Oh Say Did UC?

The time for Cincinnati Bearcats links has come. This might not be your favorite bit, but it should be because it's very informative and fun for everyone.

Brian Bennett at ESPN has written a spring recap of every Big East team, or is going to, and yesterday he hit on Cincinnati. His biggest questions circle around the defense, especially the secondary.

Bennett also wrote a piece about the Big East's star being ready to shine, shine, shine. I know he said burn bright, but you can't write burn bright three times.

The Bleacher report did a slide show about the upcoming Big East football season. They put a familiar face as one of the 3 Big East Heisman candidates.

The great Ivan Maisel wrote a huge spring football recap, and at the very bottom, he mentioned Cincinnati. He said UC looked to have what it takes for a three peat. I like those words.

Mark Schlabach put up a post spring top 25. Top 5, Alabama, Boise St, Ohio St, Texas and Virginia Tech. Pittsburgh was the highest rated Big East team at 13. Cincinnati was 18. Spoiler alert.

Bengals.com did a nice write up about Mike Windt, the Cincinnati long snapper who signed to the Bengals as a free agent.

Mardy Gilyard had a piece written about him Friday by St Louis Globe Democrat about how he was wearing the great Torry Holt's #81.

There is also a more recent piece by some St Louis paper after the weekend OTAs saying that Gilyard and Sam Bradford had a nice rapport.

Switching to football recruiting news, the Bearcats have offered junior Jamire Westbrook. It's his first offer. He's actually going into his junior year, and is 16. The whole thing is kinda creepy. Recruiting is seriously getting out of hand.

The Bearcats have also made an offer to Zach Mettenberger. Zach was released by Georgia after getting charged for sexual battery.  He was expected to fight for the Georgia starting job this season. He was the 14th ranked QB by Scout a couple years ago, he redshirted last season, and is said to be a stud. I'm iffy on going after guys dismissed from teams for big things like sexual battery. Maybe Zach has turned his life around after that dark incident. He also has an offer from Louisville, and other schools are said to be interested.

Switching gears completely, let's hit up some baseball. The Bearcats are tied for 7th in the Big East, with an 8-10 record as of yesterday when the News Record wrote this. 8 teams make the BET. The teams behind the Irish and Bearcats are 5-13. The Bearcats get a tough challenge this week, as the Big East leading Connecticut Huskies prance into town. Good luck to the Bearcats. Try to make a game if you can peeps. They are free or cheap if they aren't free. I've been to one in my life. I don't remember who UC played, or who won, but it was fun.

Speaking of fun, this interview with UC 1B/Pitcher Kevin Johnson is. He may not have dunked over Hakeem Olajuwon, but he was drafted by the Florida Marlins and chose to come back to UC.

Former UC pitched Dan Osterbrock threw a 7 inning no hitter his last outing. That's great news in of itself, but he was named the Twins Minor League Player of the Week, Midwest League Pitcher of the Week, and was promoted to High A. Congrats a ton to Dan.

Moving to hoops, Bill Koch wrote a pretty alright piece about Sean Kilpatrick. Sean has a lot of pressure to take the place of not only Lance Stephenson, but Deonta Vaughn. With his admitted flat three point shot, he'll fit right in with the rest of the returning bricklayers. I kid.

I don't know much about the Cincinnati Commandos, besides the fact they have former UC players, but they are undefeated. This is a nice refresher. They are QB'd by Ben Mauk.

Also on the team is Dominick Goodman, and this is an interview with him.

We'll end with a couple of Big East links. Our good friends at Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician check to see if Doug Marrone losing 29 players since taking over at Syracuse has their program going in the right direction. And our best friends at Card Chronicle react about the news Samardo Samuels hiring an agent and turning pro.

Bearcats Bowl IV and NFL Draft Recap

It was a busy time for the Cincinnati Bearcats football program. Saturday especially. The Bearcats had 3 players drafted, and many more signed free agent contracts, and some others were invited to rookie mini-camps this weekend. Also, Bearcats Bowl IV took place Saturday night. I'm not going to do a full recap of the game, but mainly a recap of what, and who, looked good and what did not fare so well. Let's start with the draft.

