News Ticker: Cincinnati 11/14

[Empire Lindy]

Message Board: http://ncaabbs.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=404

Newspaper: http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs...tegory=SPT0101

[Empire Lindy]

Cincinnati loses their starting QB for at least a month.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3572949

Tough break. Wonder if they are going to be more interested in the Mauk NCAA case now?

[Empire Lindy]

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2...310250066/1064

Hits take toll on Pike's grip
EAST HARTFORD, Conn. – University of Cincinnati quarterback Tony Pike, preparing for his first start since he broke his left forearm on Sept.27 at Akron, expressed confidence last week that he would be able to grip the ball well enough to function successfully Saturday against Connecticut.

But as the first half progressed, Pike had more and more problems with his grip as his left hand grew increasingly numb.

“The more hits it took the worse it got,” Pike said. “The main problem was gripping the football. I didn’t feel comfortable with that.”

At halftime the UC training staff advised coach Brian Kelly not to put Pike back into the game, so Chazz Anderson started in his place.

“We wanted to be certain that we weren’t putting him in a precarious situation,” Kelly said. “Our training staff recommended under those circumstances that we not play him. He tried to go. They redid the cast at halftime and tried to get him more comfortable but he just had lost feeling and was quite uncomfortable.”

Pike’s availability for Thursday’s game vs. South Florida is uncertain. He was to be re-evaluated Sunday.

[Empire Lindy]

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2...310260008/1064

UC's winning streak ends
By Bill Koch • bkoch@enquirer.com • October 25, 2008

EAST HARTFORD, Conn. – The endearing trademark of the University of Cincinnati football team this season has been its resilience.

After quarterback after quarterback went down, the Bearcats would bravely proclaim their next-man-in philosophy and go about their business on the way to another victory.

• Photos: Connecticut 40, UC 16


But that didn’t happen Saturday when Tony Pike, making his first start after breaking his left forearm on Sept. 27, was unable to play the second half after experiencing numbness in his left hand.

The Bearcats had managed to forge a 3-point halftime lead with a damaged Pike at quarterback in the first half, but in the second half they were battered by Connecticut running Donald Brown and thwarted by a UConn defense that claimed six turnovers and prevented UC from registering a first down in 14 third-down situations.

A six-point game midway through the fourth quarter quickly became a 40-16 blowout for UConn, which outscored the Bearcats, 30-3, in the second half before a sellout crowd of 40,000 at Rentschler Field.

"The second half is discouraging,” said UC coach Brian Kelly. “We’re not going to fix this by talking. We’re going to fix the way we played in the second half by action. We’ve got guys that are going to be willing to do that and I’m confident that we’ll play better football because we need to.”

The loss ended a four-game winning streak for UC (5-2 overall, 1-1 in the Big East Conference) and was the first loss for the Bearcats against UConn in five meetings.

“This is a team that has been beating us up over the past couple of years,” said UConn coach Randy Edsall, whose team improved to 6-2 overall, 2-1 in the conference.

This time it was the Huskies who did the beating up, getting 150 rushing yards on 29 carries and two touchdowns from Brown, the nation’s leading rusher, who became the first back this year to gouge the UC defense for 100 yards or more.

Defensively, UConn limited UC to a measly 30 rushing yards, while picking off three passes and recovering three of six Bearcat fumbles.

Pike completed 10 of 27 passes in the first half for 136 yards and one touchdown with one interception. It was obvious that he was not himself as the half progressed.

“He was hurting in the first quarter but he didn’t say nothing,” said UC wide receiver Mardy Gilyard. “He only mentioned it to me. In the second quarter, I could see him slowly getting up on some plays. He kind of shortchanged a couple of balls, not really trusting himself like he usually does so I knew something was going on.”

Anderson started in Pike’s place in the second half and struggled with nine completions in 20 attempts for 123 yards. He was intercepted twice and sacked twice.

Still, the Bearcats were within striking distance, trailing, 23-16, when they began a drive on their own 30-yard line with 11:17 left in the game and advanced to the UConn 39.

But holding penalties against Trevor Canfield and Khalil El-Amin pushed them back to their own 41, where they faced first-and-30.

On third-and-21, UConn’s Robert MClain III intercepted an Anderson pass and returned it to the UC 22, beginning a tide of mistakes that would see the Bearcats turn the ball over three times in the final 8:11.

UC prevented the Huskies from scoring a touchdown after that turnover, but David Teggart kicked a 22-yard field goal to give the Huskies a 10-point lead.

After the Bearcats were unable to register a first down on their next possession, Brown scored from 5 yards out for UConn after setting himself up with a 53-yard run.

The rout was on.

“Things kind of fell apart,” said defensive end Connor Barwin. “Suddenly the game got out of reach real quick.”

The Bearcats were held to 289 yards of total offense and failed to reach the 20-point mark for the second straight week.

“Their DBs did a great job filling the holes,” Anderson said. “They were just a solid defense that didn’t make mistakes.”

And when the Huskies needed a big play from their money back, Brown delivered.

