TicketsBy Bill Koch
GoBEARCATS.com
TAMPA – On what would have been the last play of the first half Saturday against South Florida, the Bulls were called for jumping offsides, which gave the University of Cincinnati Bearcats a free, untimed play to do with as they pleased.
The Bearcats were at their own 45-yard line, so it was unlikely that they would score on that play, but, hey you never know. Maybe this would be the break that UC coach Luke Fickell has been hoping for, the kind of thing that would finally swing some momentum in the Bearcats' direction.
So quarterback Hayden Moore dropped back to pass, looking to take advantage of such unexpected largesse, only to have USF linebacker Auggie Sanchez pick off his pass at the USF 35 and return it 65 yards for a touchdown to give the Bulls a 23-3 halftime lead.
It was a crushing blow for a team that hasn't held a lead since the end of its 21-17 victory over Miami (Ohio) on Sept. 16. And just like that, UC's season crossed over the line from merely disappointing into the realm of the bizarre.
"It's tough to overcome something like that," Fickell said. "You're not where you want to be, but you're right there in the game. You feel like we moved the ball offensively. We haven't put it in the end zone, but we moved the ball offensively and we made the plays on defense. We've kept them in front of us and we haven't let the quarterback go wild and then to have that, it was a swift kick that's really really difficult to overcome."
The Bearcats, who appeared stunned as they headed to their locker room for halftime, not only didn't overcome it, they didn't score again on the way to a 33-3 setback at the hands of No. 18 USF before a crowd that was announced as 43,708 fans at Raymond James Stadium. The Bulls scored 30 unanswered points after the Bearcats pulled even at 3-3 on Ryan Jones' 30-yard field goal with 4:04 left in the first quarter.
UC (2-5 overall, 0-3 in the American Athletic Conference) lost its fourth straight game and its seventh straight conference game. USF (6-0, 3-0) has won 11 straight – the longest winning streak in the country – and reached the 30-point mark for the 23rd straight game tying an NCAA record originally set by Oregon between the 2011 and 2012 seasons.
Fickell said he had no second thoughts about deciding to throw a pass on that last play of the half.
"We want to be aggressive," he said. "We tell our kids all the time we believe in what we're doing. When we're in the red zone we want to score touchdowns. We're not gonna settle for field goals. To have an untimed down, we said at least we're gonna take a shot at this. If we take a knee right there, the kids are gonna look at us and think, what, you don't want to go for it? You don't think we've got a chance?"
The Bearcats did a relatively good job containing USF's Quinton Flowers, who was 16-for-29 passing for 184 yards with no touchdowns and no interceptions. The double-threat quarterback also ran for 80 yards on 15 carries with one touchdown. The Bulls gained 402 yards to 273 for UC.
Moore completed 16 of 28 passes for 147 yards with no touchdowns. He was also sacked once and fumbled. He was shaken up on the sack, which occurred late in the third quarter, and did not return for the fourth, giving sophomore Ross Trail a chance for his first playing time of the season.
"(Moore) got dinged on the elbow a little bit," Fickell said. "We didn't want to chance it. We also had an opportunity to give Ross a chance to play. It's not a favorable situation with the score and where it's at in the game, but it was the right thing to do at the time. He had earned it and deserved a shot at it."
Trail, who played the entire fourth quarter, was 5-for-9 for 31 yards and was sacked twice.
After UC tied the score at 3-3, USF drove 70 yards to set up Emil Nadelman's second field goal of the night, this one from 28 yards to make it 6-3, USF. UC's Jones then missed wide left from 39 yards after the Bearcats drove 53 yards. Nadelman's 21-yard field goal made it 9-3 with 7:12 remaining in the half.
At that point, the Bearcats were still very much in the game.
After a UC punt, USF took over on its 12-yard line. On third-and-10 at the UC 48, Flowers passed for 37 yards to Temi Alaka to the UC 11. On the next play, Darius Tice ran 11 yards for the Bulls' first touchdown of the game to make it 16-3 with 2:24 left in the half.
With 1:33 left, UC took over on its 31 following a USF punt. Gerrid Doaks ran to the 40. On the next play, the Bulls were flagged for off-side, which seemed like a break at the time, albeit a minor one, but turned out to be disastrous.
Fickell said after the game that he truly believes his team is making progress and isn't that far away from being able to beat a quality opponent. That may be difficult for the common fan to see. After all, the Bearcats have lost their last four games by an average score of 41-19. But several of UC's players were quick to agree with their coach because, as defensive tackle Cortez Broughton said, "Some weeks you see the offense clicking and some weeks you see the defense clicking. All we need is just one spark to start everything up, to start the fire. Rome wasn't built in a day."
"We've just got to finish," said offensive tackle Korey Cunningham. "We've got to finish that momentum that we had in the first quarter. Our defense did a great job. Our offense has to do a better job of coming down and finishing it up. We're right there. We keep making improvements."
If nothing else, that belief gives the players something to cling to in what so far has been a miserable season.
Asked what keeps him going through these tough times, Broughton said, "You do it for the guy next to you. Some days you need a pickup. I know I do. You just have to keep your enthusiasm, your focus, your intensity. It is what it is. We've got to keep fighting."