However, Prater is trusting the process and what Coach Coombs and the staff have in place for the team come Saturday where the Bearcats will look to finish with their third straight 10-win season despite missing some key pieces on offense and is looking forward to the opportunity to lead the Bearcats come Saturday as he looks for his first win as a starter for the Bearcats.
“Coach Coombs has done a phenomenal job at keeping everyone together.” said Prater. If you sit and listen to him for two or three minutes you are ready to run through a brick wall. That is the type of guy that Coach Coombs is.”
The Cardinals are 7-5 on the season but however like the Bearcats have seen some key players opt out for this bowl game including star quarterback Malik Cunningham. Cunningham led the Cardinals in passing and was second on the team in rushing. The Cardinals will also be without a key offensive lineman up front in Luke Kandra, who recently entered the transfer portal and announced he will be following Coach Satterfield and coming home to play for the Bearcats.
However, the Cardinals enter this one averaging 27 points per game, as they are a well-balanced team in terms of rushing and passing but some names to keep an eye on for the Cardinals include running back Jawhar Jordan who leads the Cardinals in rushing with 723 yards on the season and two touchdowns. The Cardinals will also be without top receiver Tyler Hudson who finished the season with 69 receptions for 1034 yards and two touchdowns as he announced on Wednesday that he will declare for the 2023 NFL Draft, so look for Tight End Marshon Ford to be a huge target for the Cardinals in the passing game.
The Bearcats will look to take advantage of a short, staffed Louisville team but as many people know, you can never count out a team that has their back against the wall, and in this situation it’s both teams due to all the noise surrounding both programs. However, Saturday will be an interesting game, with a rivalry that hasn’t been played in nearly 10 years when both teams were in the Big East, now get the opportunity to face one another in a both game with a lot at stake.
The Keg of Nails is something all of these players now know about, and there is one player on the Bearcats who knows all about that rivalry and that is 6th year linebacker Wilson Huber, as his Father Daryl, was 4-1 in the rivalry during his tenure at Cincinnati. Wilson the 6th year linebacker will look to propel the Bearcats to victory on Saturday as the 6th year senior looks to wrap up his career at the University of Cincinnati.
Kickoff is set for 11am this Saturday as the Bearcats look to defeat the odds and improve to 10-3 on the season despite losing their head coach and all of the outside noise over the last few weeks. However, they know the task at hand and the historical outlook of the Keg of Nails rivalry, as the rivalry looks to be renewed for the first time since 2013.
