Saturday, September 16, 2000
Can UC lightning strike twice?
Bearcats go for another upset over Wisconsin
By John Erardi
The Cincinnati Enquirer
They are clutch and opportunistic, as one might expect of a senior-laden team, and yet they are surprising, only because they are the University of Cincinnati football Bearcats.
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UC at WISCONSIN
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• Kickoff: 2 p.m. today at Camp Randall Stadium (76,129), Madison, Wis.
• Records: UC 2-0; Wisconsin 2-0.
• TV: None live.
• Radio: WCKY-AM (1360).
• Series: Wisconsin leads, 2-1.
• Line: Wisconsin by 141/2
• What to watch: Wisconsin may be even more vulnerable to the pass with the absence of star cornerback Jamar Fletcher, who will sit out this game because of a NCAA penalty for extra benefits received (discounted shoes at a local store). Without Fletcher's three interceptions last week, Wisconsin would not have beaten Oregon (27-23). But safety Jason Doering (18 tackles vs. Oregon) will be all over the place. Running back Michael Bennett, who is the reigning Big Ten champ in the 60 and 200 meters indoors and 100 and 200 outdoors, slashed for 290 yards vs. Oregon.
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At UC, basketball normally gets all the headlines, spotlights and blue-chip athletes. But the football Bearcats are making themselves hard to ignore with their first 2-0 start in 14 years ... and an opportunity today to rock the football world the way they haven't done since Greg Cook was chucking pigskins in Clifton in the late 1960s.
And that's no exaggeration.
Today's foe is Wisconsin, ranked No. 4 in the Associated Press poll and No. 5 in the USA Today/ESPN poll.
And the Bearcats will be right in the middle of it (2 p.m. kickoff) when they walk into Camp Randall Stadium in Madison.
For some fans, it might as well be Camp Tony Randall Stadium because Cincinnati and Wisconsin are the Odd Couple of college football — one a near perennial doormat that usually only half-fills its 35,000-seat stadium, the other the new Nanook of the North that wins Big Ten Championships, Rose Bowls and jams its 76,129-seat stadium with red-and-white waving zealots.
It was shocking last year when UC upset then-No. 8 (AP) Wisconsin at Nippert Stadium, 17-12. But, the previous week, UC had been beaten by Troy State, and nobody expected the win over Wisconsin to catapult UC on a rocket-ride toward the Top 25.
This year is different: UC is coming off an upset victory over No. 25 Syracuse (USA Today/ESPN) and is a regarded as a comer — good defense, potentially explosive offense and excellent special teams.
Nothing concerns opposing coaches as much as the latter. When potentially lopsided games somehow wind up close, it's special teams which often serve as the sti letto pulled from the secret place to end the fight.
During this week's Big Ten coaches' teleconference call, Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez was asked about UC's defense — “very sound ... you've got to beat them, they aren't going to beat themselves,” he answered — but one could tell it was UC's special teams which had especially moved him.
“I was very impressed by them,” he volunteered.
Four fourth-quarter field goals — including an eye-popping 47-yarder that split the uprights with no time left on the clock and would have been good from 57 yards out — has a way of impressing the beholder.
And UC punter Adam Wulfeck (Beechwood High School) is booming the ball: he averaged 46.5 yards in his six punts vs. Syracuse, including two that ended up on the two-yard line.
The only way all these things will matter today, however, is if UC's sputtering pass offense gets itself untracked early. If the Bearcats' play-callers again wait until the second half to get big-play receivers LaDaris Vann and tight end Ashley Hunt into the offense, it will be too late.
Wisconsin is going to score some points. Running back Michael Bennett is a speedster, and he'll be crossing the goal-line.
UC quarterback Deontey Kenner needs to be allowed to shine, and the wideouts have to hang onto the balls thrown their way, something they haven't always done so far.
For all of these things to come together on one Saturday — in front of a home team and a fan-base hellbent on revenge — is unlikely.
“Cincinnati played better than we did last year and made fewer mistakes,” Alvarez said. “We've got plenty of things to concern ourselves with (besides revenge).”
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