Top 10 Moments Of The 2012-13 Football/Basketball Season: #9 Winn-ing With The Pass

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During football practice last season you could always find Butch Jones behind a blow horn as his players tried to call out plays amidst of the sound of women giving birth blasting over the loud speakers. Just the way he liked it. You see, Jones is a vivacious coach and he wanted to light that same fire in his players. He is also a showman of sorts. No not in the way Brian Kelly dazzled us with his high powered passing machine. Instead, Jones elected to wow the crowd by the energy his team exerted on every single snap, the same energy they played with during practice. Even though the Bearcats wouldn’t stray from the zone-read running attack and short-ish passing game, which looked pretty vanilla at times, they would play every snap like it was their last.

In doing so Jones led Cincinnati to two Big East championships and two straight bowl games. While some are quick to scoff at his overused catchphrases, Jones more than earned his spot with Kelly and Dantonio before him. And even though his offense didn’t jump off the charts like Kelly’s, it was capable of racking up touchdown after touchdown with relative ease.

But on November 3rd it didn’t seem to be one of those days. In the first quarter the Bearcats had scored a touchdown off of a Syracuse Orange turnover on the opening kickoff. It set a positive tone for the game but after that Cincinnati looked lethargic at best. The Bearcats also weren’t getting jack squat out of Munchie Legaux. Sure, in the first quarter he had thrown for 70 yards, putting him on pace for a respectable 280 over the course of the game, but he had also completed just 4 of 10 passes and had already thrown an interception. The crowd of just 26,000 that was already deflated from watching their team lose to the MAC squad Toledo and downriver rival Louisville in consecutive weeks started to voice their frustrations.

So to open the second quarter Jones and offensive coordinator Mike Bajakian pulled a rabbit out of their hat. It was 4th and 2 on the Syracuse 37 yard line, the proverbial no man’s land in college football where it is just a bit too far to attempt a field goal and a bit too close to warrant a punt. So Cincinnati went for it.

Lined up in a heavy formation with mainly linemen and tight ends forming their offensive front, the Bearcats appeared as if they were going try to pound the ball for a first down. Afterall, UC had already been running it down Syracuse’s throats in the first quarter to the tune of almost 6 yards per carry. It only made sense for Cincinnati to continue to exert their competitive advantage by running the ball, right?

Wrong.

Off the snap, all 22 players on the field performed as expected; the Orange DL crashed the middle, the linebackers followed, Cincinnati’s linemen blocked low to form a path, and Winn postured that was going to burst through that gap. Simultaneously tight end Travis Kelce bumped his blocking assignment then slipped upfield. As Syracuse’s safeties stared at Winn, the Cincinnati tight end sprinted past them. Before the safeties knew what hit them it was too late. Winn leaped and while in midair floated the football perfectly to Kelce, who cruised into the endzone…

The crowd at Nippert Stadium erupted in celebration! No one outside of the few on UC’s sideline who heard the play called in saw it coming and by the looks on the faces of the Orange coaching staff, none of them did either. The touchdown put the Bearcats up 14 – 10 and woke up a nearly asleep crowd.

It also illustrated Butch Jones’ out of the box mentality. Like I mentioned, his offense was simple but effective and it never truly won over the casual fan like Kelly’s. But this play proved he had a few tricks up his sleeve and at the end of the day is one of the good ones to come through Clifton.