Cincinnati Bearcats’ 2014 Season Report Card

Despite grabbing a share of the AAC championship, something they were widely expected to do heading into the season, 2014 is better categorized as a season of missed opportunities for the Cincinnati Bearcats. Tommy Tuberville’s second campaign as head coach resulted in the same 9-4 record, the same apparent acceptance of mediocrity, and the same failure on the big stage as his first season. For Cincinnati, a football program that has been a member of three different conferences (C-USA, Big East and AAC) and averaged 8.5 wins a season since 2004 en route to five conference titles in the last seven years, it’s become about taking the next step.

Tuberville was brought to Cincinnati in 2012 to not simply continue the winning ways that prior head coaches Mark Dantonio, Brian Kelly and Butch Jones established, but rather to dominate the AAC, lead the program to national relevance, and ultimately help land UC’s athletics in a “Power Five” conference. While the winning has continued, so has the Bearcats’ propensity to wilt in the spotlight.

In 2014, Cincinnati accomplished the goal of an AAC championship although shared it with a Memphis team they lost to and UCF who was not on the schedule, but fell well short of making any statements for upward mobility in blowout losses to Ohio State, Miami (FL) and a wholly average Virginia Tech team in the Military Bowl. Here’s a look at how each facet of the 2014 Bearcats graded out.

Offense: B+

Clearly the brightest spot of the 2014 Bearcats was the offense, and specifically the potential that quarterback Gunner Kiel displayed. Kiel led the AAC in passer efficiency (149.4) and passing touchdowns (31), and was named the AAC offensive player of the week twice en route to receiving an all-conference honorable mention nod—all despite missing time throughout the season with a litany of injuries. Looking to 2015, Kiel needs to find a way to take less hits, especially the big ones that led to him being knocked out of games and missing time in others. He also needs to protect the ball better as he threw 13 interceptions and fumbled the ball seven times, and was fortunate to only lose three of those.

Cincinnati wound up ranking 27^th and 29^th in total and scoring offense by averaging 460.2 yards and 34 points per game. Additionally, the ‘Cats, while creating a reputation of big plays and stretching the field from a spread offense, were actually excellent inside the red zone where the field condenses. UC scored on 46 of its 51 red zone possessions, a 90.2% success rate that ranked 16^th in the country. The Bearcats scored a touchdown on 34 of those 51 possessions, and were balanced in their approach as they scored 18 through the air and 16 on the ground.

While the passing game was a clear strength for Cincinnati all season (13^th in the FBS with 303.6 ypg), the rushing attack was hit-or-miss at best. The Bearcats averaged 156.5 rushing ypg, but they were held under 100 yards on the ground in five games. Three of those games were losses (Ohio State, Memphis and Miami [FL]), and the other two were close wins by margins of seven and eight points over Miami (OH) and Temple, respectively. True freshman running back Mike Boone showed promise this year, leading Cincinnati in rushing with 650 yards and nine touchdowns on only 101 attempts. UC will need Boone to be a big factor in 2015 to take some pressure off of Kiel and the passing attack.

Defense: D

D is for defense, right? I almost feel like I’m being generous here too, because while Cincinnati’s defense did rebound from an historically bad start that had them thanking SMU for somehow being worse, going from the 120s to 96^th and 68^th in total and scoring defense isn’t exactly fantastic. Don’t think I’m being generous? Well, consider that they played some of the worst offenses in the country during their “defensive turnaround,” as the likes of SMU, South Florida, Tulane, Connecticut and Temple were certainly sights for the sore eyes of Tuberville’s self-proclaimed “Bad News Bearcats” defense.

I was shocked to see that Hank Hughes, the now former co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach who also called the plays on Saturday, was hired by Mike Riley at Nebraska to be a co-coordinator and defensive line coach. People were calling for Hughes’ head in Cincinnati after the first five games of the season. My only guesses are that either Riley didn’t catch too many Cincinnati games this fall or that Hughes is a good friend of his.

But I digress… Blown coverages, shoddy tackling, an inconsistent pass rush and a soft interior were hallmarks of the Cincinnati defense in 2014, or at least the early part of it. While the improvement in the stats wasn’t drastic, I will say if you watched this team throughout the year at all you could see a difference in the defense. They adopted a more aggressive style, which led to more forced turnovers and negative plays for their opponents. Some of the bright spots of this team included the play of senior linebackers Jeff Luc and Nick Temple, who finished third and ninth in the AAC in total tackles with 134 and 113, respectively. Luc also had 6.5 sacks, and forced six fumbles while leading the conference in fumble recoveries with four. Sophomore safety Zach Edwards also landed in the top ten in tackles at seventh, racking up 121. Senior defensive end Terrell Hartsfield led the conference in sacks with nine (eight solo), and also wound up ninth in tackles for loss with 12 as the only consistent threat for pressure from the UC defensive line.

Special Teams: C+

While the ‘Cats improved considerably on special teams from 2013, it was an easy task as they would have received a resounding F given the missed field goals, long returns and return touchdowns this unit suffered through that season.

The biggest improvement came from an unexpected place, as redshirt freshman place kicker beat out senior Tony Miliano for the job during camp and proceeded to make 16 of 20 field goal attempts with a long of 47 en route to becoming a Lou Groza Award semifinalist. Gantz received AAC special teams player of the week three times during the season, and the 47-yarder he hit represented the go-ahead score late in the game against ECU in the freezing cold and swirling winds. Punter Sam Geraci also had a solid season, as he only had five touchbacks on 51 punts with 13 of them being fair caught and 15 being downed inside the opponent’s 20. He had a net average of 39.4 and a long of 60 yards. Tony Miliano lost his place kicking duties, but he did retain his role as a kickoff specialist and generated 34 touchbacks in 83 kickoffs, which was the second most in the AAC.

The Bearcats were solid but not spectacular in the return game, as main kick returner Johnny Holton finished third in the conference in return average at 20.6 yards and had a long return of 40 yards but no touchdowns. Shaq Washington only had the opportunity to return 13 punts on the season and only managed 79 total yards on them, and that includes a long of 46.

Coaching: B-

I touched on this in the introduction to this story, so I won’t go into too much detail but I think Tommy Tuberville and his staff did a rather “blah” job with this team this year. From the horrible start the defense had to some highly questionable decisions/play-calls to the struggles in the spotlight, the coaches fell short of expectations a few too many times for my liking. I give the staff credit for getting the players to bounce back from a rough 2-3 start to win a share of the AAC championship, but I knock them for not fully maximizing the talent many experts believed they had on their roster coming into the 2014 season.

Overall: B-

9-4 and a conference title is nothing to simply brush off. But at the end of the day, this was a team that wasn’t just picked as the favorite to win the AAC in the preseason, but rather one that was overwhelmingly expected to do so. If not for a soft, midseason stretch of the schedule that allowed for Kiel to get healthier and the coaches to figure some things out on defense, we could be talking about a team that barely scraped its way to bowl eligibility. Given the lofty expectations coming into 2014 and the failures to be competitive with teams like Miami (FL) and Virginia Tech, this season feels like a B- and a missed opportunity for Tuberville and the Bearcats.