Bearcats Nation vs. ESPN Big East Blog Week 9
By Chris Bains
Like Bearcats Nation on Facebook. Follow BN on Twitter.
Even with the bye, Cincinnati retained it’s #1 ranking for a third straight week. Admittedly I was a bit worried watching the games last week that at least one of the Big East teams would overtake the Bearcats. There was the game between West Virginia and Rutgers where defensive lines were more than capable of racking up stats and Louisville’s defense looking like it was manhandling Syracuse. They did but most of those stats came from linebackers like Preston Brown. But the only result as reflected in the stats is that the rest of the Big East merely closed the gap between themselves and Cincinnati, with UC still leading in tackles, tackles for loss, and sacks.
Take a look at the stats for yourself:
| Tackles | TFL | Sacks | QB Hurries | FF | Avg. Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cincinnati | 169 | 41 | 20.5 | 17 | 6 | 1.8 |
| Rutgers | 174 | 38.5 | 17.5 | 21 | 3 | 2.4 |
| South Florida | 164 | 40 | 17 | 10 | 8 | 3.4 |
| Pitt | 153 | 32 | 17.5 | 23 | 2 | 3.8 |
| UConn | 153 | 37 | 17.5 | 12 | 2 | 4 |
| Louisville | 142 | 35 | 18 | 4 | 2 | 5.2 |
| Syracuse | 151 | 23.5 | 10.5 | 7 | 3 | 5.8 |
| West Virginia | 129 | 21 | 8.5 | 1 | 2 | 7.4 |
Big East Notes
- Both Cincinnati and South Florida were idle last week but it seems like the Bulls were hurt more in the rankings, who slipped almost a full ranking from 2.0 to 2.8. Most of the ‘slippage’ occurred in the sacks and quarterback hurries categories.
- Like I mentioned above, Louisville’s defensive prominence comes from the linebackers and it seems like the defensive line does little except open up gaps for them to shoot through. This is true and is why Louisville has won lately but it hurts their defensive line stats.
- UConn and Pitt are still deadlocked. This is surprising because they played each other and Tino Sunseri looked like Superman against the Huskies, rarely getting touched. I expected Pitt to pull out ahead.
- The most telling stat of all is the fact that not one team changed positions in the standings. 1 thru 8 is the same as it was last week which indicates that teams at the top and bottom will likely stay where they are. That’s great news for UC and my bet with Andrea Adelson.