Preparing for new players on a team Week 1 is always a challenge, Cody Mauch said.

Joe remembers once he cornered ol’ Bobby Bowden for an interview from a golf cart on a golf range at the Belleview Inn in Belleair. Bowden was still coaching Florida State.

Joe cannot remember who Florida State opened the following season against — Joe is thinking it was Miami but the details don’t jive — and the first opponent had a new coach.

Joe asked Bowden how he could prepare for an opponent when the coach is pretty much an unknown at the new school.

In that Alabama-barbeque/Foghorn Leghorn voice of Bowden’s, he told Joe, “You can’t!”

So Bowden told Joe you can only go by the past tendencies of the coach combined with the knowledge of facing several of the same starters the year prior, sort of grappling in the dark towards crafting a gameplan.

This same subject got Joe thinking of the newcomers on the defensive line of the Bengals, who the Bucs open the season with tomorrow. Cincinnati fully rebuilt their defensive line, specifically at tackle. They brought in Dexter Lawrence and Jonathan Allen to beef up their tackles.

So Joe asked Bucs right guard Cody Mauch how he can prepare facing such a rebuilt defensive line of an opponent. He told Joe it’s difficult, but there is always a consistency.

“Yeah, there is a fine line to it,” Mauch said. “Scheme-wise they might play a little bit different [with new players]. But then, guys are going to have their pass rush moves [which rarely change].

“You go back — and that’s when I think it is beneficial — you go back [studying their past tape].”

Mauch noted it’s not often a defensive lineman abandons what has worked for him in the past just because he is on a new team.

“I think there is merit in going back to watching what they do with other teams and seeing late in the game, what are they are going to get to [use] pass rush-wise,” Mauch said.

What Bowden told Joe years ago about coaching tendencies, Mauch said the same thing with position coaches.

“You can have an idea [what they will do],” Mauch said. “You look at the defensive coordinator and d-line coach, and see what they are preaching with their guys.

“But [ultimately], are the players going to [stick] with what they are comfortable with? … It is always tough Week 1, not having a lot of film on them.”

Mauch said at the end of the day, it’s not so much what the opponent across the line does; it’s what he does.