Defenses in charge of stopping Tebow and Pike have tall order ahead

I’ve never been a defensive guy. I like to think I’m an offensive guy, and it makes sense. In high school at Elder, head coach Doug Ramsey was the de facto offensive coordinator and playcaller. For the past three seasons at UC Brian Kelly pretty much did the same on gamedays, calling the shots for the Bearcat offense.

When I watch football I like to call out formations, personnel packages and offensive plays. I do pay attention to defense, but I’m no defensive expert. When people ask me if I’d ever like to coach football (obviously in the far future) I note that I need someone who knows defense to help me on that side of the ball.

The UC defense had to replace ten starters before the season. For this reason numerous experts said the Bearcats wouldn't be the same team they were last season. Little did they know that the Bearcats would actually be better

So defense isn’t my forte, but I certainly can tell you that both offenses in the Sugar Bowl will provide the opposing defense with certain challenges. Tebow can pound the ball up the middle with his powerful frame. Pike is escapable, slips away from pressure and slings the ball deep down field to his wideouts. So how will each defense go about stopping two of the best offenses in all of college football today?

If I had the answer to that question I doubt I’d tell you. Plus I’d see how much money I could get for my expertise. So I can theorize about both teams, and not lose any money. We’ll see if I’m right on January 2nd after the game is over.

Florida comes into the game with the number twelve offense in the nation averaging 442 yards per game. Florida scores an average of 35 points per game. When Florida runs they prefer the ball stays in the hands of Tim Tebow, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who watches college football. This season Tebow rushed for 859 yards on 203 carries and scored 13 touchdowns. Running back Jeffery Demps ran the ball 96 times for 738 yards.

Tebow runs against Alabama in the SEC Title game. How often will he do this against Cincinnati?

UC has had trouble defending the run as the season progressed, and Pittsburgh nearly made that flaw fatal. The Bearcat defense surrendered 146 points in the final four games of the year (UConn, West Virginia, Illinois and Pitt), but in total the ‘Cats finished 25th in the nation in scoring defense averaging 21 points per game. Something has got to give here.

One of the main reasons that current Notre Dame Head Coach Brian Kelly expressed an interest in switching to a 3-4 defense this season at Cincinnati was to defend the speed of teams like USF and West Virginia in the Big East conference. Little did he know that the switch would also help in a bowl game. Florida will more than likely try to spread the field, and UC should be fine with that. But if Tebow starts pounding the ball between the tackles, UC will need to find the right mix of defensive personnel to deal with the speed and power of Florida.

On the flip side, the Bearcat offense, a much ballyhooed unit, averaged nearly 40 points per game. Tony Pike and Zach Collaros led a passing attack that was sixth in all the land, putting up 320 yards a game. Oddly enough the UC offense was also sixth in total offense. So the edge yardage wise between the offenses goes to UC.

However, the Florida defense is pretty darn good themselves. The Gator defense only gave up 11.5 points per game and held teams to just a hair over 253 yards. So what does the UC offense have to do to defeat the vaunted Gator defense? I think one of the hall marks of the Bearcats this season on offense will have to remain stable in order to beat Florida and that is ball security. In twelve regular season games the UC offense has lost one fumble, and no running back has lost a fumble for UC this year. That has to stay the same in order for the Bearcats to pull off a victory in New Orleans.

When I was a guest on Jake Meyer’s radio show before the Pittsburgh game two weeks ago on WPTS the two guys hosting the sports show with Jake mentioned that they wanted a prediction from me. “I don’t do predictions guys,” was my response. Before the Rutgers game my good friend Greg Metz sent me a text stating, “What’s your prediction for today?” I responded simply, “UC-1 more point than Rutgers. I don’t do predictions Greg, you know that.”

In the game against Pittsburgh sophomore corner Dominique Battle made a diving interception

So if you read all this way looking for a prediction, well, I’ll apologize. I’m just hoping that my statistical insight into the UC and Florida offenses and Bearcat and Gator defenses help you to make your own predictions for the January 1st matchup between the two teams.

Hope everyone has had a great day and the end of the week is near. Got a lot more storylines for this UC-Florida game, so I hope you can tune in and read them all leading up to the big game on New Year’s Day. Tune back in tomorrow and until then, have a nice night.