Cincinnati Gets Much-Needed Wake-Up Call in Loss to Utah

BY Keegan Nickoson | BearcatJournal.com 

10.5 points felt like a lot. Cincinnati had played clean, efficient football for seven straight weeks, surging to a 5-0 start in Big 12 play.

Saturday night’s 45-14 loss to Utah was a wake-up call. The Utes exposed Cincinnati’s inability to handle harsh road environments. They brought out the absolute worst in this Bearcats team; they broke a litany of tackles that opposing teams had been unable to break.

Utah exposed Cincinnati on special teams and made one of the best offenses in the conference look stagnant and disjointed.

Much was made of Utah’s ability to run the ball, and the Utes established that early, driving down the field on their first drive and scoring shortly after forcing a three-and-out from Cincinnati, which featured two passes batted down at the line of scrimmage.

“It’s unfortunate to start the game and you’ve got two plays that you know are gonna be good and that you game plan for, and guys just bat the ball down,” Sorsby said.

“There’s really not much you can do about that. You can try to throw the ball outside or a little bit deeper down the middle. Tip of the cap to those guys. Really good game plan and played really well.”

Outside of Cincinnati’s second drive, which leaned heavily on the ground game and ended with a Brendan Sorsby rushing touchdown, and the opening drive of the second half, where Sorsby hit Cyrus Allen for an 88-yard score, there was very little momentum of any kind created.

Sorsby made two excellent throws down the field, including a perfectly placed ball to Allen for a 45-yard gain. Two plays later, Sorsby fumbled. When Devin Dampier threw an interception to Christian Harrison at the goal line, Cincinnati took less than a minute to go three-and-out and gave the ball right back to the Utes, who then scored to take a 31-14 lead.

“They did an outstanding job coming out and playing their brand of football and put a lot of pressure on our team in all aspects,” Scott Satterfield said.

“If you think about their defense going against our offense, everybody’s up on the line of scrimmage and playing a lot of zero and man coverage out there and making it very difficult for us to move the football.”

“I think there are a lot of things we gotta continue to get better at,” Gavin Gerhardt said. “That’s been the emphasis the whole season.

“I think it’s even more of an emphasis now. We gotta find ways to move the ball. We can’t go three-and-out. Doesn’t matter if we’re home or away; we can’t let the energy of the stadium dictate how we play the game and how we move the ball down the field as an offense. We have really explosive wide receivers and a really explosive offense, in my opinion.”

The Bearcats’ defense picked a bad week to not show up in the tackling department. All things considered, they did enough to slow down Utah’s running game to at least give the offense a chance to keep up. Much of the Utes’ 480 yards came after first contact, and the nail in the coffin was Creed Whittemore’s 11-yard score to make it 38-14.

Fresh off a penalty, Utah was faced with a second-and-goal from the 11-yard line. Whittemore caught the ball at the eight and made four Bearcats miss, eventually stumbling into the end zone. A play that should have resulted in a tough third-and-goal from the 8 turned into a score.

“By stretching you out sideline to sideline, they make you a little bit thin,” Satterfield said on Cincinnati’s tackling struggles. “Now you’re gonna be more one-on-one tackles, and if you miss the guy, he’s gonna get some more yards. We didn’t tackle great tonight for sure.

“As we go back and watch it, we’ll evaluate that and see where we gotta shore that up. But we’ve been a good tackling team for the most part this year, and tonight wasn’t our night.”

Despite the punishment the Bearcats underwent Saturday night, they still control their own destiny. If they win out, they will have a date in Dallas for the Big 12 championship. But Utah may have given other teams the blueprint for beating them. The Utes’ plan to play tight-man coverage and rush the passer was very effective, giving the UC offensive line fits. Even though Sorsby wasn’t sacked, the Utes’ defensive line made its presence felt.

“They knew that if it was six-man protection, they were gonna bring seven,” Gerhardt said. “That was the majority of the entire game.

“They always had an extra guy. Based on what we saw in film throughout their first eight games, they switched a lot of the blitzes up to where it was completely different.”

Fortunately for the Bearcats, they likely won’t play a defense as good as Utah’s the rest of the season. While BYU’s group has performed well this year, at least they get to go against them at Nippert Stadium. This is a game they can learn from, and Harrison said it might have even been needed.

“This was probably needed,” Harrison said. “It’s going to make everyone go back and look in the mirror to see what needs to be fixed, including myself.”