Cincinnati morphed into a mistake-creating defensive team in 2016. The Bearcats forced 24 turnovers from opponents, which may have ranked only sixth in the American Athletic Conference, but was tied for 24th in the country. It was a marked improvement from the previous season when they ranked 110th in the country in takeaways.
Safety Tyrell Gilbert was at the forefront of the miscue reclamation project and was also one of the more consistent producers for UC’s defense as a whole. We’ll get to his ability as a tackler, but where he really made an impact was in capitalizing on opponent mistakes.