Bearcats' offense forced to call audible
Things have been more wide open with Kay
Oct. 20, 2013


Bearcats quarterback Brendon Kay looks to pass during the first quarter of Saturday's win. / The Enquirer/Joseph Fuqua II

Written by
Bill Koch

Developing an offense to fit your personnel is always a difficult task for a coaching staff taking over a new program.

That process was complicated even further at the University of Cincinnati this season when quarterback Munchie Legaux went down with a season-ending knee injury in the second game of the season at Illinois.

Before Legaux’s injury, first-year UC coach Tommy Tuberville and his staff believed they had a solid one-two quarterback punch with Legaux starting and senior Brendon Kay coming in for an occasional change of pace. Without Legaux, Kay is the only experienced quarterback on the roster, which has prompted the Bearcats to make some offensive adjustments in the middle of the season.

“We’ve kept the same things but we’re not as much of a power team as we were,” Tuberville said after UC’s 41-16 win over Connecticut on Saturday. “We had to find something that would open it up. When Munchie was in the game people really feared his legs in terms of him getting out of the pocket. When you put Brendon in, it’s totally different. They force him out of the pocket and they just try to get in his face because they know he’s not going to run past people.”

The solution was to spread the offense to force the defense to play more zone coverage. That approach produced 475 yards of total offense on Oct. 11 against Temple and 525 yards against UConn.

With a defense that ranks eighth nationally, allowing 286.9 yards per game, such offensive production is encouraging for a UC team that still has a chance to win the conference championship and play in a BCS bowl game, but probably only if it runs the table and wins its last five games. UC is 5-2 overall, 2-1 in the American Athletic Conference.

Tuberville said Sunday the offensive change was not drastic, but rather a fine-tuning.

“We didn’t change any of our terms or plays or anything like that,” he said. “We actually dropped some things. We made it a little simpler where we could speed it up and get more of a rhythm. We didn’t change the offense; we changed the strategy. Especially for a first-year staff, we had to find out what we needed to do. If Munchie doesn’t get hurt, we probably stick with what we were doing.”

This isn’t an offense built solely for Kay. Tuberville made that clear Saturday when he used Jordan Luallen both as a runner and a passer to give the defense something else to think about and promised that he would continue to utilize Luallen’s athleticism as the season progresses.

But there’s no question that Kay has become as close to an indispensable man as a football team can have, given the Bearcats’ situation at quarterback. That’s why Tuberville is so pleased to have an open date this week to provide an opportunity for Kay to heal his assortment of bumps and bruises. UC’s next game is Oct. 30 at Memphis.

A sixth-year senior who had to wait a long time for this opportunity, Kay has persevered through injuries to reach this point. He finally got a chance to start last year after Butch Jones benched Legaux, then had to be patient again when Legaux earned the starting job back during training camp.

But now this is Kay’s team. He ranks only seventh in the AAC in passing yardage at 198.3 per game, but is second in passing efficiency behind Teddy Bridgewater, Louisville’s Heisman Trophy candidate.

“Your quarterback is your main cog anyway,” Tuberville said. “He’s meant a lot to the offense. The guys look up to him. They understand what he’s been through. He’s a guy that has earned what he’s got. I’d like to see him at 100 percent. We’re going to give him a few days off this week. We’ve got one game in the next 20 days, so going into the last few games he’s going to be about as healthy as he can be.”

Quote:UP NEXT

UC at Memphis
When: 8 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 30
TV/radio: ESPN2/WLW-AM (700)

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20131...ll-audible

?? His sound bites have to be intended as misinformation. No other exlpaination.

The insinuation now is Munchie was the starter and Kay was just a change of pace? So it was not injury related afterall?

Kept things the same but are not as much of a power team as we were? We were a power team? When? At Miami? At USF the first 3 quarters?

The "audible" is chess to your original play call's checkers, Coach.

They have to win at least 8 regular season games to get my nod of approval. 9 would be a success with a chance at 10 with a bowl game when you start considering all the things that happened earlier in the year.

The goal this season is to keep our momentum going and 8 or 9 wins is probably good enough to keep the winning culture around.

this article sucks

Here's how it should have looked:

FINALLY <article headline>

Coach Tuberville finally figured it out. He gave up on the pro set he was forcing the team to run which resulted in a sputtering, boring offense that was painful to watch and went back to something every person on the team was recruited to do, run the spread. As a result UC's offense looks like offense of old, the team is scoring in bunches, fans are happy and the team is winning. Hopefully the man didn't wait too long and the team still has a chance to do something in 2013.
<end>

This is all that needed to be said if Koch wanted to write something about the change in offense.

Looks like the ENQ called an audible.
I thought Bill Koch was the Basketball writer. (he's proven over the years he knows little about either)

It may seem strange, but maybe the best thing to happen to this year's team was Munchie's injury. Sounds like had he stayed healty, CTT would still be trying to make a "power offense" from what he inherited - and we probably would already be out of the conference championship race.

As mentioned previously, this team was not recruited for a power running offense but for the spread. Now that they're running it again, the offense is clicking.

Lesson learned: the coach has to tailor the offense to the players, not the other way around.

(10-21-2013 11:30 AM)mac6115cd Wrote:  It may seem strange, but maybe the best thing to happen to this year's team was Munchie's injury. Sounds like had he stayed healty, CTT would still be trying to make a "power offense" from what he inherited - and we probably would already be out of the conference championship race.

As mentioned previously, this team was not recruited for a power running offense but for the spread. Now that they're running it again, the offense is clicking.

Lesson learned: the coach has to tailor the offense to the players, not the other way around.

Yeah, it does seem really strange. Also callous and stupid.

(10-21-2013 09:00 AM)Bearcats#1 Wrote:  this article sucks

Here's how it should have looked:

FINALLY <article headline>

Coach Tuberville finally figured it out. He gave up on the pro set he was forcing the team to run which resulted in a sputtering, boring offense that was painful to watch and went back to something every person on the team was recruited to do, run the spread. As a result UC's offense looks like offense of old, the team is scoring in bunches, fans are happy and the team is winning. Hopefully the man didn't wait too long and the team still has a chance to do something in 2013.
<end>

This is all that needed to be said if Koch wanted to write something about the change in offense.

Bearcat #1 is right about how the article should have been written. Power offenses do not have 162lb. RB's running up the middle and QB's (Legaux) with poor passing accuracy running for their life because of poor Offensive Line pass blocking and an inability to find and hit open receivers.