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ATHENS, Ohio — Third-year head coach Tim Albin met with media today after the Bobcats wrapped up day one of Fall Camp. He reflected on senior leadership, the returning starters and the anticipation going into a week zero game. 

Fans can keep up with camp with regular updates on OhioBobcats.com. Additional content will be found on Twitter (@OhioFootball) and on Instagram  (@OhioFB). 

The Bobcats are set to open the 2023 season on Saturday, Aug. 26 when they take on the San Diego State Aztecs. Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on FS1 at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, Calif. Homecoming is set for Saturday, Oct. 7 against the Kent State Golden Flashes. 

The full press conference is embedded and transcribed below. 

Opening Statement
I appreciate everyone being on the call here today. We are super excited. I've on record said this before, but this is my favorite time of year. I get to work with the guys and coach a little bit; with summer there's recruiting and official visits so you're away from the guys. I'm looking forward to helping finish building this team and I'm really, really excited about the seniors. There are 21 graduates on the football team. We have a tremendous amount of wealth of experience on both sides of the football. After day one, I'm excited about their leadership and the direction of this, this new journey for this season.
 
On redshirt sophomore Sieh Bangura, graduate student O'Shaan Allison and the running back room 
I'm super excited about the depth in that room. Sieh and the year he had—Freshman All-America, 1000-yard rusher, it was really tremendous. You mentioned O'Shaan. Obviously, he's coming off a tough injury last year that happened early—I want to say in the first few days, if I remember correctly— but he worked so hard to get back. What happened is tough; he went through a lot and I'm really proud of him. He kept battling.
 
Continuing with the depth [in the running back room]; we are deep and we played a lot of running backs last year. If you recall, obviously Sieh— and he got banged up— and we had Jake Neatherton in there, Tyler Toledo and Julien Ross. So, this year again, depth at any position is going be vital, depending on what happens with injuries. I really like what I'm seeing in that room at this time. There's a wealth of experience, guys that have gotten bigger, faster, stronger. So it should be a good running back room for this season.
 
On comparing the 2022 and 2023 teams
Well, every team has its own niche. You know, their own journey, if you will. It's really hard to separate the two, so this is just day one. If you ask me that again in a few weeks, maybe I can give you a little bit more in depth answer. It's tough because again we returned so many guys. I see the same faces as I saw last year. I saw everyone this morning and they looked really fast and very excited to be out there. So, it's hard to compare the two, but I know that we have a lot more answers going into this fall camp than we did last year. I got that question from Russ, but it's a true statement. Everybody's not at ease, but we're just more comfortable with where we're at.
 
On the MAC Head Coaches Poll and being the hunted versus the hunter
I said this last year at MAC Media Day: we were picked whatever and I said, 'Hey, it is what it is and we've earned every bit of it.' Going into this year, we're not going to shy away from the expectations. We're going to embrace it and accept the challenge. We're humbled with the vote, but we all know it's preseason. I've been here a long time in this league. Who they've picked to win and the percentage that are happening… you have to go out and do it.
 
And you have a valid point on the hunter versus the hunted. You know, I've used that with our guys before and I think I feel comfortable because of the wealth of experience that we have on the football team. There's some veterans in there and they will not let some of those younger guys fall into those types of things.
 
On continuity and returning starters 
I'll put it like this. You know the offense has returned a lot of pieces. I think maybe one or two more than a defense, but we're on a typical schedule as far as day one install and day two install. Defensively, same thing. How I see it after one day of practice is we're going to progress pretty rapidly into some really good situational football much sooner than we did a year ago. And with that, to your question on the experience, we're going to be pressing, we're going to be doing four-minute and two-minute stuff in five days and we didn't get to that last year until two weeks in. I mean, Day 15 last year, we'll be to the day 15 install by day five if we stay on schedule with weather and things and things like that. It's just going to move faster.
 
I think it's a good thing. The young guys will be swimming a little bit, but those older guys, when they're not taking reps guess what they're doing? They're coaching. That's why they're special. They're coaching in the right way to help bring those guys along because those veterans know that at some point in time over the course of this season, some of those young guys are going to step in and play just like last year. We had some young guys that did that last year and they kept believing with what we went through injury-wise and were able to have a have a really, really good year. So, we have a veteran bunch and we're going to move pretty quickly and use that experience to our advantage.
 
On the coaching staff's goals 
That's a deep question and I can answer with a lot of things that that went our way last year. But I'll answer like this: our number one goal going into the season, starting our first game at San Diego State is all three phases clicking. I'm on record as saying, 'Hey, we started this season [2022] and you know the offense was ahead of the defense then mid-year—bang— the defense caught up,' and we had all three phases and went on six or seven games streak. So that's the number one thing, that's the goal: start the season with all three phases.
 
Again, my favorite time of the year is fall camp because you're building a team. We're not ready to go, trust me, and we have some battles going on, competition-wise, all over the place. There might be competition battles, but the guys that are battling are returning starters. We have some quality young guys that are pushing them and that's really, really exciting as the coaching staff. So we're super pumped.
 
On starting fast 
You know, as far as just the exact formula, all we can do is say, "Hey, here's what we're good at." [Last year] Number one in our league in penalties per game. We were like third in the country. We're number one in takeaways on defense and number one on offense as far as having turnovers. So, we didn't beat ourselves. I think in the stadium, inside the walls here, we pride ourselves in "Ohio doesn't beat Ohio". That derived from the year before as you said, where we had some close losses—one point loss, two-point loss, three-point loss, all that. In those games, Ohio beat Ohio. That's the thing that we took into the offseason and carried it into end of last fall. It's number three on our board. If we can continue to uphold "Ohio doesn't beat Ohio" and then everybody that returned elevates their game, it should be a whale of a season this year.
 
On preparing for a week zero game
As best I can recall in my 33 years of coaching, this is my first time preparing for week zero. I think in Nebraska we played TC in the Kickoff Classic, maybe, and that's when they only had one game. That's so long ago. I don't even recall how we how we prepared for it or fall camp, right? So, I'm going to say this is my first time to prepare for a week zero, but everything's just bumped up a week. You know, the staff missed out some vacation time. We had to juggle some summer school things, but really got through it unscathed.
 
The best thing about it is going to be starting early will get some great exposure for Bobcat Nation. I think that's going to be great for us. Plus, we're going to catch some time off on the back end of it. We're starting earlier; I talked to my guys in the profession, and they don't start until August 1^st or August 3^rd and we're going now. But I think during the season, we're going to we have a couple of windows in there where we're going to get off our legs and be able to get some bumps and bruises healed up and use it to our advantage. So I'm we're super excited about it.




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