“We’ve got to give him a lot of credit,” Kelly said. “Connecticut whipped us in the second half.”

[Empire Lindy]

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2...810280383/1064

Kelly: QBs will be ready
By Bill Koch • bkoch@enquirer.com • October 28, 2008

Determined not to be caught unprepared again, Brian Kelly said today he’s preparing every quarterback in sight for Thursday’s game against South Florida. That means Tony Pike, Chazz Anderson, Zach Collaros and even Demetrius Jones have been getting more reps in practice.

“Given our circumstances at the quarterback position, I need to understand that maybe we need to get them all ready,” Kelly said. “It can’t be an excuse that we don’t have a guy ready to play.”

Kelly then acknowledged that the coaching staff should have been better positioned to deal with the loss of Pike at halftime last week vs. UConn.

“We have to do a better job than we did last week against UConn,” he said. “We’ve got to have two packages. We’ve got to have plays that are suited best for our quarterbacks during the game. Obviously we had set our game plan for Tony. I didn’t do a good enough job of shifting our game plan to Chazz when he went in in the second half. This week we will have a couple of different game plans based upon who the quarterback is.

“I’m going to give Zach reps and he’s going to be evaluated. Demetrius got a lot of reps yesterday. He’ll get some more today.”

To be fair, Kelly didn’t have much time to adjust last week. He didn’t find out until the Bearcats hit the field for the second half that Pike couldn’t play.

“We went through all of our halftime adjustments based upon Tony playing,” Kelly said. “He tried to warm up and we had the ball first in the third quarter, so we had about 90 seconds to kind of shift gears. We had to deal with it and go.”

[Empire Lindy]

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2...810290368/1064

Takeaways down for Bearcats' 'D'
By Bill Koch • bkoch@enquirer.com • October 29, 2008

Turnovers were the lifeblood of the University of Cincinnati defense last year when the Bearcats shared the national lead with 42 and led the Big East Conference in turnover margin at plus-16.

UC coach Brian Kelly was right to expect that repeating those numbers would be difficult this season.

But he didn't anticipate the slide in the Big East from first to a tie for last in turnover margin at minus-six, which is where the Bearcats stand today.

"The only stat that really matters to me relative to turnover-takeaways is the plus-minus, and we're on the wrong side of that with six turnovers against UConn," Kelly said.

There's no question the six UC turnovers vs. the Huskies' none pushed the Bearcats to the bottom of the league in that department, but even without that game, this defense has not been as opportunistic as it was last year.

The Bearcats had a streak of 19 games of forcing a turnover stopped against Rutgers and have not forced a turnover in their last two games.

"We're really disappointed with that," said defensive coordinator Joe Tresey. "We talk about it all the time."

"We work strip drills and we work ball drills," Tresey said. "I think people evaluate you, too, and I think when we came into the season people knew we were No. 1 in the country and I think people do a good job of trying to protect the ball.

"If you look at us on tape, we've got guys trying to strip it. We just can't get it out. We had two (possible) picks the other day and we dropped one. Cedric Tolbert had one that he dropped. It's been tough."

After intercepting 26 passes last year, the Bearcats have picked off eight through seven games this season as teams have adjusted to make sure they're not throwing very often in the direction of all-league cornerbacks Mike Mickens and DeAngelo Smith.

UC has not been able to compensate with fumble recoveries, having seized only one opponent fumble all season while losing nine of its own.

"People heard about us," said defensive end Lamonte Nelms. "That's what happens when you do well in something. I'm sure they're looking at the stats from last year and seeing that we take the ball away so they're holding onto the ball. UConn didn't give us many opportunities to take the ball away. I think that's what every team is doing that we've played so far."

Overall, the defense, heralded as UC's strength as the season began, has been a mixed bag.

The Bearcats played outstanding defense in a 13-10 win over Rutgers and in wins over Marshall and Akron.

But a unit that starts 10 seniors currently ranks sixth in the league in total defense (331 yards per game) and seventh in pass defense, allowing 228.1 yards per game. The Bearcats are fifth in scoring defense (22.0 points per game).

Last year, they ranked second in scoring defense (18.8), sixth in total defense (368.2) and seventh in pass defense (254.0).

UC will be tested Thursday night by a South Florida team that leads the league in scoring offense (33.5 points) and total offense (425.8 yards).

"Our biggest struggle is getting 11 guys to play every single snap," Kelly said. "We'll have one guy make a mistake. We're not getting all 11 to play every play. If we do, we're pretty good."

But too often, as Tresey said, there has been a breakdown by one or two players that results in a big play for the opponent.

Last week, the Bearcats allowed 83 yards in 63 plays, but 267 in 13 others. One of those was a 53-yard run in the fourth quarter by UConn running back Donald Brown, the nation's leading rusher who finished with 150 yards.

"We had the kid in check," Tresey said. "He had 43 yards at half. He probably wouldn't have had 100. It would have been real close, and he ripped off that 53-yarder at the end. Probably the big plays have been our biggest weakness right now."

BLACKOUT: UC is urging fans to wear black to Thursday's game to "Black Out the Bulls." About 3,000 tickets remained as of Tuesday.

