Ever since his playing days at Columbus East High School in Indiana, Gunner Kiel has always faced astronomical expectations.
A five-star recruit coming out of high school, Kiel was ranked as the best quarterback prospect in the country by both Rivals.com and Scout.com. After originally committing to Indiana and then LSU, he finally settled on Notre Dame, where his father, Blair Kiel, had played quarterback in the early 1980s.
However, after redshirt freshman Everett Golson beat him out for the starting job in 2012 and led the Fighting Irish to the national championship game, Kiel decided to transfer, settling on Cincinnati as his next destination.
Landing Kiel was considered an incredible victory for head coach Tommy Tuberville and the Bearcats, and he was viewed by many fans as the kind of star player that could lead the program to new heights.
After sitting out the 2013 season as a transfer, Kiel finally got his chance to start under center in 2014 and try to prove that he could live up to the immense hype that had surrounded him over the past several years.
Though it was far from perfect, his first collegiate season as a signal caller was, for the most part, a resounding success.
His Cincinnati debut came against Toledo, where Kiel showed exactly why he was such a highly coveted prospect coming out of high school. Kiel absolutely torched the Rockets’ defense, completing 25 of his 37 passes for 418 yards, six touchdowns and no interceptions.
Just two weeks later, Kiel was impressive once again in a loss to eventual national champion Ohio State, throwing for 352 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions on 65.6 percent passing.
Though it looked like he might just end up being everything UC fans dreamed he would be, the rest of the season didn’t go quite so smoothly for Kiel.
That’s not to say he wasn’t mostly stellar for the Bearcats (because he was), but he did have a couple of shaky performances and was hampered by injured ribs throughout much of the year.
The low point of the season for Kiel came against Memphis, a game that saw him go just 11 for 27 for 216 yards, one touchdown and one interception. This all came in the first half, which ended with Kiel suffering from a rib injury that knocked him out for the remainder of the game and bothered him for the rest of the year.
Though he never seemed to really be at 100% the rest of the way, Kiel still managed to be a productive quarterback and was instrumental in the Bearcats’ success during a seven-game winning streak that followed up a disappointing 2-3 start to the season.
Kiel finished the year with 3,254 yards, 31 touchdowns and 13 interceptions on 59.7 percent passing. His 31 touchdowns through the air tied a single-season school record, and his 3,254 passing yards were the third-most in school history.
It was a roller-coaster year, no doubt, for Kiel, but he certainly showed the flashes of brilliance that reminded us why everyone was so high on him coming out of high school.
Now, he enters 2015 with perhaps even higher expectations yet.
The Bearcats’ top eight receivers from 2014 are all returning, providing Kiel with an arsenal of extremely talented and experienced wide receivers that should make Cincinnati’s aerial attack one of the most formidable in the entire country.
Big things are expected out of Kiel next season, and Sporting News even had him at No. 15 in a recent ranking of the top 25 quarterbacks in college football in 2015. However, lofty expectations are nothing new for him, and he seems poised to improve upon his successful first season as a starter in college.
And if Kiel is able to live up to all the hype, an AAC title (and maybe even a berth in a “New Year’s Six” bowl game) might be on the horizon for the Cincinnati Bearcats.
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