a lot of moxie. He has a great deal of experience in this league, a lot of starts. He uses his legs a lot and he's a big load. He can wear it on the defense that I think you saw that a little bit against Nebraska. So, I'm pretty sure they're going to try to get him going in the passing game. You know, they didn't show his arm a whole lot, but it's there.

So, we have a great challenge for us coming up this week. A great game plan on all three phases to figure out where we can take advantage of some opportunities and we know it's going to be a physical fist fight when we're going there on Saturday.

Question: Special teams was so good, but you referred to them as Special Forces, and I'm just curious the reasoning or if there's kind of the back story behind that.
Coach George: Well, it's special, and I try to make it special. Special Forces is an elite group.

You have to make that group count for more. When you are a 4 course special forces guy, you eat first. You know, it's selflessness and often times when players look at special teams, it's like throw away play, or you're not a value, or you're not a starter. No, those the four core special forces units are very special. As you can see, it makes a difference. You have one shot to execute at a high level and change the momentum and the course of the game.

That was evident on Saturday night, the opening kickoff, or a blocked kick, or a blocked punt, or downing the ball, flipping the field in terms of field position. Those things matter and when you really emphasize that, it shows, hey, this is a special deal.

You have to be a dude. You got to be a dog to be on special forces. That makes a difference. So, we highlight that, we empower that and we reinforce that for the young guys that aren't making the bus or to get on the depth chart, you have to go through Special Forces to get on the bus and then you have those opportunities. Look at Cam Pettaway. I don't think he dresses out if he wasn't the starter as a kickoff returner or on the four core special forces units.
But he had an opportunity to show out there and got some opportunities to play some running back. So, those things matter.

If you want to play on Sundays as a player, especially coming out of this conference, you got to show that you can play on special teams and understand the importance of that.

So, around here, Special Forces is something we hold to a high regard.

Question: You guys played on Thursday. Heading into Cincinnati, it’s not necessarily an advantage, but you both have two more days to prepare for each other. How do you use those? How did you use those extra days to prepare?
Coach George: We took the day off, today is a normal day off, you know, game week. But we took the day off on Saturday, came in on Friday and used it as a shakeout. Looked at the film, break the film, put Lafayette to bed and begin to focus on our opponent.

More or less, we spent a lot of time working out films, the staff, then formulated the game plan for kids coming in today. Did some lofty work, but not a not a whole lot. Didn't delve into the nuts and bolts of it as of yet. We're treating this week as a regular game week.

We really use it as recovery, a chance to get better, a chance to hone the fundamentals, look at what we didn't do well and improve upon that and look at our strengths and say, OK, how can we build off those strengths moving forward.
That's kind of how we spent those two days of preparation, which is very beneficial for us.

Question: As you look to that Lafayette film, defensively, what was the mindset coming out? Was it a good game defensively? Was there frustration about giving up a long touchdown?
Coach George: Anytime you give up points it’s frustrating. What I was encouraged by, was that Lafayette got the ball rolling a little bit, got some momentum, got into a fourth and four fourth and goal at the four-yard line and that play is dead if we don't lose our eyes. So, you almost want to see your defense under pressure situations like that to see if they can answer the call, especially a young defense. There was no discouragement, there was no hanging of the head.
So, you live and you learn. For the most part, that game plan we had defensively worked pretty well. The first half, 59 yards of total offense. We gave our offense a chance to really find a rhythm in the first half and kind of put points on the board and take control of the game. So, you can't be upset that, hey, we give up seven points. OK, how can we learn from that? How did how did we play? How did the drive start?

That was undisciplined behavior from our defensive end who gave up the edge to allow the quarterback out of the pocket and got the ball rolling for him. You got some momentum in a couple of key plays here, get a penalty here, you gave them more field position and that's how you got to that position. So, you can eliminate the mental errors, you can eliminate the penalties because of the lack of discipline.

You then have a much better series, so those things you look forward to. Looking at the so-called setbacks of those to see how we can learn and get better from it.

Question: Given this program's success the last couple years against Power Conference opponents, how big of an opportunity is this and how much are the guys embracing playing in that atmosphere?
Coach George: Well, we look forward to playing every single week. Not to give coach speak. This is the next team on the schedule. In the past, yes, this university, this program has played power four schools extremely well. I don't think this is a situation where we are intimidated. I think there's some guys on this team that felt like last year they could have won both those games. So, we are looking forward to playing against a quality opponent, one that we know we have to bring our best selves to this game, to this match up from the physicality standpoint, from the discipline standpoint and hopefully we can bring it into the 4th quarter and have an opportunity to win it. So that's what we're looking forward to and I don't think anyone is necessarily overly excited about having a chance to play. It's another opportunity to play this week, and Cincinnati's the next opponent and we're going to have to be ready for that.

Question: Just the thinking behind moving some of the guys around in the offensive line?
Coach George: We felt like there was opportunities to get those guys in. Anytime you can get young guys in this time of year, get them experience, the better. It's a long season.

You got to find out what you got, especially in the offensive line outside the starting 5. What do the other rotations look like? Where guys fit at? Center, guard. You know, we got some positional players that we recognized in camp. So, let's get them in game situations to see how they respond.

You want to be able to go 6 to 7 deep at that unit and feel comfortable with that. They're just rotational starters. That's how you have to look at it. And if a guy goes down, who do you plug and play? So, when there are opportunities to put guys in those situations to see what they've got, especially when they don't have necessarily a lot of game experience. You want to get that, and you put them in situations where you trust they're going to make the right decision and we're seeing that. So that's how you have to develop their game as well.

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