Big East Football Preview: Cincinnati

I know it's a long time until football season, but I need something to keep me occupied, and what better way than to write about the upcoming season in the league? Last year, the Big East had a less than outstanding season, sending an 8-4 Connecticut to the Fiesta Blow to get blown out by four touchdowns by Oklahoma. The sehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifcond best team was West Virginia, who won nine regular season games before getting beaten by NC State in the Champs sports Bowl. Other than that, the conference did well during bowl season, going 4-2 in total with wins against teams representing the ACC, SEC, and Big XII.

This year, many don't expect much of the conference, as a good portion of polls include one or zero teams from the Big East. Even our own poll from bloggers across the Big East didn't have more than one conference team in the Top 25. So, it looks like it may take one more season of tough games to watch before people start respecting the Big East again. But for now, all we can do is preview the other teams in the league for the coming season. With all that said, I'd like to start with previewing the Cincinnati Bearcats.

2010 Record: 4-8

Last year, people knew the Bearcats weren't going to be as great as they were under former coach Brian Kelly, but it was a bit surprising to see Cincy not even make a bowl game after going undefeated the previous regular season (Actually, Texas did that too so don't feel too bad). With excellent talent at quarterback in Zach Collaros, speed and power at running back with Isaiah Pead, and great receiving with D.J. Woods and Armon Binns, there's no reason the Cats can't be successful on offense this year. Defensively, Cincinnati returns all 11 starters from last year and will be led by seniors DT Derek Wolfe and LB J.K. Schaffer. Butch Jones could be in some trouble if his squad doesn't succeed this year, but he's got all the right pieces to have a decent season. They had some very close games last year, including a two point loss to this year's #1 favorite, Oklahoma. Their comeback came up just short in their game against USF, and they totally annihilated Rutgers. This year, they have a pretty easy out of conference schedule compared with the rest of the league, playing Tennessee in Knoxville and NC State at home. If they can win one of those two games, they have a chance at a 6-win season since their other non-conference games include Austin Peay (FCS team), Akron (1-11 last year), and Miami of Ohio (lost their head coach). They've got a chance to be going into their last two games with 6 wins, where those games (Syracuse and Connecticut) are going to be toss-ups.

This year will be successful if: Cincy makes a bowl game. They have all the tools to be successful, but what's really going to make the difference here is the coaching ability of Jones. If he proves that he's worthy of this job, then they'll see a significant turnaround from last year's poor showing. While making a bowl game would mark a relatively good season, I think Cincy needs to win that bowl game to truly call this year a success.

2011 record: 7-6. This means that they'll go to a bowl game no matter what, but depending on their regular season record they may win or lose. They'd win a matchup with another 6-6 team, but if they have to play a 7-5 team, I don't think they can do it. If they can manage to at least split their non-conference BCS opponents and abstain from embarrassing themselves with a non-BCS loss, they'll be in very good shape going into Big East play. They'll have a hard time against powerful teams like West Virginia, Louisville, and South Florida, but they have toss-up games against Pitt, Syracuse, and Connecticut, and a team that they should totally pound in Rutgers.