Bearcats Come up Short in OT

GoBearcats.com

TULSA - In 2016, even when things go right for the University of Cincinnati football team, somehow it all goes wrong in the end.

Despite suffering through a disappointing season, the Bearcats gave it all they had Friday night against Tulsa. The same UC team that endured a streak of 13 straight quarters without a touchdown until last week was clicking on offense behind a season-high 371 passing yards and three touchdowns from sophomore quarterback Hayden Moore.

With 5:57 to play, the Bearcats had a 10-point lead and appeared on the verge of staging a huge upset against a Tulsa team that entered the game as a 23-point favorite. They were clinging to a 3-point lead with 1:19 left after pinning the Golden Hurricane at its own 12-yard line with a Sam Geraci punt.

And still the UC players walked off the field with a 40-37 overtime loss before 18,550 fans at H.A. Chapman Stadium thanks to James Flanders' 4-yard touchdown run on Tulsa's first possession of overtime. UC had taken a 37-34 lead on Josh Pasley's 33-yard field goal on the Bearcats' only overtime possession.

"Everyone in the world besides us thought we were gonna come out here and quit and we played our hearts out," said senior guard Ryan Leahy. "We could have come out here and not done anything and they could have blown us out. But we came out and tried to fight. There's a lot of heart on this team."

The loss left the Bearcats with a 4-8 record, 1-7 in the American Athletic Conference in their first losing season since 2010 and only their second in the last 12 years. UC, which lost its last five games, is 29-22 in four years under head coach Tommy Tuberville, who will meet shortly with athletic director Mike Bohn to review the season and determine what's next for the UC program.

Tulsa finished its regular season with a 9-3 record, 6-2 in the league and will wait for a bowl invitation. The Golden Hurricane has scored at least 30 points in 11 of its 12 games this season and scored 40 or more nine times.

The Bearcats had the ball and were trying to run out the clock after Tulsa had drawn within three points on quarterback Dane Evans' 5-yard touchdown pass to Chris Minter with 3:12 left. Facing third-and-two at the 50-yard line, Moore threw an incomplete pass trying to connect with freshman wide receiver Jerron Rollins, which forced the Bearcats to punt.

Geraci did his job, backing up the Golden Hurricane deep in its own territory, but Tulsa drove quickly down the field in eight plays to set up Redford Jones for a 22-yard field goal that tied the game at 34-34 on the last play of regulation.

"It basically came down to third and about a yard and a half to win the football game and we didn't convert to get the first down," Tuberville said. "But that's the way it goes. You've got to learn to do that."

The Bearcats came out uncharacteristically hot on offense, taking advantage of two turnovers to score 17 points in the first period, their highest scoring quarter of the season. They managed only 134 rushing yards to Tulsa's 306, but compensated with a passing game that called for Moore to repeatedly throw deep. Moore threw a 38-yard touchdown pass to Thomas Geddis and caught a 29-yard touchdown pass from tight end Tyler Cogswell on a gimmick play that first saw Moore pass to Cogswell before the ball came back to him with a wall of blockers in front of him.

The UC quarterback also threw an 82-yard touchdown pass to Devin Gray, the longest gain from scrimmage of the season for the Bearcats. Gray finished with five catches for a career-high 143 yards and one touchdown.

"The whole game we knew we were gonna take some shots," Moore said. "That was our mindset for this game."

UC led, 24-14, at halftime. After the Golden Hurricane scored a touchdown early in the third quarter to get within three points, the Bearcats responded with Moore's 70-yard touchdown pass to Rollins to make it 31-21. A 24-yard field goal by Redford whittled the UC lead to three on a kick that hit the left upright, then ricocheted off to hit the right upright before falling through.

"I thought that was really lucky on their part," said UC linebacker Antonio Kinard, who made 13 tackles. "That kind of kept them in the game towards the end."

Pasley's 39-yard field goal to put UC back up by 10, 34-24, with 5:57 left. But it wasn't enough.

"Everybody on the sideline was feeling it," Kinard said. "But that's one thing we can't do is get complacent and get too comfortable during the game. You've got to keep playing."

UC finished with a season-high 534 yards and 37 points, second only to the 38 the Bearcats' scored in their win over Purdue on Sept. 10. They had were 2-0 back then with no inkling of the offensive struggles that would stymie them for the rest of the season - until Friday. They also forced three turnovers, two on interceptions by Mike Tyson.

"We stepped up tonight," Tuberville said. "Two of our receivers decided to make big plays. Hayden put the ball on the money and it was fun to watch. Our sideline was excited. That's the first time it's been excited in about a month and a half. Tonight we scored some points. We weren't able to get the win, but it was a lot more satisfying to our players to have some fun. We hadn't had a lot of fun the last couple of months."

The fact that Moore played so well in his last game of the season and that true freshmen Geddis and Rollins flashed a bit of their potential were encouraging signs for the UC offense heading into the off-season.

"Obviously, we didn't want to come into our last season going 4-8, but that's life, you know," Leahy said. "Things don't work out the way you want them to all the time. But this is a good learning curve for our young guys and next year we'll be good. I'm gonna be in the stands to root them on."

Bill Koch covered UC athletics for 27 years - 15 at The Cincinnati Post and 12 at The Cincinnati Enquirer - before joining the staff of GoBearcats.com in January, 2015.