Kevin Goheen
Enquirer contributor
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The University of Cincinnati football program has had double-digit wins in a season five times in its 124 years of playing the sport. It’s happened four times in the last five years.
Given all of the turmoil surrounding the program in the last month – the departure of head coach Butch Jones to Tennessee, the hiring of Tommy Tuberville from Texas Tech to replace Jones and the constant flux of conference membership throughout college football – it’s easy to forget this year’s Bearcats find themselves on the cusp of adding another 10-win season to the program’s ledger. It’s all the players and the interim coaching staff have been trying to focus on as they prepare for Thursday’s Belk Bowl against Duke.
UC (9-3) will be seeking its second consecutive bowl victory and its fifth in seven bowl games since 2004 against a Duke (6-6) team that is playing in the program’s first bowl game since 1994. The Blue Devils started the season 6-2 but lost their last four games, allowing an average of 49.5 points in those four games.
Kickoff at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.
“It’s not an easy task to win 10 games. We’re trying to lay the foundation for Cincinnati Bearcat future,” said senior safety Drew Frey. “Next year’s class, that’s going to be their goal and it’s not an easy thing to do. We want to set the bar high, so winning 10 games means everything to us. It’s exciting because not many teams can do it. It’s something worth playing for.”
Interim head coach Steve Stripling is one of five full-time coaches who remained from Jones’ staff to coach the bowl game. Dave Johnson (tight ends), Roy Manning (running backs), Shannon Morrison (cornerbacks) and T.J. Weist (wide receivers) are the other four full-timers who will be on the sidelines or in the coaching booth tonight.
Stripling, who was the assistant head coach and defensive line coach under Jones, will call the defensive plays. Weist will call the offense.
“It’s been, obviously, a great opportunity, but it’s been hectic,” said Stripling. “Change is inevitable. It’s going to happen and that’s the message I’ve had to the kids. It’s how you respond to it, and they’ve responded excellently to it.”
This will be the second time Stripling has assumed an interim position for a bowl game. He coached Central Michigan to a 44-41 overtime win against Troy in the 2010 GMAC Bowl after Jones had left that program to take over at UC following Brian Kelly’s resignation to take the job at Notre Dame.
Kelly’s resignation came before UC played Florida in the Sugar Bowl. The timing and manner in which Kelly left never sat well with the players. While the players were disappointed in Jones leaving, they say it was handled more professionally.
“It’s definitely different this go-around and it’s definitely better than the last time,” said senior linebacker Maalik Bomar. “Going through this coaching change a second time, we seniors and the older guys in general know how to handle this a lot better. We’re holding our own and for the younger guys to make sure they get through this as well. Things have been set in stone.”
The players have given much of the credit to Stripling and the staff. Stripling has had 34 years of college coaching experience, including stops at Indiana, Minnesota, Michigan State and Michigan in the Big Ten.
“He’s very even-keeled and he’s kept us focused and straight to business,” said senior quarterback Brendon Kay. “I’ve been around it enough to know that (college football) is a business. It really is. It’s a multimillion-dollar business. It’s still a game, but with all of the money involved, it’s a business.”
The 34-17 win at Connecticut in the regular season finale enabled UC to finish 5-2 in the Big East and in a four-way tie for first place with Louisville, Rutgers and Syracuse. Louisville got the Big East’s automatic bid into the Bowl Championship Series and will play Florida in the Sugar Bowl.
None of that matters now for UC. One more game remains in a season of turmoil, with the possibility of one more win to reach double digits again.
“With all of the adversity we’ve been through these past few weeks, losing coaches and losing assistant coaches, that would just cap the season off right,” said senior cornerback Camerron Cheatham. “To show people that we can still win, that would be perfect.”
Duke, Cutcliffe not expecting different Cincinnati in spite of interim head coach
Interim coach doesn’t mean a different Cincinnati team
By Ron Green Jr.
rgreenjr@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012
Just because the Cincinnati Bearcats will have a different head coach in the Belk Bowl than they did through their 9-3 regular season, Duke football coach David Cutcliffe said he doesn’t expect any major changes in the Blue Devils’ opponent Thursday night.
Steve Stripling, the Bearcats’ defensive coordinator, is the team’s interim coach after the departure of head coach Butch Jones, who accepted the head coaching job at Tennessee after the regular season ended. Cincinnati has hired Tommy Tuberville as its next head coach but he has not been part of the team’s bowl preparations.
“At first I didn’t know what to expect because I didn’t know if Tommy was going to put his flavor into it,” Cutcliffe said. “When they didn’t do that … you don’t ask the kids to learn a whole new system. You don’t expect a lot of change.
“They’re a very dangerous team. They do everything on offense that wins games. They don’t turn the ball over. They make almost all their third-down conversions (43 percent). They have explosive players. You can’t sack them (13 sacks this season). But if we’re going to have a chance in this game, we have to attack those strengths.”
Cutcliffe said he feels good about the Blue Devils’ preparation though he admitted to worrying his team was too hyped up in advance of the game. Cutcliffe and the Blue Devils have made the seniors a point of emphasis in pre-game preparation in recognition of what they’ve accomplished in getting Duke to its first bowl game in 18 years.
It has been an experience, Cutcliffe said, that reaches beyond the extra practice time a bowl game allows.
“You can’t bond a team better than you can in this length of time,” Cutcliffe said. “There’s no school. You get to enjoy the bowl activities together. (Tuesday) night we had an autograph party. They were as happy as they could be, sharing Christmas dinner together.
“It’s not just the practice you get. It’s the investment in relationships. Otherwise, they’d be all over the country now watching someone else play.”
In the interim: Before joining Jones on the Tennessee staff, Stripling has embraced the challenge of coaching a Bearcats team in transition.
“It’s been fun and it’s been challenging,” Stripling said. “I appreciate the opportunity to go through this.
“With change, you need strong leadership and (the seniors) have done a good job of holding this team together. We’ve tried to stay in our routine. We just need to be who we are. In situations like this, it’s important to do things solidly. Let’s don’t beat ourselves.”
Quarterback Brandon Kay said there’s no avoiding the dramatic changes in the Bearcats program over the past four weeks.
“Coach (Stripling) has done a great job,” Kay said. “There’s obviously been a lot of distractions and adversity. The seniors have done a good job of keeping everyone upbeat.
“At first, it was difficult. That’s the normal reaction but it is what it is.”
The future: Executive director Will Webb said the Belk Bowl has begun looking at its options for 2014 and beyond but said it’s too early to know which conference the bowl will align with to be the annual opponent against the ACC representative.
Webb said all bowl contracts expire after 2013 and Belk Bowl officials are studying the ever-changing landscape especially with the dramatically different makeup of the Big East Conference, which has made up one half of the bowl matchup since its inception in 2002.
“We’ve talked with the SEC and the Big 12,” Webb said. “The new Big East with East Carolina and Navy included is going to be a good football conference.
“A lot of the discussions will get underway this winter and we’ll see where the other conferences’ interests lie. We feel like we have a good foundation with our bowl-related events. We play in a great stadium. The logistics are phenomenal and we have maybe the best title sponsor in the business that really wants to raise the level of this bowl. We’ll see where it leads us.”
Green: 704-358-5118
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UC's bowl game a test of resilience