[Empire Lindy]

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2...810310340/1064

Quarterback question gets settled - at least for now
By Ryan Ernst • rernst@enquirer.com • October 31, 2008

Tony Pike, in his first full game since breaking his left forearm, put a temporary moratorium on any quarterback questions the UC Bearcats have.

Yes, with a healthy Pike behind center, the Bearcats can beat a good team.

They did just that Thursday, as the one-time backup led them to a 24-10 victory over 24th-ranked South Florida at Nippert Stadium.

Pike, a junior, was 20-for-28 passing for 281 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.

South Florida entered the game with the second-best pass defense in the Big East, allowing just 187 yards a game through the air.

Pike's numbers were impressive, but he made his most impressive throws on the most important downs. He was 5-of-8 on third-down completions - no small feat considering the Bearcats entered the game 0-for-their-last-25 on third-down conversions.

"That was a huge focus for us," Pike said. "... The biggest thing was we were able to execute the way we wanted to tonight, where the last weeks we weren't able to."

Pike, who left last week's loss to Connecticut at halftime with numbness in the arm, was officially announced as the starter minutes before Thursday night's kickoff. Redshirt freshman Chazz Anderson, who filled in for Pike at UConn, was out of the equation due to a strained knee.

Pike said he thought he'd be the starter as early as Tuesday. UC coach Brian Kelly said he wasn't comfortable starting Pike until Wednesday.

With the game in hand, redshirt freshman Zach Collaros took over on the Bearcats' last two possessions.

Despite the Reading grad's performance, the Bearcats' future at quarterback remains in question. Dustin Grutza, still recovering from a broken leg, Thursday was in uniform for the first time since the injury occurred in Week 2 against Oklahoma.

[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."

[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."

[Empire Lindy]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08312/926123-144.stm

Cincinnati's Gilyard making amends
Cincinnati receiver Gilyard proves trouble isn't permanent
Friday, November 07, 2008
By Chuck Finder, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

This University of Cincinnati receiver was last seen a week ago yesterday on ESPN, bursting out of the end zone after a deep-corner catch, continuing through an opening in the Nippert Stadium wall and steamrolling a 7-year-old boy in the stands, whereupon he ripped off his helmet and hugged the crying child. The receiver was immediately heralded, especially for never looking back to see if his catch was ruled a touchdown. The kid was interviewed by ESPN's Erin Andrews, gave autographs and appeared the next day on ABC's "Good Morning America."

The tale that led Mardy Gilyard to little Garrett Monroe goes much deeper, though.

Raised in a single-parent household.

Accused of cheating in class.

Had his scholarship revoked.

Got evicted from off-campus housing.

Worked four jobs to pay his debts.

Slept in a car for four months.

Marshwan Gilyard, 21, is a self-professed reformed knucklehead who comes with the Bearcats (6-2, 2-1 Big East) to Mountaineer Field tomorrow night to play No. 20 West Virginia (6-2, 3-0). He is their second-leading receiver. He is No. 1 on the roster. He is the favorite part-time counselor at the Wesley Chapel Mission Center in a section of downtown Cincinnati and, perhaps most of all, a world-wizened football player with a tale to tell.

"I just fell in love with the kids," Gilyard, over the telephone, recalled of the day he followed a counselor friend into the center. "They're the nicest kids. But, at the same time, they're inner-city kids, and you don't have a chance to get out of your norm. That's why I'm there, to show them it can be done.

"I can't talk to kids who are in trouble if I've never been in trouble myself, you know what I mean? I can talk about if your mom's not there, if your dad's not there. ... I just try to share with the kids, 'Hey, I'm on your side. I may not come from the same city, but I know where you came from.' "

He admits being "a sucker for kids," but there was more to his hug with Garrett Monroe than that. It was more than showing the roughly 2.37 million folks tuning into that broadcast and the almost 20,000 more clicking on his hug video on YouTube that football players "are not just flashy and ... flamboyant and caring [only] about ourselves." Rather, it was all about an embrace with the humanity that is Gilyard.

"It's a blessing. The whole season I feel is a blessing," Gilyard said. He scored the Bearcats' first touchdown of the season, against Eastern Kentucky. The next week, at Oklahoma, he scored the team's first kickoff-return touchdown in 145 games, established a Big East record with 246 return yards and collected a school-record 365 all-purpose yards. He is the Big East leader and 21st nationally in kickoff returns with an average 27.5 yards. He is heading to West Virginia tomorrow with 43 catches for 685 yards and a team-high seven touchdowns. He had four receptions for 98 yards in the 24-10 South Florida upset, better remembered for the pass Gilyard didn't catch: As he hauled in Tony Pike's 26-yard throw, his left foot stepped out of bounds two strides before that collision. "I always knew I had the ability to do what I'm doing now. I just didn't have the right mind frame to do it, that's the only way I can put it.

"I did a lot of praying, just helping me in general with myself."

Start at the beginning. Gilyard was born in Bunnell, Fla., to Viola Crudup and