Scott Satterfield Updates Sammy Anderson Jr.'s Status, Praises Justin Harris

Cincinnati's backup cornerback tied a single-game program record with four pass breakups on Saturday.

CINCINNATI — UC starting cornerback Sammy Anderson Jr. missed part of the opening game this season and all of last week's win over Pitt with a head injury. 

Head coach Scott Satterfield updated his status on Tuesday after Justin Harris (three tackles, four PBUs) stepped in for Anderson on the road and tied a program record with four pass breakups.

“Well, obviously we would hope to get him back out there but again, we talked about this," Satterfield said on Tuesday. "It’s up to what the doctors are saying on him. I know Sammy wants to be out there, we want him to be out there. We are certainly going to listen to all the doctors and what they say in his regard. We still think there are some more tests again today, so we’ll see where we are at with that. We’d love to have him out there because I thought he had arguably the best August camp of the defensive backs. I thought he played at a high level, with a lot of confidence out there. We’ll see where we are at here in the next couple of days.”

Harris had a rough day on the tackling side of things, but he directly impacted the stat line of Pittsburgh quarterback Phil Jurkovec and was a part of a group that forced Pittsburgh wide receiver Bub Means to go 0-for-11 on his catching his targets.

The redshirt senior has played 465 snaps as a Bearcat in various reserve roles and showed out well in coverage as a starter last week. 

Harris ended up with a 65 overall PFF grade in the game due to a tackling mark in the 20s.

Depth is the biggest question on this Bearcats defense and Harris answered that first test.

"I'm happy for him," Satterfield said about Harris. "He's getting this opportunity. It was a great opportunity for him to start in a big game and for him to go out there and have four PBU’s, and they (Pitt) were throwing at him a lot. For him to come out on top like that, I thought was great. I also think he'll learn a lot from that, getting that start, going out there and playing, getting a lot of balls thrown your way. It's a great film to go off and coach off of and to continue to get better for him. I recognize he had a bad injury and since some injuries throughout his career.

"For him to persevere and to keep battling back, I love it. I love those stories of guys that don't give in, don't let down, don't quit, they just keep battling, keep fighting. That's how we want to be as a team. So he exemplifies that as an individual, where we want our team to be. Maybe things don’t go your way sometimes, you face adversity, but you keep battling, keep coming in and you have to come out on top at the end. I am happy for him. I know he'll continue to get better, the more he plays throughout the season.”

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