Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Bearcats in the NFL
Peter King names Bearcats among players of the week: Click Here
Jeff Linkenbach protects Manning in first NFL start: Click Here
Monday, September 27, 2010
Football Sets Game Time For 115th Battle For Victory Bell
UC vs. OU Post-Game
First of all, what a freakin tailgate! Thanks to everyone for participating. We polished of a keg, ate $300 worth of ribs, pork and pulled beef sandwiches, and had 3 huge tables of sides. Not to mention the debut of our satellite TV capability for all-day game watching! Again, thank you for donation and bringing sides, UC fans continue to be generous.
As for the game, Bob Davie on ESPN said it was an SEC-like atmosphere. I don't think you can give a better compliment than that, and our Bearcats played extremely well. Our mistakes, more than anything else, cost us the game. But before any one person is faulted, many of those same players kept us in the game too. With any first year head coach the best measurement is improvement, progress, and buy-in. I'd say all three went up after this game. It's too early to say it's a turning point, but it sure did seem like the light bulb went off against a top 10 team. A bye week, getting healed, and putting a pounding on MU is in order. In the meantime, pictures are being posted on the left of our most recent tailgate and articles are attached below. Go CATS!
Cincinnati Defeated By No. 8 Oklahoma, 31-29
Bearcats a work in progress, with emphasis on progress
Now That's More Like It
And lastly, a shout-out to UC's ranked team. Women's volleyball! No. 25 UC Volleyball Wins Sixth Straight Knocking Off Rutgers, 3-0Saturday, September 25, 2010
TAILGATE HAS MOVED!!!!!!!
TAILGATE HAS MOVED! WE ARE IN THE LOT AT THE NORTHWEST CORNER OF PETE ROSE AND CENTRAL, IN THE BACK OF THE LOT TOWARDS THE MIDDLE!!
CALL OWEN IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE FINDING US! 675-6735.
THANKS!!
Friday, September 24, 2010
Good Luck Bearcats
Hot Ticket In Town
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Tailgate Updates
1. Anything you bring make sure it's in a disposable container you can toss. Our stuff will be unsecured during the game and we have no ability to take it with us when we leave.
2. Will be best to drop off your party and anything you're bringing then find parking if you have people unable to walk for a few blocks or lots to carry. Most of the lots surrounding the stadium are by pass only (ours is) and you'll have to park on 2nd or 3rd street in a garage and walk down. I pulled the following from the Bengal's website:
irections:
- From I-75 Southbound, use exits at Freeman Avenue and 2nd Street.
- From I-75 Northbound, use exits at 2nd Street and 5th Street in Ohio.
- From I-71 Southbound, use exits at 3rd Street or Gilbert Avenue.
- From I-471 Northbound, use exits at 3rd Street or 6th Street.
PARKING & TRANSPORTATION: South of Third Street adjacent to the stadium is sold out with pre-paid season parking. North of Third Street ranges from $10-$20. West of Central Avenue is limited game-by-game parking.
TANK has the Southbank Shuttle through Cincinnati, Newport and Covington for $1.50. Parking is also available at the Bellevue Medical Arts Building, in the Newport on the Levee Garage, and in Covington at 5th & Bakewell, Kenton County Garage at 3rd and Madison, Willie's Sports Cafe, and the Embassy Suites Garage.
Queen City Riverboats has a $5 round-trip ticket from Hooters and The Beer Sellar in Newport.
- Location: The stadium is approximately five blocks west of Great American Ballpark. It is bordered by Pete Rose Way on the north, Mehring Way on the south, Elm Street on the east and Central Avenue on the west. The southern border of the stadium is one block from the Ohio River, and will be connected to the riverfront with a public park.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Ohio University Bobcat tackles Brutus Buckeye, 9/18/10
Sunday, September 19, 2010
UC vs. OU Tailgate Sat Sept 25th @ PBS
1. Remember, game is at PBS and tickets are still available. Our location is Lot E, which is the lot between the stadium and the river and can also be viewed on the map below (click on it for an enlarged view).
2. We'll be doing pork loin, ribs, and shredded beef sandwiches. Sides are really appreciated, and please respond to the eInvite so we can get a handle on how much to prepare. Lunch/dinner will be served round 2-4PM and we'll pack up the tailgate round 5:30.
3. Keg will be in the house! If I take any back to the supplier I'll be disappointed!.
4. In more recent developments, we've purchased a travel DirectTV setup, so we'll have cable running and the best games on TV for everyone to view (ESPN, VS, etc.)
5. Donations are appreciated. Anything you give is used to cover beer and food, and if we should ever collect extra it goes toward purchasing more entertainment items like the DirectTV.