If you visited the blog over the weekend, you already know that Mardy Gilyard was drafted in the 4th round by the St Louis Rams, and Tony Pike was drafted in the 6th round by the Carolina Panthers. The third man drafted was DT Ricardo Matthews, who went to Indianapolis in the 7th. Many congratulations Ricardo, sorry there wasn't a post about about you.

After the draft, the rush of free agents signings occurred. Aaron Webster signed with the Houston Texans. Jeff Lickenbach signed with Indianapolis. Long snapper Mike Windt signed with the hometown Bengals. And Alex Daniels signed with the Oakland Raiders. Attending mini-camps this weekend, are Brad Jones, who is going to Cleveland, and Craig Carey, who is going to Chicago.

Congratulations to all of those men. They busted their asses to make their dreams reality, and now they have a foot in the door. I have no doubt they will bust it down and earn a spot in the NFL. Bearcats Blog is proud of you guys.

The other big event of the weekend was the Bearcats Bowl. It is a little pointless of doing a full recap of every drive. Especially in the second half, when the rain started, the clock rolled continuously, and Coach Butch Jones looked ready to go. We'll roll out positives, and negatives. Ready for bullet points? I know you are.

Positives

• DJ Woods was making things happen against the second team D after every catch. He took short passes, and wrecked havoc in the open field. He busted one for 26 yards on the first drive. He and Zach Collaros worked very well together. DJ had 6 catches for 88 yards and a TD. 
• DJ also showed off the cannon on his right arm. On a fan called reverse pass, DJ threw a bomb to Vidal Hazelton, who was wide open, for 60 yards. Battle made a nice tackle saving the TD. The fan made the right call on the fan picked play, and DJ made a hell of a pass. 
• Zach Collaros was great. He was nearly perfect passing. He possibly could have had some runs, but the QB being tagged kept him in the pocket. He did scramble on one play and hit Darrin Williams for a 20 yard gain deep in UC territory. He got all 3 starting receivers, Woods, Hazelton, and Kenbrell Thompkins, involved to varying degrees of success. He also looked for the tight end well. He threw a couple of TDs to Woods, and Thompkins. He mainly threw short, but aired one out to OJ Woodard. 
• Payne played very well. He caught a long touchdown, and almost caught another on that drive that was ruled incomplete. 
• Darrin Williams ran effectively. He didn't break any huge runs, despite an 11 yard TD, but he was very solid. I don't know if he has what it takes to be the lead back just yet, but for a game or two, I think he can handle it. He had a couple of receptions, including the aforementioned 20 yarder, and could be a weapon in that aspect. Plus, he dyed the tips of his hair red and it looked awesome. 
• Hines ran pretty decent. He had a 26 yarder as his long, but he ran tough. He got thrown into action, and he got better as the game went on. 
• The defense played very well against the second team offense. They were able to get pressure against Chazz, limit the running game, and snuff them out. They forced a couple 3 and outs. Giordano had a sack. I kept bad records of the sacks, mainly because I don't remember if they said who got them. It's the spring game, I'll get better. 
• The defense had a big stop in the red zone. With the ball at the 4, they drew a holding penalty, got a sack, forced an incompletion, and got another sack. A 41 yard FG was missed. 
• The defensive highlight would have to be the one handed interception of a screen pass by McClellan. It was a very athletic grab, and he managed to take it inside the 10. 
• Bruce Horner blocked an extra point
• Artrell Hawkins was the sideline reporter. He did a pretty good job. Who knew?

