Tommy Tuberville had a lot to say in his Tuesday press conference. Watch it here. He didn’t just talk about the Cats this year, the Miami game, he barely talked about SMU, he talked about the program and the direction it is headed. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know this season isn’t going well. No one thought the team would be 2-3 heading into the almost guaranteed win against SMU. No one thought Cincinnati would have one of the worst defenses in the nation. UC is ranked 125 in the NCAA stats for total defense. There are 125 teams ranked. It’s been a disaster of a season. No one is more aware of this than Tommy Tuberville.
Tuberville has been saying for weeks that the defense is poor in technique. He’s said for weeks that the players are young. He’s said for weeks that some of the mistakes the guys are making are mental.
“We find a way to make mistakes that really weren’t created by the other team. It was created by us, and it was a creation that shouldn’t have happened.”
That’s a quote from his press conference. He said something similar after Toledo, Miami, Ohio State and Memphis. It’s clear that the defense is not handling the concepts of the defense very well. Tuberville has harped on the experience issue a lot. He said experience six times. Not just about the defense. He said it about the offensive line, which has struggled with the run game. He said it about the running backs. That one was well earned because the guys playing have none. He said it about the defense three times. The first time he said it was about the team in general. But should this even be an issue?
Playing time is something that not a lot of guys have had on the offensive line. Justin Murray, your current right tackle, never played a meaningful down before this year for instance. But they’ve mostly all been in the program for years. Murray is a letterman. Mainello is a senior, Schloemer is a senior, Lefeld is a senior, Ehinger is a junior who has started the last two years, Bond started every game as a freshman. Tyreek Burwell, a senior, and Kyle Williamson, a sophomore, are the only two linemen on the roster who haven’t lettered. Reserves are reserves for a reason, but if the drop off is so high, where are the Tuberville offensive line recruits? All of those players came from the Butch Jones era.
Munchie Legaux has plenty of experience, but Gunner Kiel and Jarred Evans obviously do not.
Every receiver that plays has been on the field in the last two seasons.
The defensive line is full of guys who have been around a while. 6 of the top 10 tacklers from the 2013 team are back. The only one who hasn’t played every game is Adrian Witty. That means 5 of the 11 spots are held by players who saw significant action a year ago.
The much maligned defensive line is returning a player with 10 tackles for loss and 4 sacks in 2013, Brad Harrah, a player with 4 TFL and 1.5 sacks, Terrell Hartsfield, and a player with 1.5 TFL and 1 sack in Camaron Beard. Silverberry Mouhon was one of the 10 leading tacklers. That’s 4 players who had a contribution to the defensive line in 2013. Here are the combined 2013 stats for those four and their 2014 stats so far.
Tackles – tackles for loss – sacks
Mouhon
2013: 41 – 12.5 – 9.5
2014: 26 – 2 – 2
Harrah
2013: 25 – 10 -4
2014: 13 – 3 – 2.5
Hartsfield
2013: 23 – 4 – 1.5
2014: 19 – 4 – 4
Beard
2013: 4 – 1.5 – 1
2014: 21 – 1 – 1
Jerrell Jordan has boosted his output from 2013, as has Brandon Mitchell. Both of those guys were in the defensive line rotation a year ago. Cortez Broughton, Alex Pace and Chris Burton are all first year newcomers. Broughton has no stats, while Pace and Burton have a combined 3 tackles for loss and a sack. To be fair, the first three men listed are all defensive ends. The Bearcat tackles are all young and haven’t played a ton. UC doesn’t seem to be rotating as much as in the past. This unit is going to be crushed by graduation. Beard, Harrah and Hartsfield all leave, as well as Jordan. Is experience going to be the reason the line doesn’t perform well next year?
The linebackers are the most experienced group. If you include Payne, they all played a lot last year. Payne played a lot of DB against Miami. He was replaced by Kevin Brown, a seldom used junior. Brown has played very well. The linebackers shouldn’t be an issue unless they are outright blowing coverages and making mistakes. If your senior linebackers, Luc, Temple, Casseus, and Tentman earlier this year, are the ones not playing well, what can you do?
The secondary is very young. Edwards played a ton last year, but is a sophomore being asked to quarterback the secondary. Tyson played some, but hasn’t performed up to a level that the coaches like, he lost the starting job to Andre Jones. Grant Coleman didn’t play much last year. Aaron Brown and Linden Stephens are freshman who seem to have trouble adjusting. Brown did force a fumble that led to a score against Miami. Carter Jacobs at safety is another freshman. Howard Wilder has been non-existent it seems. Adrian Witty has been on the sidelines. This group has been awful. Experience is a reason why. They don’t seem to know what they are doing.
