The Bearcats are coming off of arguably the best performance of the Luke Fickell era, holding the SMU Mustangs to 13 points, on the road, after two weeks off. The win sent a message to the rest of the league and the country that the Bearcats are the real deal and pushed the Cats up to 7th nationally with a still perfect record of 4-0. This week they welcome to Nippert the 3-1 Memphis Tigers, who beat the Cats in back to back weeks last season so revenge has got to be on UC’s mind. Let’s take a look at what makes the Tigers so dangerous.
Memphis is yet another high octane offense, averaging 38.8 points a game, and their loss to SMU 30-27 was the only time this season they failed to score 30 or more. This is essentially the same story for UC as it was last week. Memphis likes to push the ball up and down the field and they rely on a veteran quarterback to do so.
Senior quarterback Brady White is once again the leader of this team and this offense. He is completing passes at a 64.8 % rate, accumulating 1,375 yards to go with 17 touchdowns and four interceptions to this point. White is very consistent as far as numbers per week, throwing for no less than three touchdowns in every single game and no less than 280 yards in every game. The Bearcats secondary will have another huge matchup on their hands Saturday and if they respond like they did against SMU, then they have a real strong chance to move to 5-0.
While Memphis is a pass heavy offense, especially with star running back Kenneth Gainwell opting out of this season, they are still capable of moving the ball between the tackles. The lead back for the Tigers is sophomore Rodrigues Clark. Clark has been good for 100 yards of rushing in each game this year and he is doing so with an average of 5.3 yards per carry and he has found the end zone one time. If the Cats defense can get that per carry average down and force Memphis into some 2nd or 3rd and long and allow the pass rushers to pin their ears back and get after Brady White it will go a long way towards keeping the Tigers off the scoreboard.