Negatives

• UC had 10 men on the field for the blocked extra point. I'm sure in a real game there would have been a timeout, but that kind of stuff can't fly.
• Chazz Anderson looked pretty bad. He was very inaccurate. He made a couple nice plays, one a scramble to set up a FG, and a long pass to Payne for a TD. He was high with the ball. He held the ball too long. He seemed rushed all night. It was surprising to see that from him. He looked nervous or something. He played better in the second half. 
• The second team offensive line was unimpressive. They had Chazz under fire, and didn't really run block well. They sprung the 26 yard run by Hines, but overall, not great.
• The secondary, at least against Collaros, brought back visions of Florida. Receivers were running wide open, there were a couple of big long passes, and they got scored on nearly every time when Collaros was at QB. Granted, they were playing vanilla, but still. It brought back memories of that disaster, and that's a negative. 
• Milligan's attempt from 41 yards was so bad that it looked like they had a fan try and kick. Milligan could have used a Mulligan. Am I right?!?!?
• The fan who called the screen pass. You have 8 plays to call, including the reverse pass, and you choose a screen? Really? You call reverse pass every time. You suck guy who picked this play. 
• Rain. I didn't go to the game because the person I was going to go with didn't want to sit in the rain. Watching on tv was probably better, but I didn't have my chance to meet the Bearcat. Or call the reverse pass. Or ask to run the fumble rooski. It also forced the game to end early. 

Overall, it was a nice game. The white team beat the black team 57-55. The black team was the defense, they didn't go segregation. The offense looked Patriot like. If DJ Woods is going to play a Wes Welker type role, then I'm all for it. He was doing damage. The guys played hard, and were mostly successful. Thus wraps up the big weekend for UC football. Check back tomorrow, when we look back at another football game from the past.

Questions and Answers

UC doesn't tip off until Saturday, and in the meantime, I'll answer all the burning questions about UC and other things. Mainly UC things since this is a Cincinnati Bearcats blog. Maybe THE Cincinnati blog. After all, former Cincinnati great DeJuan Gossett follows us on twitter. DeJuan is 9th in tackles in UC history, and 2nd in solo tackles. He has incredible taste in who to follow on twitter. What does this have to do with questions? Shut up jerk, we're getting to that right now.

What are the odds that Cincinnati goes to the NCAA tournament?

Look, it's only February. We have many more games left in the regular season, and the Big East tournament. Anything can happen in New York City. I'm at the point where I'm getting a little tired of the negativity. Instead of looking at the schedule and counting the losses, we are going to look one game at a time. We need to chill.

You have said that Mick Cronin has had the pressure start to build under him. Does he make it through the off season if UC doesn't play in the Big Dance?

I'm going to say yes. UC would have to finish .500 or worse for there to be any justifiable reason for Mick to go. He came to UC with nothing. He has built UC to a contender for the tournament. Some of the fan expectations are a little too high, because there was nothing here 4 years ago. That said, Mick hasn't won a single game in March, including a disgusting loss against DePaul in the Big East tournament. The offense is absolutely awful. It needs to be changed next season. Hell, it needs to be changed tomorrow. Some people are questioning UC's conditioning. But, I think if UC is close to the tournament and end up in the NIT, he deserves to come back.

Speaking of leaving, what are the chances Lance Stephenson hangs around next year?

I think Born Ready is 70-30 to coming back. His jump shot has been horrible, especially from 3. That type of thing is going to keep him a little low on draft boards. Lance passes really well, and has started vacuuming up rebounds. The big problem lately has been Lance not getting himself involved in the offense all 40 minutes. He disappeared against Louisville, and he disappeared yesterday. We need 33 to be the player we know he is the whole game.

What's up with Deonta Vaughn? 

Nothing, he's chillin. But really. It's interesting that you asked that, because coming tomorrow, we are going to break down what's up with Deonta Vaughn. It's your lucky day.

Are any Bearcats going to the NFL combine?

Yes. Tony Pike and Mardy Gilyard were invited, and you can watch them run, and catch and throw on the NFL Network in a couple weeks. I know I won't.

Are the Bearcats going to be on ESPN next football season?

At least once. The Bearcats are traveling to North Carolina State on Thursday, September 13 for a nationally televised showdown. In the last 4 seasons, UC hasn't lost on ESPN Thursday night. UC beat USF twice, and Oregon State once. Hopefully they are on more national games this season. They do play Oklahoma, so that will be on ABC or something.

It's Rivalry Week on the 4 letter, what do you think the best Big East rivalry is?

You have your Syracuse-Georgetown, Syracuse-UConn, your West Virginia-Pittsburgh, Seton Hall-Rutgers, Marquette-DePaul I guess, Louisville-Cincinnati, but I'm going to say South Florida-St John's. When I think of great Big East basketball, I think of those 2.

