[Empire Lindy]

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2...811010372/1064

And now, the task toughens
Key win in hand, Bearcats face three difficult Big East tests, two on the road
By Bill Koch • bkoch@enquirer.com • November 1, 2008

After all the winter conditioning, the spring practice drills and the hot, humid days last August at Camp Higher Ground, the University of Cincinnati football team's BCS bowl prospects have come down to one challenging three-week period.

Beginning a week from today in Morgantown, the Bearcats will play at West Virginia, at Louisville and at home vs. Pittsburgh during the next three weeks.

If they win all three and take care of business on Nov. 28 in their home finale vs. lowly Syracuse, they'll finish with a 6-1 conference record, which should be good enough to earn the Big East championship and the accompanying BCS bowl berth, assuming that UConn loses at least once more along the way.

But here's the caveat: UC is 0-9 vs. those three teams since joining the Big East in 2005. The Bearcats are 1-14-1 all time vs. West Virginia, have yet to beat Pitt in seven tries and have lost their last five games vs. Louisville.

So if they're going to get to that coveted BCS bowl game, they'll have to break new ground.

On the plus side, they're coming off a 24-10 win over South Florida that was one of their most impressive outings of the season.

Quarterback Tony Pike, who completed 20 of 28 passes for 281 yards, was uncannily accurate for a player who missed two games with a broken left forearm and then had to leave last week's game because of numbness in his hand.

The UC defense rose to the occasion after a subpar effort at UConn, coming up with three interceptions of USF quarterback Matt Grothe in the kind of performance that was expected of this team all season.

"I figured if we could get pressure on him that he'd throw a bad ball," said UC cornerback Mike Mickens, who accounted for one of the interceptions to become UC's career leader with 13. "He doesn't like a lot of pressure. We knew that coming into the game."

UC coach Brian Kelly called the defensive effort "arguably our best performance of the year."

Included were two red-zone stops late in the fourth quarter.

"That was so exhilarating for us," said defensive end Connor Barwin. "To get two stops in one game on fourth down in the red zone is huge. Usually one is big, but to do it two times and make them go out of there with no points definitely changed the game."

The Bearcats also ended their streak of 25 straight unsuccessful third-down conversions on their first try, with Pike avoiding pressure and sprinting out to his right to connect with Dominick Goodman for the first down.

"I was hooting and hollering on the sideline," Kelly said. "I couldn't stomach 0-for-25. We spent a little extra time on third-down conversions. We were 5-for-10. That's a little bit better."