Cincinnati Bearcats

[nelsonmuntz]

Offense

Cincinnati has two HUGE losses: Zach Collaros and Isaiah Pead, which will not be easy to replace. Legaux looked good at times, but he needs to step up his game this season. Overall, there are a lot of highly recruited choices at QB, but we don't know how Jones handles replacing a departing QB. In fact, I don't think Jones has ever started a QB that Brian Kelly didn't recruit. I think Jones is a good enough offensive mind that he can pull this off.

Poteat should be a good replacement for Pead. Cincinnati's rushing numbers have been great under Jones, and I expect that to continue. There are basically 3 starters returning on the offensive line, although the other two positions will have guys that basically haven't played at all. Look for snap problems with a center that has a handful of college snaps and an inexperienced QB.

WR looks good. Thompkins is going to be a star, and McClung is very solid. Luallen and Chisum give this team a lot of depth, and will help make Legaux look good. Cincinnati always seems to have the best receivers in the Big East.

Defense

I think Jones has dramatically upgraded the defensive talent. By the third year of Kelly's tenure, D'Antonio's players were gone and the defense was looking a little shaky, and while the stats weren't bad Kelly's last year or Jones' first, the defense looked bad against the better opponents. I expect to see sophomores and even freshmen challenging for playing time.

Wolfe and Hughes are big losses at defensive tackle, especially Wolfe. That said, this year's starters got a lot of snaps the last two years, and Stewart and Giordano round out a good line. Schaefer loss hurts at LB, but they return two other starters and 3 of 4 in the secondary, although I wouldn't be surprised to see some young players take playing time in the secondary.

One thing that strikes me when i watch Cincinnati is how small the defense is. They will probably not start a single guy over 275 pounds. This defense was stingy against the run last year (2.7 ypc against), but seemed to wear down at season's end. the pass defense improved after two years of mediocre play, and I expect additional improvement in that department this year.

Schedule

Virginia Tech in Landover is the marquee game. They get 4 Big East home games, and 2 FCS games. At Toledo has the potential for trouble, but realistically, Cincinnati has a floor of around 6 wins, and the chance to get as many as 9 or 10. With Syracuse and Temple as bad as they are, there are going to be a lot of teams with winning records in the Big East.

Conclusion

Jones surprised me the last two years. I expected Cincinnati to be better than they turned out in 2010, and worse than they turned out in 2011. Jones is upgrading the defense, and it will be interesting to see if he can get the "Cincinnati-type" performance from the QB this year. I am not crazy about Jones as a game coach. I think he panics at times, the Tennessee game last year being an example.

If Legaux has a really good year, 10-2 is a possibility. Realistically, Legaux will ahve some growing pains, Cincinnati will find a way to lose a heartbreaker to Virginia Tech, and finish:

8-4 (4-3)

 

[uconnbaseball]

I like the talent on defense, especially at end, but their lack of superstars (outside of maybe Walter Stewart) and depth will hut them. UConn sometimes runs wild on them (2008-2010) and at other times, our ground game is completely shut down (2005. 2007, 2011). I am not sold on this year's offensive line, so I do not expect us to have a big day running the ball on them. I do expect to throw on them as their secondary lacks a big-time playmaker.

Not sold on Legaux yet. The backs are deep, but losing Pead is huge. I will note that UConn shut down Pead two years in a row, so I feel we can stymie their ground game again this year. Since Cincinnati has few proven stars outside of WR and we agree on Butch Jones, I will go 7-5 overall. UConn can beat them at The Rent.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

As soon as I posted this, I started to feel like I underestimated Cincinnati. There are times that I look at this team and think they could be a borderline Top 25 program this year, but the loss of both DT's, Collaros, Pead and Schaefer give me pause. I think depth has improved a lot on defense, but it is hard to overcome the loss of that many stars.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The realignment stuff is too depressing. Let's talk some football. What do people think of Cincinnati?

 

[Dann]

The realignment stuff is too depressing. Let's talk some football. What do people think of Cincinnati?

im in. i have a hard time gauging what to make of cincy. i will fess up i follow other big east teams more than cincy so i'm not very caught up with them. i have been impressed at there recruiting the past 5 years, it where i think PP can take us in time. its not top 25 level but it seems to be consistently 30-50 i would say. losing the rb will hurt them but i feel like they have plenty of guys just waiting for reps at rb. they seem to have a solid air attack usually. ZC was hurt last year right? or at least for like the 2nd half if i remember correctly? the kid that steeped in was raw but it looked to me like he had all the tools to become a good qb. if he does they could be really dangerous. maybe the next geno smith type? there d always seems to be hit or miss vs us. i kinda just keep thinking of them as middle of the big east type team this year and it seems a lot of rankers and bloggers think the same so its really hard to judge what they have. i think ppl are real high on usf and lville so cincy just gets overlooked. i know i'm really high on lville and uconn along with usf finally breaking thru so its hard to put them over those 3. i wonder how much they are getting overlooked by ppl, they have been a great program the past 5 years, very impressive. i'm probably not one of the BY's that's good at this type of stuff so i'll wait to read others and enjoy the thread.

