'Execute At A High Level' - Nic Cardwell Keeping Bar High For Cincinnati Offensive Line Following Weekly Honors

The Cincinnati Bearcats offensive line plays strong football pretty consistently under coach Nic Cardwell, but the standard is higher than what the traditional stats spell out.

Bearcat Journal's Keegan Nickoson and I caught up with Cardwell after Tuesday's practice, and he broke down the 13 missed assignments he saw from his new-look unit.

They didn't lead to any passing game issues. According to Pro Football Focus, the team did not allow a pressure in the game, let alone a sack or QB hit.

"There's an ID; there's a person we're supposed to be working to, whether it's a linebacker, whether it's a safety, or whether it's a corner," Cardwell noted. "There's somebody we're supposed to be working to, and we didn't identify correctly. There are 13 times where we didn't do that. Okay, there are times when he did the ID correctly, and then we didn't execute it on the right side or the left side because everything comes off that ID. So you have the ID that everybody else kind of communicates where they're supposed to go, and it didn't always get communicated down the line. And those are the things you're going to have happen with a first group like that, and in their first ball game playing together.

"So you take it, but throughout every single game, we're coaching, right? It's not a practice. I get it. There are a lot of people here, but you're watching the iPad, and you're coaching them through. Okay, your hands aren't good here. The ID's wrong here. We should have been doing this on this side. Are we good? This was nice. You tell them the good things they did as well. But at the same time, that's our job. My job is to execute at a high level and get these guys to execute at a high level, and I didn't think it was as good as I would have liked to see."

Cardwell is ready to see more growth this week against the worst team Cincinnati is facing all season.

Western Carolina is already 1-1 with both games against fellow FCS talent.

"The win is awesome, but there were things that we thought, okay, we could have gotten better, and it could have been more," Cardwell said. "And we're always chasing how we can be great at the details and be great with our execution and be great with our IDs. And so, we were happy to win, but at the same time, we know there's stuff we've got to work out."

Cincinnati had the Big 12 offensive line of the week following the game, but another double-digit MA total won't be good enough in Cardwell's eyes this Saturday.

The strength of UC's team has to be nearly flawless for the Bearcats to reach all of the top goals this season.

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