Cincinnati survived at East Carolina last week, despite being heavy favorites to improve to 7-1 on the year and remain in the drivers seat for the American Athletic Conference East division. They will once again enter the week as heavy betting favorites, this time from friendly Nippert Stadium as the 2-7 UConn Huskies come to town for what figures to be maybe the last time ever. UConn is headed back to the Big East for basketball next year and the football team will go the independent route meaning Cincinnati and UConn will no longer be obligated to schedule one another. As I write this the spread sits at 35 and even though last weeks 24 point spread made no difference as ECU outplayed UC for three and a half quarters, I can’t imagine the results being the same this week. ECU is a bad football team, but UConn is a truly horrific football team. They have two wins on the year, one is a blowout win over Massachusetts and the other is a three point victory over Wagner. It is safe to say that if UC finds themselves in an one possession game with UConn in the 4th quarter Saturday then this team would no longer deserve to even be ranked.
The UConn offense has struggled in just about every game this season only eclipsing the 24 point mark one time and that was the UMASS game. Freshman quarterback Jack Zergiotis has taken over the offense since week 2 and in that time has a 58% completion rate, 1,079 yards passing and five touchdowns. The downside is he only averages 154.1 yards passing a game also has eight interceptions on the year while providing no threat to defenses as a runner.
Junior running back Kevin Mensah has been the workhorse for the Huskies so far, and the only person to regularly find the end zone. Of the 22 offensive touchdowns the Huskies have scored on the year (for comparison UC has scored 29 offensive touchdowns and that includes being completely shut out one week and playing one less game than UConn) Mensah has nine of them. The junior comes into the game with 803 yards on the season to go with those nine rushing touchdowns and averages 4.6 yards a carry. He will be the one guy UC’s defense will need to plan for and if they can have success shutting him down then it should mean success on the scoreboard as well.
Freshman Cameron Ross leads the Huskies in receiving and serves as the only true weapon in the passing game, he has 516 yards and two scores on the year while the next highest wide receiver (Adrell Brown) only has 254 yards on the year. The last three weeks Ross has really come on for UConn posting a total line of 24 receptions, 233 yards and a touchdown.
On the defensive side of the ball is where UConn has found themselves in trouble all season. Junior Tyler Coyle leads the team in total tackles with 68, he also has an interception and forced fumble. Nothing out of the ordinary with those numbers, except Coyle is doing these things as a defensive back and if your defense is relying on a defensive back to make that many tackles, then nobody on the first and second levels are having any success. This helps explain why the Huskies come into this week giving up 39.8 points and 445.8 yards of offense PER GAME. They really have issues with stopping the run, opponents have been able to gash the Huskies for 219.9 yards on the ground each week, which helps play right into the style of play the Bearcats want to execute. Despite being hobbled at times Michael Warren II has still found ways to be successful and this week should see that continue, it could also be a chance to feature Gerrid Doaks a bit more and let Warren heal up for the final three games.
As scary as last week was, this looks to be a game the Bearcats can use to clean the slate, get the offense and defense back in sync, and put a lot of points on the board in front of the fired up Homecoming Nippert Stadium crowd. Look for the Bearcats to send UConn off to the Big East with a bang, Cats by a million.
