Tag: The American

Football Pergatory

Cautious Optimism

    -The Beercat

After posting a second half prediction of the football Bearcats my hopes and dreams were shot down by the Temple Owls in OT on Saturday. I thought we would bring home a W from Philly. That didn’t happen. Instead, our Bearcats panicked the last couple of minutes of the game. The first 3 minutes of the game is highly forgettable too. (A lost fumble on 3rd down and a botched return added onto a Temple touchdown where the receiver landed out of bounds. If you add in the ref icing our freshmen kicker you have a hell of Saturday afternoon) All of this while Temple was without its RB1 Ryquell Armstead.

Can you blame me for thinking the Bearcats could go 11-1 after starting off 6-0? Yeah beating USF is a stretch but if we would have been undefeated heading into that game in Nippert. What a stage that would have been. A perfect one for College Gameday to finally highlight in Clifton. If we win Saturday in Dallas and Nov 3 against Navy, two games that will be an absolute dog fight the next two games will be highly anticipated by Bearcats fans.

Here’s what I’m currently thinking. 8 weeks ago not many people had the Bearcats at 6-0 going into the bye week. Still not a lot of people had them 6-1 at this point. Moving forward though we’re caught in football fan purgatory. What does that mean? I feel like our fanbase doesn’t know how to feel right now. We’re caught in between preseason expectations and the redrawn expectations after going 6-0. Winning when you feel like you shouldn’t be is certainly much sweeter than expecting it. So you get addicted to that sweetness and expect more of it. That’s what happened before last Saturday’s game.

Sure some fans might have kept “realistic” expectations for this team and still have them. That’s fine, but the feeling you get when your team is winning against the odds makes it harder to keep those realistic expectations you started off with before week 1. It’s not wrong to reset expectations. That’s what I did before week 7. I expected the Cincinnati Football Bearcats to win every game in the second half of the season, except one. (UCF if you couldn’t guess)

If before the season started you told me the Bearcats would be 6-6 and bowl eligible I would have said,

“Hey! We’re getting there! A bowl game will be fun, what’s that even like anyway?”

But now after winning the first 6, losing the last 6 would almost be devastating. No one wants to end a season with 6 straight losses, especially if one is to ECU. Yeah we’re still bowl eligible but we’d have absolutely no momentum going into it.

So what do we do now? We proceed with cautious optimism. Maybe some of you were already doing that? Maybe after the bye week I was living dangerously. Let’s ride this thing out a couple of more games to see where we land this season. We hit #20 in the country, that was fun but maybe a bit too much too soon.

Beat SMU this week and get us back into Historic Nippert on Nov 3rd.

I hope to see all of you at The Den’s watch party at Taft’s Brewpourium on Saturday at 3:30pm! I’ll be the guy drinking delicious beer dressed in red and black!

Championship Sunday

The Bearcats v The Man Bun: A Trilogy

I hope you set your clocks right last night (spring forward btw) because if you didn’t you’re going to miss out on an all timer today. The Cincinnati Bearcats go for their 30th win this season against the Houston Cougars. The Bearcats have the opportunity to win 30 games for the second straight season. The difference this season so far has been the regular season outright title and possibly the AAC tournament title too. A man bun stands in our way.

I’d love for Gary and Kyle to dominate this game and lead us to a W today. Throw in the game changing performaces of Cumberland and Scott with little bit of Cane to spice things up and I think we can all watch the Bearcats finally cut down some nets today.

That’s easier said then done though. The Cougs are the last team to beat the Bearcats. Houston got the better of the Bearcats in Houston winning, 67-62. It also ended the 16 game winning streak we had going at the time. We’ve sinced started a new one but you’d think the guys are ready to avenge that L, this time for a trophy and banner.

I’d also assume Man Bun is salty Gary Clark won the POY and he didn’t that might give them some extra motivation too.

Cronin was hyped for the regular season title. I can’t imagine what he’ll be like once the Bearcats beat Houston later today. I’ll have my cigar ready though, that’s for sure!

Keys to the Game

  1. Rebound. No reason why Clark and Washington should dominate this stat
  2. D up the Man Bun. Don’t let him get hot or make plays. They’ve been able to do this relatively well the first two games. Don’t skip out this time.
  3. No turnovers. It feels like the Bearcats have really improved in this category.
  4. Score. Don’t go decades without scoring.
  5. A Clark double double + Broome and Cumberland in double digits = W 

Prediction

Bearcats 63 Cougars 60

 

Barrels and Bearcats: The Gauntlet Strikes Back

Cougars Slip Past Bearcats

Take a deep breathe. Hold it. Now breathe out. Feel better? If not get a beer, that always makes me feel better. Last night the UC Bearcats lost to the Houston Cougars 67-62. I wasn’t going to look at the box score but I’m a glutton for punishment and had to write this.

Even though the loss sucks and the dream of a 1 seed is all but lost the world isn’t over. I mean Donny John is still President and I haven’t turned the news on yet today to see what or who he’s threatening today but I’m pretty sure we’re all going to be ok after this Bearcats loss, especially the Cincinnati Bearcats basketball team.

Last night in the world of college basketball the #5, #6,#8, and #15 teams all lost! If you throw in two games from Wednesday where #3 and #11 lost it’s been a wild week in this sport. The parody is great in college basketball, especially this season. No one has escaped it this season, not even our Bearcats.

From the game:

The Bad. After a picture perfect start for the Bearcats things finally slowed down, especially half way through the second half. The Bearcats shot 14% from 3 pt land in the 2nd half. They were   36-27. They were outscored in the paint 26-22. They were outscored on second chance points 17-10. Outscored on fast break points 4-0 and outscored from the bench 16-2. That is not a recipe for winning on the road in February. In the second half the Bearcats went 12 minutes without making a field goal. That’s incredible really.

The Good. JE3 finished with 16 points, Teddy with 14, Clark with 13,and Washington with 10. I thought the defense if Cumberland was as good as it has ever been last night. He took 3 charges which is a nice change of pace from him getting called for them. The stats sheet credits him with one steal but he had to have half a dozen deflections too. Washington continues to look good on offense, which is a good sign.

The Eye. You hear people talk about the eye test. If the team looks good or how they look winning, or losing. I’ve watched or listened to every Bearcats game this year so I know this wasn’t a great example but to some this might be their only example of the Bearcats this year. They did not pass the eye test.

The Media. When the Bearcats win some are silent. When the Bearcats lose they’re loud. To me it felt like the Enquirer was rubbing it in our faces. Now I don’t read their paper or even follow it on social media but somehow it still creeps up on the twitter feed from RT and shares. They suck. Also, there is a certain college basketball “analysts” who called out UC fans last night. What a turd. Also, the very first time the Bearcats make an appearance on the ESPN home page banner is after this loss. *Huge eye roll*

We can’t for get about the Beer of the Game.

The Bearcats can right the ship with one we’ve all had circled for a while now. Wichita State comes to town Sunday at 4pm. Go Bearcats!