The Cincinnati Bearcats lost another close game on Saturday, this time to the #25 Houston Cougars 33-30, and UC fans are up in arms over their $2.2 million head coach Tommy Tuberville.
You know, “fire him”, “fire him now”, “fire him now out of a cannon into the sun”. Stuff like that.
But can we really place 100% of the blame on the 61 year old head coach? The buck certainly should stop at the man overseeing the entire operation. He did hand pick most of the players on this team after all, certainly did so with his assistant and position coaches, and gives them the freedom to operate the kind of systems and make the play calls they want, to a degree. So Tuberville has a hand in all of the goings on with the Bearcats football team.
But are the root causes of Cincinnati’s four losses this season to teams that are a combined 32-4, three of which were by one possession, really on him? Sure, Tuberville should field part of the blame since he is the head coach but all of it? I don’t think so. Let’s go through each game one by one.
TEMPLE
Let’s see, the Bearcats lost this one 34-26 with the game really blowing wide open in the third quarter behind a few big plays from Temple. The Owls were up just 10-6 at halftime but a kickoff return by Jahad Thomas, a 56-yard touchdown run, again by Thomas, and two straight interceptions that led to 10 Temple points put them up 31-12 as the third quarter began.
From that point onward Cincinnati was playing catchup and even though the Bearcats clawed their way back to within eight, they had simply dug themselves too deep a hole to climb out of.
So when reflecting on this game you can plausibly criticize Tuberville for the defensive game plan but the missed tackles that led to both of Jahad Thomas’ touchdowns? That’s on the players. The four interceptions including the final one that sealed it for Temple, a team that boasts eight seniors in the defensive rotation? Those are on Gunner Kiel. The bottom line is, coaches can draw up the perfect game plans and call the perfect play in any situation but it’s on the players to execute them. Missed tackles and turnovers are sort of counterproductive to those efforts.
MEMPHIS
Chalk this one up to a mix of bad luck, coaching, questionable officiating, and a young secondary that a future NFL draft pick at quarterback set ablaze. Let’s start with that one.
The Cincinnati Bearcats list 24 players on their defensive depth chart. Of those, 14 are freshmen or sophomores, including 10 of which who are freshmen or redshirt freshmen. That’s about as young as it comes in football at any level. So it’s no wonder that the 6’7″ Paxton Lynch, who’s completed 70% of his passes, throws for over nine yards per attempt, and has completed 19 touchdowns this season, had an easy go of things against this secondary.
Then there’s the targeting non-targeting against Gunner Kiel that knocked him out of the game as well as the fumble non-fumble that could have swung the game in UC’s favor. Nope, just another day in the life of an AAC program looking for a lifeboat.
Now, the coaching was certainly questionable. More blitzes off the edge might have prevented Paxton Lynch from having all day to pick apart the secondary. But it’s not like Cincinnati’s running game, just 3.7 yards per carry that night, was doing much to lift the offense. Plus Kiel and Moore did throw three interceptions to Tiger defenders, one of which was returned for a touchdown and the other ended the game as UC was driving deep in Memphis territory. Just more dumb luck? Maybe, but all of the root causes that led to the Bearcats’ demise certainly weren’t caused by Tuberville.
BYU
This is one game where Tuberville’s coaching could certainly be called into question. His punt with the Bearcats down two scores and 3:55 left in the fourth quarter screamed of white flag, give up-edness. Sure the odds were low for Cincinnati to stage a rally but the message it sends does little to quell the notion that he’s “phoning it in” this late in his career. Plus the fact that Tuberville pocketed his three timeouts only further stoked the flames.
As far as the game management, which he tends to leave to his coordinators Eddie Gran and Steve Clinkscale, I still can’t fathom why Mike Boone wasn’t leveraged more after halftime as BYU started to get some momentum in front of that hostile home crowd. A game that needed to be slowed down so to literally let the offense catch its breath, Gran leaned as much on Tion Green and Hosey Williams as he did Boone. The sophomore was averaging eight yards per carry in the second half while the other two were sitting at one and negative one, respectively. Yet they split carries evenly and UC only rushed six times total.
Then there’s Clinkscale’s defense, a unit that was facing a hobbled Tanner Mangum who was displaying visual signs of pain in his calf in the first half but was given all day to throw because he rarely sent an extra blitzer. Instead, Clinks relied on the defensive line, a unit that’s still got a long way to go, Mangum found his rhythm, and torched the secondary in the process. And, again, that’s a defensive backfield that allowed BYU receiver Nick Kurtz to score on a 53-yard touchdown without a player in red and black within 20 yards of him.
HOUSTON
Now we come to Saturday’s game against Houston, a back and forth affair that saw Cincinnati again battling it out until the very last minute only to come up a hair, or a possession short. That’s the exact scenario that we’ve seen play out twice this year and to AAC foes no less.
But, again, is this loss all on Tuberville? The Bearcats lost by three to an undefeated Houston team on the road. Gunner Kiel threw for 523 yards, which is outstanding for sure, but threw two interceptions, one of which was returned by the Cougars for a touchdown. He also failed to get the ball out of his hands on a 3rd and fifteen deep in UC’s own territory, ran backwards into the end zone instead, and was sacked for a safety. That’s nine Houston points right there directly off of mistakes a veteran like Kiel shouldn’t be making.
It appeared like Cincinnati’s game plan was fine. The Bearcats did win the yardage battle 589-427, forced two interceptions, and piled up three sacks to Houston’s one. But like with the other games this season, that one Cougar sack, a two-point safety, wound up being a back breaker for UC, just like the Houston pick-six. So goes it sometimes in a season that’s been mired in frustration. The ball just doesn’t bounce your way and mistakes seem to compound into other mistakes that seem to compound into nail biting losses.
And is all of that on head coach Tommy Tuberville? A portion, yes. I’d like him to manage the running back situation differently, giving Mike Boone a majority of the carries, and have him advise Steve Clinkscale to blitz off the edge a little more. But the series of missed tackles, two pick-sixes in these four games, wide open receivers deep downfield behind the secondary, a lot of that is on the players. Sure Tuberville has to get up in front of the mic and answer questions from the media but that doesn’t mean he should be bearing the brunt of the blame.