But should experience be an issue at this point of the season? That was game 5. You kind of are what you are after a month. You are either showing up as a good team, a bad team or an average team. This UC team looks pretty average to me. The margins are concerning but the teams posting the margins are even more so. Ohio State is excluded because they are really good. They get a pass. Memphis is 3-3, just having lost to Houston at home. They averaged just 3 yards a carry against Houston. Paxton Lynch was picked off 3 times. Miami is 4-3 and might not become bowl eligible. The Bearcats gave up a season high 55 points and lost by 21. This in a performance that Tommy Tuberville called the best performance in three weeks.
So why is UC average and not bad? Because their league sucks. Let’s play the “Are they better than?” game with the S&P rankings from Football Outsiders and the eye test from me.
S&P rank UC – 81 (of 128)
@ SMU – 123: Yes
South Florida – 112: Yes, they should be at home
@ Tulane – 103: Yes
East Carolina – 45: Probably not
@ UConn – 122: Yes
@ Temple – 88: Probably
Houston – 96: Toss up
For some comparison, Toledo is 85 and Miami University is 101.
As for worries about the defense, if some of these teams move the ball on the Cats, we should be terrified.
Cincinnati defense – 103
Offensive S&P ranks
- 29 – East Carolina
- 95 – Temple
- 105 – Tulane
- 112 – Houston
- 114 – USF
- 125 – SMU
- 128 – UConn
UC plays the worst offense in the nation, the 4th worst offense in the nation and 5 of the bottom 23. Offensive firepower isn’t a thing in this league.
We are going to learn mighty fast if experience is an excuse or an issue for the defense. If you can’t stop these offenses, you can’t stop anyone.
What about the defenses?
Cincinnati offense – 44
- 70 – Houston
- 76 – Temple
- 81 – East Carolina
- 89 – UConn
- 100 – Tulane
- 102 – South Florida
- 112 – SMU
I actually think this is the part where experience is going to matter the most. Gunner Kiel is great. But one thing Gunner hasn’t done is lead a team back from a deficit. He hasn’t led a 2 minute drive. He hasn’t had to make plays down the stretch. He hasn’t been forced to win games. How he will react to pressure from some of these teams as the season progresses is going to be interesting to watch. He shouldn’t have much of a problem the next three weeks. East Carolina is going to be a great progress report on the UC signal caller. These will be huge games for the running backs as well. They have practically no experience. Anything they can gain from the porous defenses is going to be great. Lessons for the future.
Coaching experience is the last thing I want to touch on because this post is probably long enough. Tommy Tuberville has been around a long time. Most of his coaches have been around a long time. There is something to be said about the fact that only twice in his career did Tuberville have a team win double digit games in a season. One of those was in 2004. That was his 10th year of coaching. The second was in 2006. The 9 wins he picked up at Cincinnati last year were the most he had in his previous 4 seasons as a coach. He was 25-20 at Ole Miss and 20-17 at Texas Tech. In 2003, Tuberville was 38-24 at Auburn. He was on the hot seat heading into 2004. After a 9-4 season in 2007, Auburn was preseason top 10. They finished 5-7. He was fired. For all of his excellence at Auburn, he only went to one BCS bowl. Cincinnati has been to two since Tuberville went to his.
The very real question of does Tommy Tuberville have the qualities that Cincinnati needs to springboard into the future are very real. He was good at Ole Miss, but David Cutcliffe took that program to greater heights. He wasn’t that good at Texas Tech. Word was he was on the way out before he came to Cincinnati. Tubs did take Tech to two bowl games. Tuberville has not taken any of his previous 3 teams to bowl games in his first two years. He should do that this season because this isn’t the SEC or the Big 12. Which is a good thing because Cincinnati couldn’t hang in any major conference league this season. The only 4 teams ranked under them in the S&P are Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Iowa State and Kansas. You could switch Cincinnati’s schedule with those teams and the Cats would probably have the same record they do. There is no doubt that this season is a step back unless this team gets incredibly better incredibly quick.
It’s worth asking if Tommy Tuberville has the experience to lead Cincinnati to the championships, the group of 5 bowl bid and maybe some playoff talk. He his track record at non-powerhouses is spotty. His recent history is questionable. Wins are going to be there because of the mid-major league the Bearcats are occupying. The main question is are there significant wins on the horizon and is Tommy Tuberville the man to get them?
Big Ten Schools
Purdue – W
Illinois – L
Ohio State – L
ACC Schools
North Carolina – L
Miami – L
AAC Schools
Louisville – L
Overall in AAC play: 6-3
So far the answer is no.
This season has to be valuable experience for everyone involved or things could get uneasy in the Queen City.
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