Today the No. 13/14 Cincinnati Bearcats hosted Austin Peay Governors and dominated. It was a nice day at Nippert Stadium. The Bearcats only allowed family in the stadium due to covid, but that didn’t stop the Bearcats from dominating Austin Peay 55-20.
The Bearcats had a late morning injury scratch as starting wide receiver Alec Pierce was ruled out to a knee injury that happened earlier in the week. The injury isn’t deemed serious and the team is just being extra precautious. Jadon Thompson the true freshman started in place.
The Bearcats were solid on both sides of the ball. Sophomore wide receiver Tre Tucker scored the first touchdown of the season on a push pass from Desmond Ridder that went 29 yards. On the offensive side of the ball senior running back Gerrid Doaks had him a monstrous first half with three rushing touchdowns. Redshirt junior quarterback Desmond Ridder had himself a nice day as he went 13-of-19 for 196 yards and two touchdowns while also rushing the ball four times for 57 yards including a nice 37 yard carry late in the first half. The Bearcats utilized our group of tight ends that includes Josh Whyle, Leonard Taylor and Bruno Labelle. Josh Whyle had himself a nice day showing lots of great things catching three catches for 61 yards and a touchdown, including a nice 30 yard catch, and a big third down conversion setting the Bearcats up for a score. The trio had eight catches for 118 yards and a touchdown. The Bearcats have scary depth at the tight end position with a healthy Josh Whyle for the first time in his career, this is the position group to keep an eye on because they will cause defenses problems.
The Bearcats tallied a total of 525 total yards on offense with 249 of those yards coming in the air, while the other 276 were on the ground in the run game. Doaks had an amazing day having four touchdowns total three rushing and one receiving. Doaks was the leading receiver today with four catches for 64 yards and a 32 yard touchdown catch. He also added 20 yards on 10 carries, channelling his inner Mike Warren at the goal line.
On the defensive end of the ball cornerback Ahmad Gardner tallied up eight total tackles with three of those tackles being solo tackles. Linebacker Jarell White also had a great game on the defensive end with five tackles, 2.0 tackles for loss. In his first game back after missing all of last season due to a knee injury senior safety James Wiggins had six tackles total, four of those being solo tackles and a pass broken up. The defense played very well as they had 9.0 tackles for loss as a team along with one sack. Although the defense allowed 346 total yards of offense this is a defense that can cause teams a lot of problems in the future.
The Bearcats take on Army next week at home for what could potentially be a Top 25 matchup. This game is slated to kickoff at 3:30 pm on ESPN. This will be a great non conference matchup for the Bearcats especially during this shortened covid season.
