Gavin Gerhardt on UC's Offensive Line: 'Their All Doing Their Thing'

CINCINNATI — UC's offensive line has had its highs and lows to start the 2023 season, but it's been good enough to start 2-0 with just one returning starter in the fold: Center Gavin Gerhardt.

The man in the middle discussed how his crew is melding together with The Battle for the Victory Bell up next.

"Last year I was the young guy," Gerhardt said about the group's leadership "So stepping into that's a little different. I'm enjoying it. I'm trying to be as vocal as I can be for those guys. You know, we got Trev (Trevor Radosevich) he was a captain at Penn. Really vocal guy. We got Deon (Deondre Buford) from Kentucky. Real soft-spoken guy, but he's getting there. Really proud of how he's progressed since he's been here. And then we got (Luke) Kandra, who's a big physical guy, unbelievable player. He'll continue to do great things for us. Johnny (Williams), he's made high, high jumps from where he was in the past. He's doing awesome and DT's (Dartanyan Tinsley). Man DT is just the man. He's doing their thing. They're all doing their thing. I'm really proud."

Gerhardt's taken a step up in his play through two games.

He has a 62.3 overall PFF grade through two games (50.8 in 2022) and his pass blocking has taken a big leap (74.6 grade this season, 45.6 in 2022).

UC's offensive line depth luckily hasn't been tested much by injuries two games in, allowing those reps to really impact growth.

“That was a big question going in," Satterifled said about his protection unit. "We played EKU and I thought they played some very solid, but now obviously you're going to play Pitt, a team who’s going to pressure you and really make it hard on your offensive line. I thought they played very solid, particularly in the first half and they were they were making some really good blocks. [Corey] Kiner was making some great cuts. They were protecting Emory [Jones] very well. In the second half, we got a little conservative offense. I am talking about myself and in the calls, but you're up 27-7, it's a little bit of a different game at that point.

"They are pinning their ears back coming after us and we probably didn't block as well during that period of time. I still thought we did a really good job containing a defensive line and linebackers that are so aggressive and downhill. I thought that was a big difference in the game, the amount of pressure we were able to get the five sacks and compared to what they were able to do on us. That was a huge difference in that game. It helped us really control the game and to be able to run the football like we did. I think it was 216-83. That's a big difference and one of the reasons big reasons why we won that game.”

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