Cincinnati at Tulane: Know Your Enemy

Happy Halloween, y'all. It is Tulane Gameday. At 7 PM, the Cincinnati Bearcats will make their first-ever appearance in Yulman Stadium in a crucial in-conference matchup. 

The Bearcats are 4-3 on the year and will enter riding a two-game winning streak. Tulane had a week off to allow star running back Sherman Badie to heal up and for freshman Tanner Lee to get back in the mix. 

I had a chance to interview Scott over at the Bearcats Blog. You can find them on Twitter here too. Here's what we learned. 

1. We now know Gunner Kiel is officially in for Friday instead of Munchie Legaux (who went to Karr on the Westbank in New Orleans). With his rib injury against USF, do you see Gunner being limited at all, or should the offense be back at 100%? 

Kiel has battled the rib injury ever since the third game of the season at Ohio State. He's a very tough kid. He's also been knocked out of a couple of games since. That's a little worrisome. I'm of the mind that Kiel shouldn't start and only play a "In case of fire, break glass," role, but I'm not the coach. Kiel is great. He's going to throw deep, he's going to throw short and he's going to just make any throw he wants because he's incredibly talented. We've seen him tear apart most of the secondaries UC has faced. 

2. This is obviously a weird year in the world of the AAC with some new teams coming on board, but Cincinnati was the #1 pick in the preseason. After losing that three game stretch against Ohio State, in-conference Memphis, and the U, do you feel like the Bearcats have regained their momentum? How's the fan base handling this season in Cinci? 

That's a tough question to answer. The Bearcats have bounced back on the scoreboard with a couple of lopsided wins. Those wins have come against Southern Methodist and South Florida, teams who hold up the southern part of the standings. They are two of the dirt worst teams in the nation. Tulane isn't thought of much better, sorry!, so even a huge win here wouldn't answer a ton of concerns.

The defense has been a huge issue for the Cats this season and is one of the 30 or so worst in the nation. They have feasted on SMU and South Florida. The Bearcats have picked off 4 passes the last two weeks after having two all season to that point. The Cats have taken away opposing run games, something they didn't do to OSU, Memphis or Miami, and forced the awful quarterbacks to make plays. If you know anything about SMU and USF, those quarterback situations are a mess.

Cincinnati's running game has given the offense balance the last couple weeks as well. The UC QBs ran for over a combined 100 yards against SMU and freshman running back Mike Boone had over 200 yards last week. Again, the competition is a major point but the results are positive. 

Cincinnati has turned a bit of a corner. I say that with some optimism and some reserve because we really won't know until the Cats play East Carolina. Double sorry, Tulane fans reading this. 

3. We're a little shocked to be a 2.5 point underdog to Cinci, especially since the Green Wave was a 20 point dog to UCF in the last matchup. What's your prediction for the matchup this week? 

I'm a bit surprised the spread was that low too. Cincinnati was only 13.5 and 10 point favorites to SMU and USF. Vegas does not believe in the Bearcats. Memphis opened as a 24ish point favorite at SMU for some comparison. I thought some of it was because of Kiel's status, but even now it's a 4 point spread. Cincinnati is ranked 75 on the Football Outsider S&P rankings, Tulane 101. Just off that, you would think that the Bearcats would be a bigger favorite, even on the road.

My prediction is going to be a blowout (sorry again). Cincinnati has proven one thing under Tommy Tuberville and it's that they can wipe the floor with the bottom of the league, USF excluded. The games against the top teams are a different question. Maybe Tulane gets the Bearcats to play the same type of terrible offense that the Green Wave were able to force Central Florida into a couple weeks ago. Making the game incredibly ugly is Tulane's only shot in my book. 

I just don't think they'll be able to pull it off for 60 minutes. UC was pushed to the limit by an awful Miami Ohio squad, so anything could happen. Still see a blowout. Something like Cincinnati 34 Tulane 13.

4. With a sophomore linebacker picking up another run-in with Johnny Law this week, is Tommy Tuberville starting to see some distractions for the team with the legal incidents, or do you not expect that to be much of a factor against this opponent? 

Sadly, Cincinnati has faced this problem as recently as last week. It sounds like Marcus Tappan, the player arrested, is going to have a long road back to getting on the field, if he ever gets on the field at Cincinnati. I think arrests are more of a public perception problem than on the field problem. I doubt FSU is going to be too distracted by the fact their starting running back is involved in whatever the hell he's involved in. There are bigger things to worry about, like the opponent. You can't stroll into Tulane and be distracted. That's how you walk home with a loss.

I hope ending this with a compliment of Tulane has endeared me to the readers. You'll be better soon. Just not this year in any sports that matter. But one day.