Know Your Opponent: Miami Redhawks edition

I'm going to start a feature here where I do a little write up of that days opposition for the mighty Bearcats. The foe tonight are none other than the other local 'rival', the Miami Redhawks. All rankings and stats come from KenPom.com and respective team sites.

Crosstown Shootout Countdown. #4

Continuing the countdown to the Crosstown Shootout, we reach the Xavier player that I hated the 4th most. Yes, hated. The hate for Xavier has mainly gone away as I have gotten older. Sad I know, but these 5 have a special hate box in my heart that still hasn't gone away. Yesterdays hated Xavier player was Tyrone Hill. This is the last generation of the Xavier players that I hate. This man was known for his bald head, and ridiculous X tattoo. He was also the National Player of the Year. I would type my David West memories, but those 4 Shootouts were blocked out of my mind, minus the 20 point blowout at the Cintas Center. That memory is fresh. The #4 most hated Xavier player is David West

Brian Kelly: Should he stay or should he go?

Everyone and their brother knows that Brian Kelly looks to be on his way to South Bend. I can't imagine the Randy Edsall talk being anything more than a smoke screen or a negotiating ploy. As much as I love what BK has done for the university and want him to stay, I think that if he's going to take the Notre Dame job, he should leave immediately.

There are a majority of people out there who think that he should stay and coach the Sugar Bowl, but I'm not one of them. They say that Kelly leaving immediately would be a sign of disrespect and a slap in the face to his players. Some people out there have already started calling Kelly a jerk, even though as of this post, he is the coach of the Cincinnati Bearcats. I can see their reasons why. Brian Kelly coached the team all season. Brian Kelly got them to an undefeated season, a Big East championship, and the Sugar Bowl. To leave them now, that would be betrayal. It would be stabbing the players who worked so hard for him all season in the back. If Kelly left, he would be showing no gratitude to the University for giving him the chance to coach in the Sugar Bowl, and the opportunity to be the coach at Notre Dame. To that, I say hog wash.
Brian Kelly should not waste another minute being the Cincinnati head coach if he accepts the offer from Notre Dame. As exciting as the prospect of playing in the Sugar Bowl is, it's a meaningless game. They aren't playing for the National Championship. If they destroy Florida, they won't be voted #1 by the AP and be a split champion if Texas beats Alabama. The AP didn't even vote them above TCU. They would only have a chance to move ahead of TCU if they dominated the Gators, and there isn't that great a chance of that happening. When Kelly left Central Michigan, he cut and ran before their bowl game to coach the Cats in their bowl win over Western Michigan. His assistants stayed at Central and coached the team in the bowl before coming to Cincinnati. That is a likely scenario if Kelly is to leave now. I can't see the university hiring a new coach before the end of the year, so one would assume that the assistants would take over. Jeff Quinn has been around long enough to handle things. Plus, it would give us all a great look to see if he would have what it took to become the new Cincinnati coach. Without getting into a coaching search post, I think that Quinn has to be one of the top candidates if Kelly were to leave. The school has never made a big splash hire, and Quinn would bring continuation to the situation. That is, unless he sucked and we could find this out first hand if he were in charge and the team played well in the Sugar Bowl. I hold this philosophy for all coaching changes. Just today, Louisville hired Charlie Strong, the defensive coordinator from Florida. Strong will split duties between Florida and Louisville until after the Sugar Bowl. I've written out Sugar Bowl so much that I'm starting to hate the game. It's going to be SB from now on. It probably should have been that way 5 minutes ago. Back to Strong. As a Louisville fan, I think he should dedicate this time to being the HEAD coach at Louisville instead of an ASSISTANT coach at UF. It takes time to put together a staff and start to rebuild the crumbling program. And his first month is going to be splitting duties. In one sense it doesn't matter because as long as comes off like he knows what he's doing like he did at the press conference today, Louisville fans are happy that Krag is gone. I think Strong should cut bait at UF and go to UofL even more than I think Kelly should potentially go to ND. To use this analogy, think of Kelly and UC as being boyfriend and girlfriend. If you were breaking up, would you rather her leave as soon as she came to the decision that she was going? Or would you rather her wait a month because it was your anniversary and you wanted one big, final celebration? When it comes to heart break, I want it quick. Thanks for the great work you did making UC football relevant for 3 years, now don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Crosstown Shootout Countdown. #5

We are just 5 days away from the Crosstown Shootout with Xavier. As we approach the game Sunday night, I thought it would be nice to get your hate levels nice and high. My Shootout memories go back to the early 90s, so sorry old timers. I have been told that I cried after the dramatic loss in 1990. Bob Huggins was not the only one upset with the officials. The first Shootout I really remember was the 92 game highlighted by the Nick Van Exel half court shot. While there haven't been a whole lot of highlights in the UC wins, there has been something worth noting in the loss. That is, that Xavier players are douche bags. X marks the spot for douche. As a lead up to the Shootout, here is a countdown of the 5 Xavier players I hated the most.
#5. Tyrone Hill. It should be noted that when you google Tyrone Hill, Tyrone Hill ugly pops up.

Bearcats represent on Big East Awards day

The Bearcats had a strong representation as the all Big East teams and awards were given out today. Brian Kelly was the coach of the year for the 3rd, and last, time. It was to be expected since he was the national coach of the year. Mardy Gilyard won his second straight Special Teams Player of the Year award. If he didn't have it sewn up before Saturday, he wrapped it up then. The Offensive Player of the year was Dion Lewis of Pitt, Defense was a tie between Greg Romeus and Mick Williams, also of Pitt. Lewis was also rookie of the year. Jasper Howard was the Honorary Captain of All Teams.

The All Big East team was filled with the following Bearcats. Congrats sirs

1st team

QB Tony Pike

WR Mardy Gilyard

C Chris Jurek
S Aaron Webster
RS Mardy Gilyard
Big East 2nd team
WR Armon Binns
OT Jeff Linkenbach
OG Alex Hoffman
OG Jason Kelce
TE Ben Guidugli
DL Ricardo Mathews

Welcome

I'm sick and tired of there not being a Cincinnati blog. There should be one, and dammit, now there is. Will it be informative? Probably not. Will it have lots of wisecracks and shenanigans? Of course. Will it be the best UC Bearcats blog out there? By default, WIN. That's right, you get the best, and on Crosstown Shootout week. The big game is Sunday at 5 and expect a breakdown of my favorite games the next couple days. There will be absolutely zero from my grade school days, mainly because Lenny fucking Brown ruined them. Let's also not forget that Pete Gillen is an asshole. In closing, get ready for some blogging about the UC Bearcats.