Bearcats Football Picked To Finish 3rd in AAC East Division

While the media tabbed Houston as the unanimous favorite in the AAC West, the East Division is wide open at the top.

The American conference has released its preseason media poll as part of AAC Media Days, and the Cincinnati Bearcats have been picked as a middle of the road team for 2016. That may seem like a disappointment, but historically, being picked to win the league has been a curse of sorts for Bearcats football. Last year, Cincinnati was the overwhelming favorite to win both the AAC East and the league title game. We all remember how last year turned out. Before the season was half over, the Bearcats were already out of the race for the East division, due to carelessness with the football, turnovers, and not being ready for several early season showdowns. UC scuffled to a 7-5 regular season and a disappointing blowout loss in the Hawaii Bowl.

This year, defending AAC champion Houston, who finished 13-1 and beat Florida State in the Peach Bowl, is the overwhelming favorite to repeat as champion. The Cougars were unanimously selected to win the West division, with Navy and Memphis both replacing their star quarterbacks, and Memphis going through a coaching change. But the East division is a different story. Despite UC being picked third, six of the 30 members who voted in the poll selected UC as East division champions.

Here’s the poll:

East Division

USF (15 first place votes), 164 total votes
Temple (9), 144
Cincinnati (6), 130
UConn, 89
ECU, 55
UCF, 48

West Division

Houston (30), 180
Navy, 128
Memphis, 124
Tulsa, 92
SMU, 65
Tulane, 41

If you look back through history, Bearcats football has always seemed to relish the underdog role. Former UC President Santa Ono coined the phrase “Cincinnati Grit,” which perfectly sums up the underdog mentality of the university and the city in general. But for UC football in particular, the underdog role has caused the team to thrive. When you look back at the five conference championships that Cincinnati has won over the last eight years, the Bearcats were picked to finish first by the media in exactly none of them. None. After winning the old Big East in 2008 and returning almost all of a loaded offense, the media picked UC to finish third in 2009.

There’s no reason that the Bearcats can’t compete for an Eastern division title this year. UC has the talent to do it, but coach Tommy Tuberville says that discipline will be the key to a successful season. During the media day events, Tuberville said that the Bearcats were “too kind” last season, giving the ball away at an alarming rate, and that the team must and will improvement defensively due to having more experience and depth. And in an interview with Dan Hoard, Tuberville mentioned UC’s dismal turnover margin, and said that if UC would have been +5 instead of -19, the Bearcats would have won 10 or 11 games last season. Think about that. Minus 19 on turnovers last year.

The favorites in the division, USF, return quarterback Quinton Flowers and superstar RB Marlon Mack, and hung an embarrassing loss on UC last November due to Gunner Kiel and Hayden Moore combining to toss four interceptions in the first half. If you watched any of that game, it’s hard not to make USF the favorite to win the East, followed by Temple, who also beat UC thanks to four interceptions from Gunner Kiel.

For all the bad losses last year, UC was a decent football team. They just couldn’t maintain control of the football. If the Bearcats clean things up, Temple is getting a lot younger this year, and has lost All-Conference LB Tyler Matecavich from last year’s great defense. Plus, I still don’t think PJ Walker and the offense can score a lot of points against good teams. If you let Temple play with the lead, they can just had the the ball to Jahad Thomas, but Walker isn’t going to lead any comebacks. USF will be a challenging game, but this year they will come to visit Nippert Stadium the week after what will probably be a physical game against Florida State.