Cole Kmet

Yeah, it's obviously a big loss for us, losing Declan, EB, two great coaches and guys that provide a lot of value to the offensive side of the ball this year.

I know even though Declan doesn't call the plays for us, the amount of work that he did on the offensive side of the football was immense.

You could see that in day-to-day practices, and I'm sure it took a lot off of Ben throughout the week for his duties as a head coach.

Yeah, well, I mean, that must be hard for me to even say just because I'm not there in those meetings once we leave the building.

But, you know, you can tell with things in terms of getting the scout team correct, getting all those cards ready, dialed up, ready to go.

Whether it's scripting the practice, I'm sure Declan had a huge say as to what plays we're going to have up and what looks we were going to get throughout the week of practice.

And then, you know, on Fridays and Saturdays,

When we'd go over our film from Fridays on Saturday morning, you know, Declan's the guy going over that tape with the whole skill group and then kind of leading us in the walkthrough on Saturday before our main mini walkthrough as before we get to the hotel.

So, yeah, Declan was very hands on with all of us.

And that is a big role.

I know I understand and I somewhat understand what people on the outside and they say, oh, if you're not calling plays, like really, what are you doing?

These guys do a lot of stuff in terms of prepping for the game plan and getting us ready to go for practice throughout the week that really shows up big time up on Sunday.

And then, I mean, another thing Declan was great at is

You know, I'm sure Ben is the head coach.

There's a lot of things he's got to handle in halftime.

Declan's the one addressing the offense at halftime, kind of going over the openers that are going to be coming up in the second half and telling us what we need to do, what they're seeing, and how we can make adjustments.

So, yeah, Declan was definitely a very valuable piece to us offensively.

Held on to it.

Paul Komet.

We're tied in Chicago.