Oh Say Did UC?

The time for Cincinnati Bearcats links has come. This might not be your favorite bit, but it should be because it’s very informative and fun for everyone.

Brian Bennett at ESPN has written a spring recap of every Big East team, or is going to, and yesterday he hit on Cincinnati. His biggest questions circle around the defense, especially the secondary.

Bennett also wrote a piece about the Big East’s star being ready to shine, shine, shine. I know he said burn bright, but you can’t write burn bright three times.

The Bleacher report did a slide show about the upcoming Big East football season. They put a familiar face as one of the 3 Big East Heisman candidates.

The great Ivan Maisel wrote a huge spring football recap, and at the very bottom, he mentioned Cincinnati. He said UC looked to have what it takes for a three peat. I like those words.

Mark Schlabach put up a post spring top 25. Top 5, Alabama, Boise St, Ohio St, Texas and Virginia Tech. Pittsburgh was the highest rated Big East team at 13. Cincinnati was 18. Spoiler alert.

Bengals.com did a nice write up about Mike Windt, the Cincinnati long snapper who signed to the Bengals as a free agent.

Mardy Gilyard had a piece written about him Friday by St Louis Globe Democrat about how he was wearing the great Torry Holt’s #81.

There is also a more recent piece by some St Louis paper after the weekend OTAs saying that Gilyard and Sam Bradford had a nice rapport.

Switching to football recruiting news, the Bearcats have offered junior Jamire Westbrook. It’s his first offer. He’s actually going into his junior year, and is 16. The whole thing is kinda creepy. Recruiting is seriously getting out of hand.

The Bearcats have also made an offer to Zach Mettenberger. Zach was released by Georgia after getting charged for sexual battery.  He was expected to fight for the Georgia starting job this season. He was the 14th ranked QB by Scout a couple years ago, he redshirted last season, and is said to be a stud. I’m iffy on going after guys dismissed from teams for big things like sexual battery. Maybe Zach has turned his life around after that dark incident. He also has an offer from Louisville, and other schools are said to be interested.

Switching gears completely, let’s hit up some baseball. The Bearcats are tied for 7th in the Big East, with an 8-10 record as of yesterday when the News Record wrote this. 8 teams make the BET. The teams behind the Irish and Bearcats are 5-13. The Bearcats get a tough challenge this week, as the Big East leading Connecticut Huskies prance into town. Good luck to the Bearcats. Try to make a game if you can peeps. They are free or cheap if they aren’t free. I’ve been to one in my life. I don’t remember who UC played, or who won, but it was fun.

Speaking of fun, this interview with UC 1B/Pitcher Kevin Johnson is. He may not have dunked over Hakeem Olajuwon, but he was drafted by the Florida Marlins and chose to come back to UC.

Former UC pitched Dan Osterbrock threw a 7 inning no hitter his last outing. That’s great news in of itself, but he was named the Twins Minor League Player of the Week, Midwest League Pitcher of the Week, and was promoted to High A. Congrats a ton to Dan.

Moving to hoops, Bill Koch wrote a pretty alright piece about Sean Kilpatrick. Sean has a lot of pressure to take the place of not only Lance Stephenson, but Deonta Vaughn. With his admitted flat three point shot, he’ll fit right in with the rest of the returning bricklayers. I kid.

I don’t know much about the Cincinnati Commandos, besides the fact they have former UC players, but they are undefeated. This is a nice refresher. They are QB’d by Ben Mauk.

Also on the team is Dominick Goodman, and this is an interview with him.

We’ll end with a couple of Big East links. Our good friends at Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician check to see if Doug Marrone losing 29 players since taking over at Syracuse has their program going in the right direction. And our best friends at Card Chronicle react about the news Samardo Samuels hiring an agent and turning pro.