As of Tuesday morning the Cincinnati Bearcats wrapped up their 2016 spring practices. There’s nothing left to do between now and August but make wild speculations about this team, which we’ll do here in due time. For now though, let’s take a run through the post-Spring Game depth chart.
Like last time, again FULL DISCLAIMER, this is a living, breathing list of first and second team (and sometimes third team) players. The two deep following the Spring Game just so happens to be those Bearcats running as starters and immediate backups that Saturday. The coaches use the glorified scrimmage to work some players lower on the depth chart in on a situation-by-situation basis to evaluate their abilities.
For example, the coaches ran running back Chad Banschbach with a the first team offense a few times on Saturday. Now, Chad is a fine football player and an exemplary representative of this university but nothing short of a litany of injuries will propel him to the starting running back role this fall. The combination of the athleticism of Mike Boone and Tion Green topping off the depth chart will ensure that.
Speaking of those two, you can probably expect them to split the load at running back this fall. The same goes for the wide receiver corps. I list Kahlil Lewis, Nate Cole, and Devin Gray as the “starters” with LSU transfer Avery Peterson, Tshumbi Johnson, and Virginia transfer Jamil Kamara their “backups”. But those six should see fairly evenly distributed reps at wide receiver in 2016.
So take the below depth chart for what it is, a list of players who happened to run with the first and second team offenses during UC’s Spring Game. This is by no means set in stone, like with Hayden Moore currently the clear cut QB1 over Gunner Kiel, who was held out of the scrimmage to nurse an injury. Should Kiel recover by August, expect both of them to have a fair shot at the starting quarterback role in the fall.
However, hopefully this gives you a good idea of the makeup of this team at this very early period of Cincinnati’s 2016 football season.
Offense
- Quarterback: Hayden Moore, Gunner Kiel, Ross Trail
- Running Back: Mike Boone -or- Tion Green, Deionte Buckley
- X-Wide Receiver: Kahlil Lewis -or- Avery Peterson
- Y-Wide Receiver: Nate Cole -or- Tshumbi Johnson
- Z-Wide Receiver: Devin Gray -or- Jamil Kamara
- Tight End: DJ Dowdy, Tyler Cogswell
- Left Tackle: Ryan Stout, Reed Armagost
- Left Guard: Idarius Ray, Delonte Murray -or- Evan Mallory
- Center: Deyshawn Bond, David Niehaus -or- Garrett Campbell
- Right Guard: Ryan Leahy, Will Steur
- Right Tackle: Korey Cunningham, Morgan James
Defense
- Strongside Defensive End: Mark Wilson, Landon Brazile
- Defensive Tackle: Cortez Broughton -or- Hakeem Allonce
- Defensive Tackle: Marquise Copeland -or- Sione Tongamoa, Norman Oglesby
- Weakside Defensive End: Kimoni Fitz, Kevin Mouhon
- Middle Linebacker: Bryce Jenkinson, Antonio Kinard
- Outside Linebacker: Eric Wilson, Jaylyin Minor
- Cornerback: Linden Stephens, JJ Pinckney
- Strong Safety: Malik Clements, Tyrell Gilbert
- Free Safety: Zach Edwards, Carter Jacobs
- Cornerback: Grant Coleman, Alex Thomas
- Nickelback: Mike Tyson, Chris Murphy