6. There will be port-o-johns on location.
7. I believe our lot is parking pass only, thus if you didn't get a pass thru UC plan on paying to park elsewhere and hiking to our spot. You're welcome to drive by and drop stuff off if needed before you park.
See you Sat and GO CATS!
Cincinnati-Oklahoma Game Time Set For 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 25
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Dan Hoard Weighs In
Recently in Dan Hoard Category
Coach Jones Has Been Here Before
By Dan Hoard on September 17, 2010 3:11 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
Is Butch Jones going to be successful at Cincinnati?
I don't know yet. And either do you.
But I would hope that people don't ignore what he accomplished in three years at Central Michigan after three games at UC.
I'll admit it - I expected the Bearcats to be one of the best offensive teams in the Big East this year. Since Coach Jones and Brian Kelly both run no-huddle, spread offenses, I thought the transition to a new coaching staff would be seamless and expected "Collaros and Company" to light up the scoreboard right away.
That hasn't happened, and it was probably unrealistic to expect.
"I think we have some good players on offense, but it's still a different team," senior center Jason Kelce told me after the NC State loss. "It's a different coaching staff and a different team and we're still not clicking on all cylinders like we were last year. It's a long season and we're going to get this corrected."
The problems begin on the offensive line where the Bearcats only have one player (right guard Alex Hoffman) starting in the same spot as last season. After UC allowed eight sacks in the opener at Fresno State, the 'Cats made a change in the starting lineup as Randy Martinez replaced Evan Davis at left guard. Last night, UC tried sophomore Sean Hooey at right tackle in place of senior C.J. Cobb for a few plays in the second half.
NC State was in attack mode on defense all night, blitzing at least one extra pass rusher on nearly every snap. Collaros was sacked five times, including three times in a seven-play stretch.
"They like to bring a lot of guys and play Cover 3 behind the fire zone," Kelce said. "We knew that coming into the game and just shot ourselves in the foot a little bit too much. It's very disappointing."
The flipside of facing teams that frequently blitz is that it creates the opportunity for big plays. When Collaros had time to throw, he completed four passes of 20-or-more yards, although three came in the 4th quarter.
"We knew what they were going to do," Collaros told me. "They brought a lot of pressure and deserve credit for playing well, but we didn't execute. I take my hat off to them, but we can play a lot better than this."
They are going to have to.
Losing on the road at Fresno State and NC State should not be shocking - the Bearcats were underdogs in both games. But to see them fall behind by at least two touchdowns in each of those games is disconcerting.
"We really don't have any excuses," said junior linebacker J.K. Schaffer after making a career-high 16 tackles against the Wolfpack. "We still have a lot of football left and can still put together a really good season. I'm still looking forward to it."
"We have to fight through it," said junior defensive tackle John Hughes. "We've got to put this behind us, because you can't play this game over again."
"It's really going to test our character and our togetherness as a team and a football family," said Collaros. "We're really going to see what we're made of over the next couple of weeks."
Here's a little history to consider.
When Butch Jones replaced Brian Kelly at Central Michigan in 2007, the Chippewas opened the season 1-3 and averaged 14.3 points in the three losses.
Over the next 10 games, Central Michigan went 7-3 by averaging 39.2 points and won a MAC Championship.
Butch Jones was able to make the necessary adjustments and his players responded.
Let's see if he -and they - can do it again.
I'd love to hear from you. Please take a moment to tell me who you are and where you're from in the comments section or you can e-mail me at dhoard@pawsox.com.
And if you Twitter, you can follow my tweets at http://twitter.com/Dan_Hoard
Friday, September 17, 2010
1-2 Post Game NC State Thoughts
For those fans who have only been around long enough to see us win you probably don't remember Dantonio's first year. We got pounded like there was no tomorrow, lost almost every game and looked lost doing it. We started something like 6-7 freshmen on D and I'll never forget the defensive coordinator's comment after we looked slow, poor and outclassed, "It's easy to look slow when you don't know where you're running to." Fast forward 4-5 years and those same kids won back to back BE championships under BK. Note that. BK won with Dantonio's recruits. That's really important when you realize 25% of our recruits under BK never played a game for us or enrolled. We're so thin in upperclassmen that 65 players on this team are redshirt sophs or below (you only get 85 scholarships in football). Our two deep on D doesn't have a single senior. Remember Celek, Barwin, Goody, Byrd, Manalac, Pike, Nakamura, I could go on and on? Now name off our starters and ask how many are 20-40% better than those kids? And they were recruited a year BEFORE we joined the BE. After back to back BE championships shouldn't our recruiting have gotten much better? I'll never not appreciate what BK did here, but building a program and recruiting wasn't what he did well. It's almost criminal how weak the foundation of our program is after he left. Don't kid yourself, he had a 3 year plan coming in and it shows. If we could have had Dantonio recruiting and BK coaching for all those years combined we'd be top 5, and I'm hopeful Butch can get us there.
