[Empire Lindy]

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2...811060371/1064

Pike still hasn't reached peak
By Bill Koch • bkoch@enquirer.com • November 6, 2008

The University of Cincinnati coaching staff had a rather unflattering nickname for Tony Pike last year.

"We called him the seven-on-seven king," said quarterbacks coach Greg Forest. "You'd watch him in seven-on-seven and he was great. But when we'd get into some live stuff, one day he'd look really good and the next day he doesn't know what he's doing."

A year later, UC head football coach Brian Kelly considers Pike not only a team leader and the Bearcats' likely starting quarterback for next year, but as a star-in-the-making.

"He could be the best player in the Big East," Kelly said. "He could be that marquee player. Without question, he has that ability. If he keeps doing what he's doing, he's on that track."

The marquee Big East offensive player the past two years has been West Virginia quarterback Patrick White, whom the Bearcats face Saturday in Morgantown, W. Va.

It's White who provides the Mountaineer offense with a dynamic that opposing defenses scramble to contain.

Kelly believes that Pike, a 6-foot-6, 225-pound junior, could be that player for UC next year, not with the same combination of passing and running ability that White displays, but with a powerful, accurate arm and enough maneuverability to keep defenses honest.

It has been a stunning transformation for Pike, the Reading High School graduate who showed up for practice last summer as the second, maybe even the third-string quarterback behind Dustin Grutza and Chazz Anderson, only to blossom into one of the most effective passers in the Big East.

He ranks second in the league in passing efficiency behind White with a rating of 147.3. But if you remove his mop-up appearances against Eastern Kentucky and Oklahoma and the Connecticut game that he had to leave after the first half due to numbness in his left hand, his rating soars to 180.03 with 63 completions in 86 attempts for an average of 280.6 yards per game, seven touchdowns and one interception.

Kelly's ultimatum to Pike last summer - to either produce or finish your degree this year because we need your scholarship for someone else - has been well-documented. But it's one thing to attempt to change your ways and become a contributor, quite another to perform at the level Pike has occupied this season.

"It was always a mental thing with him," Forest said. "Maybe he didn't have a lot of confidence going into 11-on-11. It was just being locked in all the time because he has the skills. It just took Tony a little time to wake up."

Actually, it took a long time for Pike to wake up - four years, to be exact.

"When you're on third or fourth string and you're sitting in meetings, you're looking at the screen but I don't think you're really comprehending everything," Pike said, "and you're not really getting into what's going on.

"But when you get up there and you're either No. 1 or 2 you know how important it is. You've got to know what the defense is doing."

It also helped that as Pike rose on the depth chart, he began to get more reps in practice.

"Everyone gets a shot on seven-on-seven," Pike said. "But when you get in with the whole team, you get four-play sets and sometimes three of those plays are runs, so if you mess up one play that's going to hurt you because you don't get many of them.

"Being with the ones has gotten me more reps. It's just timing up with the receivers and seeing what the D-line is doing and having to move around the pocket. That was the biggest thing."

Kelly first saw the change in Pike during the blowout loss at Oklahoma after Pike took over for the injured Grutza.

With 1:23 left in a game whose outcome had long since been decided, Pike directed the Bearcats on a 12-play, 59-yard touchdown drive.

Even though nothing was on the line, that drive provided a shot of confidence for Pike and made Kelly feel better about the prospect of starting him in Grutza's absence.

Two weeks later, Pike started against Miami and completed 20 of 24 passes for 241 yards and three touchdowns.

He was on his way.

But Pike was temporarily sidetracked when he broke his left (non-throwing) forearm against Akron on Sept. 27. It forced him to miss 2½ games, but it also gave him a chance to show how much he had grown.

"It was a difficult time for him, but he's gotten through it," Kelly said. "There's nothing now that would be in front of him other than dealing with the adversity of not winning that he can't handle."