New Cincinnati Bearcats Football DC Nate Woody Outlines Vision For Defense

CINCINNATI — The Bearcats introduced defensive coordinator Nate Woody to the fanbase on Tuesday as he settles into the role he took over from Tyson Veidt last month.

The former Army DC had his unit rank 29th in total team defense (yards allowed) in 2025 after finishing fourth nationally in 2024. Woody was named defensive coordinator of the Black Knights in 2020 and worked with Satterfield as his defensive coordinator at App State from 2013-17.

"Just really enjoyed working with him for five years there," Woody said about his App State tenure with Satterfield. "So to leave for where I was very happy to go work for him, you know, meant something, and then to come back here and work with him means something. That's a great, great guy to work for. He's got a great culture here."

Cincinnati has a ton of work to do on that side of the ball after ranking 108th against FBS teams last season in stop rate at 55% (the percentage of a defense's drives that end in a punt, turnover, or a turnover on downs).

Woody is bringing a 3-4 defense to the table as Cincinnati moves away from the 3-3-5 look that's been so prevalent in the Big 12. It's a blitzing 3-4 scheme that should be pretty aggressive throughout the season.

"I'm new to these guys here, and we just want to come together, and we want to build a great culture and make sure that we can depend on one another," Woody said. "Along the way find a scheme that fits the skill sets of the guys that are coming in. So evaluation is is a key in my point of view this spring. The big thing for me is about evaluating these guys and getting the right guys on the field, and getting some packages put together to where we can use more and more of the guys on the field whenever the opportunity arises."

The Bearcats have to find a way to get off the field more consistently in the Satterfield era, and mining more turnovers is a good start.

They were the only FBS team in the country not to have three interceptions last season and only forced 10 total turnovers total (116th nationally).

Sacks were also a tough thing to find last season. UC ranked 104th in QB pressure rate (30.8%) and 115th in Sack EPA generated. They only tallied 1.77 sacks per game (93rd).

"I want to have a defense that can hopefully make it a little bit difficult for the quarterback to know where he's going with the ball," Woody said about creating those havoc plays. "Hopefully, he's got to read through several progressions. Hopefully, we put pressure on them to get to the quarterback before he gets to his final progression.

"A big part of it is somehow making the quarterback pay if he makes a mistake. So if that ball bounces off your hands or goes through your hands, then you didn't make him pay for that mistake, and they still get another chance to continue to drive. Hopefully, we'll have some guys that can execute the defense really well, and when they get their opportunity, they'll put the ball away, and we'll make the most of it."

Woody has a ton of new players to work with as he powers through the loss of marquee talents like Dontay Corleone and Jake Golday.

Execution will reign supreme this spring and beyond as Cincinnati finds new starters at over half the defensive positions.

"It's a very multiple defense, and does a lot of different things with it," Satterfield said about the switch. "You can blitz literally any player on the field, can get in the backfield, corners, safeties, all the linebackers. We were one of the top interception teams in the country (when Woody was coaching at App State). I think in a four-year span, we led the country in interceptions. And for me, that's one thing we got to get much better at is interceptions.

"We were the worst in the country last year (2025) at getting interceptions, I think that's going to be a main emphasis for us this year to improve our pass defense, and particularly giving up big plays. But while also stopping the run. Coach Woody's got great experience, been around a long time, and has been very good everywhere he's been coaching defenses."

Cincinnati gets rolling into spring practice next month.

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