Secondly, you don't break in a new coach with a new team by playing across the country in a hostile environment, racing home for a game, then a quick turnaround on the road again for a Thursday night game. BK even said this year in an interview he planned on buying out of the Fresno game. There's no excuse why we didn't. You have to at least help put your staff in a position to shine and that didn't happen.
My post-game thoughts are below, but in the end this is a rebuilding year. This transition is gonna hurt more than we like, but it's also going to get better. I hope our fans realize this up front and support the program either way. Better programs have suffered thru some bad seasons (Michigan, Alabama and FSU come to mind) but recovered. Anyone who thought winning football at UC was a given had some pretty unrealistic expectations, but I'm looking forward to next year and year 3 under BJ with what I know now.
I suppose this is as good a thread as any to post post-game comments as well. There's plenty of crap to go around, but I'm glad I had a night to sleep on it too.
As far as defense is concerned, we're not bad. Not good, but not bad either. Our main problem is no sustained pass rush which comes from running 4 tackles and no ends. We don't have a player who can consistently beat their man one on one in a passing situation. I still like our run stoppers, backers are playing pretty well considering we lost one to injury before the season, and our secondary needs a bit of work but it's hard to tell when the QB has 8 seconds to throw. The two best corners in the world can't cover that long. I'm still hopeful we'll be a good D..... Next year. Add in a pass rusher and a little more experience with the entire two deep coming back and we could be pretty good there.
On O it's easy to pick on Zach b/c he has the ball so much and you focus on him, but let's be honest here, even BK needed some time to break in his QB's, and he was a master at that position. Zach is being forced to make more decisions than Pike was (checkdowns, run, zone read runs, etc) instead of timing throws and on top of that he's getting drilled. I'm more worried about him getting hurt than anything else. He can succeed in this, but it's gonna take some more experience and some help at:
WR. We lost the ability to stretch the field with Vidal's knee. We simply don't have it. The opponent's D is playing so close to the line they can smell the RB's breath. This is a major problem that can't be addressed this year. It limits your playcalling, makes the D only have to play a short field, and exposes even things you do well when that's all you can call.
OL. Probably the biggest problem BK left us with. Recruiting is the only answer. Don't kid yourself, they wouldn't look much if any better had BK stayed. Believe me right now BK knew what was coming and had a three year plan. Not the first person I've seen pad their resume but leave someplace in trouble.
On O we need speed at WR, a back like Gobel who can also burn it (hopefully we have that in our incoming class) and linemen, linemen, linemen. Add on to that the new staff, a new offense, new playcalling, etc and we're struggling.
My major area of concern is discipline. I'm surprised by the amount of mental mistakes and penalties, but that starts to happen when you're frustrated and overwhelmed as well, or trying to make up for not being as good and hedging a bit (oline holding comes to mind). If we can improve that and win a few more games I'm hopeful for next year. Progress is rarely linear or without speedbumps.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
OU Tailgate Updates
2. OU game time will be announced Sunday. Will be 3:30 or later. I'll post maps, updates, and info to where we'll be at PBS first of next week.
3. I've posted pics from the first game on the left. Email me at armybearcat@gmail.com if you have any I can include. Thanks
GO CATS!!
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Cincinnati-Oklahoma Game Time To Be Announced Sunday, Sept. 19
CINCINNATI – The kickoff time for the University of Cincinnati’s non-conference matchup with The University of Oklahoma at Paul Brown Stadium on Sept. 25, 2010 will be announced on Sunday, Sept. 19.
ESPN has exercised its once-a-year, six-day selection window on the game.
As soon as the game time is made available, it will be released on GoBEARCATS.com.
To order your tickets for for the Oklahoma game, visit www.CATSTIX.com or call 1-877-CATS-TIX. Season tickets are still available for as low as $180 and can be ordered for Saturday by calling a member of the Bearcats Fan Development team at 1-877-CATS-TIX.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Cincinnati Bearcats 2010 Kickoff Video
Friday, September 10, 2010
Making the Team Better and the Game Safer
Thursday, September 9, 2010
See you Sat!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Coach Jones New Site
Wanted to introduce you to possibly the coolest web site I've ever visited. Seriously. Click on the pic to visit this new invention.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Away Games
Fresno State $42.50 item= FRS
NC State $54.50 item= NCST
Louisville $54.50 item= LOU
WVU $52.50 item= WVU
UConn $37.50 item=CON