Cincinnati awaits the final appeal of QB Ben Mauk’s hardship waiver for his sixth year of eligibility, but it certainly doesn’t look good. Luckily, the Bearcats have a senior in Dustin Grutza with lots of starting experience. And Grutza had a wonderful spring game for Cincinnati Saturday night. Grutza finished 13-of-18 for 100 yards and 2 TD. Notre Dame transfer Demetrius Jones was expected to compete for the starting job but finished the spring clearly behind Grutza on the depth chart.
UC is commended for shunning traditional color vs. color matchups, aptly naming their contest Bearcat Bowl II. It’s not exactly original, but did we really need another Red-Black Game? Well over 10,000 fans arrived at Nippert Stadium for the festivities.
Enjoy the mouth-watering five-way chili and read these two articles to breakdown the spring from Bearcat Insider.
I love the fact that WVU signed to play a series with Colorado. Mostly because I can make unlimited Dan Hawkins jokes for the next couple years.
IT’S DIVISION ONE FOOTBALL! IT’S THE BIG TWELVE! IT AIN’T INTRAMURALS!
It never gets old to me. Did the Buffs get a week off after spring practice this year? Did any of the Buffs go play intramurals, brotha?
On the could-be-funny-but-turns-out-to-be-rather-serious file, Colorado mascot Ralphie V (that’s a roman numeral, not the letter V ran over one of her handlers during the spring game. For the less initiated, Ralphie is not a puffy cartoon character, Ralphie is a 500-pound American bison. Luckily if she gets out of control during the WVU game, our mascot is armed.
As seemed to be a trend this season, Colorado set a record crowd for their spring game. 17,800 Buffs fans congregated at Folsom Field. The buzzword this spring for the Buffs is speed. Some teams are just now coming around to the novel concept that speed is a must to win in college football these days. Colorado will also be implementing a no-huddle offense and trying to work at a faster pace. And the Buffs will be using multiple fronts on defense to confuse opponents. It sounds like Colorado is finally leaving the Stone Age of college football.
You can also read this Q&A with offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich and a spring notebook from Buffzone.com
The Huskies came out of nowhere to finish as Big East co-champions last year. This year the Huskies will sneak up on no team, but have a lot of their talent back and worked to build depth this spring. The Huskies held their annual spring game Saturday, and had one of the most compelling games all spring as the White team edged the Blue, 21-20 in front of a crowd of 9,700.
Darius Butler contributed on both sides of the ball with a touchdown catch on offense and three tackles on defense. Offensively, many of the starters sat out, including quarterback Tyler Lorenzen (hamstring). The Huskies were able to considerably work their backups, Cody Endres and Notre Dame transfer Zach Fraser. The duo combined for 30 of 53 with 366 yards and a touchdown but also threw three picks.
Redshirt freshman defensive tackle Kendall Reyes led the defense with three sacks and 3.5 TFL.