 

[metsfan2323]

At minimum they lost their top 3 players Collaros, Peade and Wolf. We have them at home to wrap up the season.

Whitmer 3 step drops them to death and passes for 310 yards. Nick Williams reaches 100 receptions. We win 37 - 14. Pasqualoni takes a Gatorade bath as the crowd storms the field to celebrate the undefeated season. The question becomes will we move from number three to number two in the polls.

 

[john2153]

We always seem to play well vs Cincy at home. I much rather be playing them though in October rather than December because of all the new personnel they have to break in. I wasn't really impressed by Legeaux last season when he played, but he definitely could improve.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

We always seem to play well vs Cincy at home. I much rather be playing them though in October rather than December because of all the new personnel they have to break in. I wasn't really impressed by Legeaux last season when he played, but he definitely could improve.

I kind of like Legeaux. Cincinnati has most of its starters returning, but does lose a few key players. Legeaux and their new DT's are key. If those guys step up, this team could be very good.

 

[mcs333]

Legeaux is very inconsistent. He completed only 47% last year. With only four offensive starters back Cinn. may have trouble moving the ball consistently. However with 7 back on D and they showed much improvement last year, the Dmay keep them in a bunch of games.

 

[Excalibur]

Jones surprised me the last two years. I expected Cincinnati to be better than they turned out in 2010, and worse than they turned out in 2011.

Cincy looked disorganized and confused most of the time in 2010. Further proof that it's not unusual for a program to take a step back in a coaching transition.

 

[weyuo]

IF..... UConn and Cincy are playing for the Big East title Dec 1st it will mean we had a pretty good season and under those circumstances I like our chances regardless of who steps up for them. Undefeated, unlikely. 10 wins, maybe.

 

[jonsmith]

I kind of like Legeaux. Cincinnati has most of its starters returning, but does lose a few key players. Legeaux and their new DT's are key. If those guys step up, this team could be very good.

Cincinnati fan here. In a nutshell, I would agree that these are the key issues for this Cincinnati team in 2012. I think Munchie has some tools (height, arm strength, athletic ability) but he really needs to put it all together. He played WR his freshman year and was then forced into action when Zach went down against WVU. So he was really in a tough spot last year and struggled as a result but did show some flashes such as the first half against UConn but then really struggled in the second half of that game. I think we fans *hope* that with a full season of preparing as the starter he will make a big jump in 2012. But if not we may be forced to go with either RS Senior Brendon Kay or bite the bullet and take our lumps with a freshman QB.

I do think we've got a good group of WRs but have a feeling we'll run the ball quite a bit this year to take some pressure off of Munchie. We'll likely use anywhere from 3 to 5 RBs this season and while none individually will likely replace Pead, collectively they seem like a nice group.

Defensively, the losses of Wolfe and Hughes will be big. Those two were dominant last year. Replacing them will Jordan Stepp who played quite a bit last year and RS Soph Cameron Beard who played sparingly last year. Most of the depth at DT is pretty inexperienced (although we did snag a JUCO DT transfer) so that is a position that will be watched very closely. The defensive end rotation should be a strong point with Stewart, Giordano and Mills all returning as RS Seniors. And the defensive backfield only loses one starter so everyone is hopeful that position group takes a big step forward.

Butch has done a nice job of building out some pretty good depth on both sides of the ball so we're less reliant on one or two key players like we have been in the past. Another poster mentioned how well UConn plays against Cincinnati at the Rent which is right on (and correspondingly we play well against UConn at Nippert). I would peg that game as one of the top 2 or 3 most difficult games on our schedule for sure. I don't think any Cincinnati fan ever feels good going into a game against UConn at the Rent.

As a whole, I think most UC fans feel that we can be better than many of the prognosticators are predicting (which is generally 4th-5th place in the BE) but also recognize that poor play from the QB position could really derail our season. Last year Collaros really didn't have that great of a season but came up big in a couple of games. Our success was mostly as a result of running the ball well on offense, stopping the run on defense, and playing well on special teams. I see us trying to stick fairly close to that formula next year.