Be honest.

Syracuse v. Connecticut is my choice.

Back to football. How awesome is Zach Collaros going to be? 

Very awesome. Butch Jones has tons of weapons coming back on offense, with Vidal Hazelton, Collaros, Isaiah Pead, DJ Woods, Armon Binns, and what have you. The Brian Kelly Machine should roll on, but as the Butch Jones Awesome Squad. Yeah, I had nothing there, but from now on, the offense is going to be called the BJAS.

What do you think about Brian Kelly being named the Ohio football coach of the year?

Yawn, that's what I care. Why are these awards still going on? It's February. Even baseball doesn't stretch his award season as much as some of these football awards. Let's wrap this award stuff up in December, or after the national title game guys. Come on.

Was this very successful?

Hell yes it was.

Tomorrow we break down Deonta Vaughn and his up and down senior season. Thanks for reading.

UC Notes

I'm working a list of the worst 25 UC losses I can remember after the debacle from Wednesday, but I took a little break to throw some notes your way. Most are football, but there are a couple basketball at the end. 

• The Bearcats hired an offensive coordinator and quarterback coach. It's one man, and that man is Mike Bajakian. Mike held the same position under Butch Jones at Central Michigan. The CMU offense lead, or was near the top, of the MAC in every offensive category that's important. CMU had the 15th best offense, and 14th in terms of passing efficiency. Good news
• The Bearcats are ranked 19 on the SI top 25 for 2010 too early edition. 
• Rivals did their look back at the football season for the Big East. They had Brian Kelly as the coach of the year, UC as the surprise of the year, UC's defense as the worst bowl performance, and Zach Collaros as the offensive breakout player for next year.
• Former Bearcat Mike Mickens signed to the Bengals offseason roster. He was on the practice squad last season. 
• Lance McAlister threw down some hot venom after the loss to St John's saying the following "In year four....if UC basketball lacks: A leader, Shooters, The ability to play hard consistently,  The ability to close out games, The ability to hit FT's, What exactly is being accomplished?" Harsh words
• I heard on twitter, not the greatest source ever, that the end of the game inbounds by Rashad Bishop was not to happen. Bishop was directly told not to throw the ball deep, and that UC didn't run the play drawn up. 
• One final thing, to the people calling for Mick Cronin's head, chill. Let's play the season out first before we go crazy saying he needs to go. If you remember, the program was nothing 4 years ago and we knew this would be a process. Now that we finally have expectations, we can't bail on the man who brought them back. Just relax peeps, it's January. 

Butch Jones thoughts

That's video of Butch Jones' pregame speech before the MAC title game, and video highlights of the victory. I'm pretty excited about the Butch Jones era. There is a little concern from some parties because he interviewed for the West Virginia job after his first season at CMU. That makes one wonder if the Michigan job came open that he would leave then as well. But who cares? There is also concern that he won with BK's players at Central Michigan. Those concerns I share as well, but luckily, he's following BK yet again. He did wonders with Dan Lefevour, and I think he can help Zach Collaros have a big, big year. Jones runs the spread, and the offense basically the same way Kelly did at Central, and like Kelly did here. I'm pretty excited about this hire. Central Michigan was very balanced, scoring 27 rushing and passing TDs this season. They went undefeated in the MAC and were ranked for the first time in school history. It will be very interesting to see how Jones deals with expectations. For the first time in school history, there is pressure to win. Losing more than the Oklahoma game non-conference is going to be a let down. Not winning the Big East is going to be a let down. Not to me, but to the fanbase. Especially if UC had a drastic fall back into irrelevance nationally. That said, I think that Butch Jones is going to help the program advance in the right direction. I think that he is going to win here. He is going to be hard pressed to match the Brian Kelly level of success the past 2 seasons, but 10, hell even 9 or 8, wins a year at Cincinnati is rather impressive. I don't think he's a Kragthrope hire, and I think the University of Cincinnati picked the right man to keep the train on the tracks of success.
(Edit. There is a 5 pm press conference this afternoon to make the formal announcement. Watch it live here)