(Courtesy SB Nation)
With just a five Saturdays until the first UC football game of the year against the Purdue Boilermakers, Bearcats Nation will be rolling out a new segment to get you ready for the season. Every Monday up until game week, I’ll be discussing the five key talking points heading up to Cincinnati’s 2013 football season. It’ll be a tall task but hopefully this series will help bridge the gap and keep you sane for just one month longer until you can finally watch the Bearcats hit the field once again.
Five key storylines. Five weeks. One obsessive blogger. Let’s do this.
A lot has changed in the last 8 months; Butch Jones left for Tennessee, UC hired Tommy Tuberville, Nippert Stadium renovations were announced, and the American Athletic Conference finalized the schedule for their inaugural season. That last part is something I’d like to elaborate on today.
UC is going to get blasted by the ESPNs, Deadspins, and Bleacher Reports of the world partially because pointing and laughing at a schedule full of cupcakes is just what the Internet does during long, boring offseasons and partially because it truly is pretty darn pathetic. USA Today has been counting down the 125 FBS football programs heading into the 2013 season. According to their rankings, which tend to be a good indication of team strength, three of Cincinnati’s opponents are ranked in the 100’s and nine are ranked 71st or worse.
- #54: Rutgers
- #71: Houston
- #80: South Florida
- #88: Temple
- #89: Purdue
- #92: UConn
- #99: SMU
- #103: Miami (OH)
- #110: Illinois
- #116: Memphis
The Bearcats’ non-conference schedule is awful. UC plays two Big Ten teams but both are the bottomfeeders of the conference. Then there’s Miami (OH) which hasn’t been the same team since Mike Haywood left for Pitt and has been completely outclassed by the Bearcats in the last decade. Not listed is FCS Northwestern State, because they’re FCS, and you know how one-sided that game is going to be. Once you get to the AAC schedule, things don’t get much better. Memphis comes in as the 10th worst team in the FBS with four other conference foes clustered in the 80’s and 90’s. Only when you get to Rutgers does the schedule beef up a bit.
Add all of those opponents together and what you get is a completely garbage football schedule outside of Louisville that is likely in the top-10.
But you know what? Who the hell cares?!
When Cincinnati finishes the regular season 11-1, 10-2, 9-3, or whatever, no one is going to be pointing at the schedule and complaining. Ok, some might but those are people who are in serious need of reevaluating the priorities in their lives. And a weak schedule is exactly what this Bearcats team needs right now. Top-to-bottom Cincinnati’s coaching staff is completely brand new and with them they are bringing brand new playbooks to the team. Players on offense and defense may have been studying the new schemes for months now however they will need about a year and hundreds in-game reps before they fully grasp the concepts. This is a talented roster but will make some mental errors this Fall simply because everything is so new to them. It’s better if they make those mistakes against cupcakes when Cincinnati is up by a few touchdowns rather than against stronger teams where it could turn the tide of the game.
Remember Butch Jones’ first year coaching the Bearcats? It’s okay if you don’t. I’ve tried to purposely forget it myself. But to jog your memory, in the annals of UC football history that season is logged somewhere between a dumpster fire and a train wreck. Cincinnati’s first game was on the road at Fresno State. Early September, Central California temperatures in the upper 80’s, new coach and system, hostile road environment, veteran opponent in their home opener – the Bearcats were destined for disaster. And a disaster it was. Cincinnati was shellacked by the Bulldogs 28-14, a theme that would repeat itself over and over again throughout the 2010 season.
The main problem was that the schedule was absolutely stacked. 10 of Cincinnati’s 12 opponents that year were bowl teams. The Bearcats hung with most of them early in the game. However, since they were so new to Butch Jones’ system, when players made mistakes they were amplified by the strength of the opponent who many times turned them into immediate points. The end result was an embarrassing 4-8 record that saw Butch Jones lose basically all of the momentum Brian Kelly had built here. A far weaker schedule in 2013 should prevent this from happening in Tommy Tuberville’s first season at the helm.
On a more macro level, Coach Tuberville and his staff want to make a statement to the Cincinnati fanbase that all will be right with Bearcats football under their watch. It starts with beating Purdue, which will spark excitement in the masses, but should continue to be built during the season. If UC gets on a streak of five, six, seven straight wins or more, no matter the opponent, this fanbase will be over the moon! Plus it will breed confidence in Cincinnati’s alumni. Happy alumni = more money for UC athletics. During such a critical time like it is now for Cincinnati’s athletic department, keeping one of their most important revenue streams happy is key.
So if you hear or read some bored writer yammering on and on about the Bearcats’ poor schedule, ignore them. They’re just killing time until they can write about something other than a 3-2 snoozefest between the Cubs and Brewers. When the season is in full swing by October and November, you’ll be thanking these cupcakes for allowing the players to adjust to their new coaching staff. Otherwise we might have another 2010 on our hands. And that would be devastating for Tommy Tuberville in his first season coaching the Cincinnati Bearcats.