From Ubben's Exit Interview at The Athletic:
What made you decide to enter the portal and look elsewhere?
Everyone likes to talk about Coach Pruitt and badmouth him and badmouth the staff, but at the end of the day, I have no problem with anybody on that staff. No individual person. They went over and beyond for me. They’ve been absolutely great through everything, especially with my injury.
But moving forward, going to a different school would be in my best interest. I’m trying to play at the next level and I’m predominantly a blocking guy, but I can run most of the route tree. I know my limitations, but at the same time, to be out there and just be blocking 95 percent of the time and not even have the opportunity to catch balls isn’t in my best interest moving forward.
Me and Coach Pruitt talked about that. I talked about it with multiple coaches on the staff and we all came to the agreement that it’s in my best interest moving forward for me and my family to go somewhere that’s going to use me as an all-around tight end and not a predominantly blocking tight end and catch maybe three or four balls.
When did you know leaving was going to be in your best interest for your future?
The problem was you had two younger guys, Princeton Fant and Jacob Warren, who hadn’t really played a lot of football. So I know the playbook was kind of toned down from the aspect of what they had to do.
We brought in extra linemen to block. I think Cooper Mays played some tight end for us and so did Riley Locklear. They tried to take as much responsibility off them as possible. But I don’t know, as the year went on, not catching the ball or not even having the opportunity to be in the passing game and a very limited run game, I don’t know, the writing was on the wall for me.
CLEAN HOUSE!!!