Cincinnati’s offensive line is once again front and center, and Taran Tyo is making one of the biggest moves on the unit.
At the 2026 Big 12 Media Days, the Bearcats leaned on their big men for a reason. After putting together a top-four offensive line in the country last season, Cincinnati is still built around that group this fall, even with Gavin Gerhardt and Deondre Buford gone.
Tyo is stepping into a new role to help keep that standard in place. He’ll move from guard to center full-time and take over for Gerhardt, who handled the job for nearly half a decade.
"I'll be snapping the ball. I think I'll be moving to center, which I think will be a good change for me, especially for my mind and understanding different fronts, different defenses, where to take the slide, and stuff like that," Tyo said to a scrum of reporters.
The move fits the kind of player Tyo has been throughout his career. He’s lined up all over the place, and last season he posted a 72.7 Pro Football Focus grade over 766 snaps at right guard. Before that, he spent nearly the entire 2024 season at right tackle while at Ball State.
Cincinnati’s line has already proven it can keep quarterbacks clean. The Bearcats allowed just eight sacks last season, which ranked second in the nation.
If the current projection holds, the starting five from left to right would be Joe Cotton, Evan Tengesdahl, Tyo, Xavier Lozowicki, and Judea Milon. Even then, the two spots on the right side are still open enough for a shakeup, with Nolan Latulippe and Aidan Pastoriza pushing for those jobs in fall camp.
The group’s goals haven’t changed, either. The standard is still higher than what they already put on film.
"We could definitely replicate what we did last year, but we definitely want to improve," Tengesdahl told the media. "We did a lot of good things last year.
We also did a handful of bad things that we want to improve on and fix the imperfections that we had last year. We can definitely get much better than we did last year."
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For the Bearcats, the timing matters because the transfer market is still taking shape and any change in who can enter it can alter the board quickly. A pretrial conference is set for August 4, and until then Cincinnati and other programs will be watching closely to see whether the case opens the door for more players to pursue one more season, or whether the NCAAs new framework holds firm. [Read more 🡒]