Brian Kelly, Tony Pike, and Mardy Gilyard are gone from last year’s UC football team. But the two-time defending Big East champions are determined to come back and win the conference for a third straight year. Their new leader, Butch Jones, has brought the same mentality, but a different atmosphere to the team.During spring practice, the Bearcats have shown that they can be just as good as last year, especially on the offensive side of the ball. Butch Jones recently officially named Zach Collaros as his starting quarterback. The wide receiving corps looks like it will be the best in the Big East, if not the entire nation, with Armon Binns, D.J. Woods, Marcus Barnett, USC transfer Vidal Hazelton, and junior college transfer Jamar Howard.
Throw in returning tight end Ben Guidugli and running back Isaiah Pead, and the Bearcats will definitely have another high-powered offense this fall.
Last season, the defense, led by six senior starters, would have mental breakdowns at different points of the games, forcing the Bearcats to rely heavily on their offense. Ultimately, the defense did its job though. However, because they lost six starters, it may be a problem area this fall.
Leading the defense will be J.K. Schaeffer and Drew Frey, both only juniors. It will be a young team, with only some players having game experience.
The spring game, also called Bearcat Bowl IV, was held on April 24. The offense played the defense, in which Butch Jones had the first team offense play the second team defense, and the second team offense play the first team defense. For a scrimmage, the game was satisfactory. Collaros and Woods both looked sharp for the offense, and the other quarterback, Chazz Anderson, played well too. The highlight for the defense was a Sean McClellan interception off Anderson.
During the game, Butch Jones got the fans involved, by going into the stands and asking different fans to select a play from a board that listed eight plays. One of the fan-selected plays used a little trickery, as they would run a reverse to the point where D.J. Woods gets the ball and throws a long pass to another receiver. In this case, it was Hazelton. This play looked great, and I can’t wait to see it used in a real game in the fall.
At the end of the spring game, the White team, or the offense, beat the Black team, or the defense 60-55, using the special scoring system that Jones had implemented for this game.
Fans may have been upset with Brian Kelly for leaving just when the UC program was really starting to thrive, and they may feel like the program might start sliding backwards now. But I think that this football team is going to be just fine, and I think it’s going to be another exciting season this fall.