Before
the final game of his career at Nippert Stadium, UC senior receiver Mardy
Gilyard thought back to the past five years - the loss of his scholarship, the
weeks he was homeless and had to sleep in his car, the scholarship he earned
back, the ups and downs of learning how to play his position.
He
thought about all the people who had helped make the journey possible. And he
thanked them.
"It was
all going through my head," said Gilyard, who finished with 102 yards and two
touchdowns (and another on a kickoff return) on seven catches while setting the
school record with his 24th career scoring reception. "I just watched
myself over the years grow into the man and player I am now. I was just
thinking about all that. I went to my mom and told her thank you. I went to the
seniors and told them thank you for the best five years of my life."
He couldn't
have done it today without the contributions of Tony Pike, who showed again
why, if he hadn't been injured, he would have been a legit Heisman Trophy
candidate. How special was it to Pike to throw a school-record six touchdown
passes (surpassing Gino Guidugli's five tosses) on Senior Day?
"It's indescribable,
just because of the journey the seniors have been on," Pike said. "To come out
the last game at Nippert and to throw six touchdowns and get this guy (Gilyard)
over 100 yards and get him involved early, it's amazing. Words can't describe
how amazing this feels, to be able to share this with the team."
He wasn't
at a loss for words, though, when he looked to his right and saw Ben Guidugli (seven
catches, 149 yards, two touchdowns) at the postgame presser.
"I
thought it was nice that Ben helped me take (the record) from his brother,"
Pike said to laughter.
Pike,
with his first significant playing time since reinjuring his left arm in the
"Awesome
to be back," Pike said. "It makes it a little easier when you have a guy like Zach
(Collaros) step in for us and be able to know mentally that you're all right.
The way he played helped out a ton. When you have weapons like we do on
offense, it makes it a little easier. ... Sitting for so long, you just want to go
out there and start playing. You know getting hit is one of the things that
come with it. (The arm) feels great right now."
--Yeah,
the defense allowed 476 yards (307 passing and 169 rushing), surrendered 36
points and continued to give UC critics ammunition. Brian Kelly will tell you
that because the offense is so quick-strike, the defense has to be on the field
for so much longer, and he's right.
But every
week, the defensive players talk about it just being a matter of missing some
assignments or just a few broken plays. I'm not sure I buy it.
"They are
who they are," Kelly said. "They battle. We have a lot of inexperienced
players, and losing Drew Frey today (a concussion though Kelly guesses he'll be
back next week) didn't help us. We're playing as hard as we can play. We don't help
our defense very much on offense. If I wanted to put lipstick on it, I could
make it look a little bit better, but we just want to win. We have an offense.
Let them go. It doesn't paint a great picture when we try to win that way."
Said J.K.
Shaffer, who recorded a career-high 14 tackles today and extended to four games
his streak of consecutive eight-plus tackle performances: "For the most part, we did a
pretty good job, especially on third down and on sudden change on the short
field. The thing that really hurt us the most was a couple broken plays that
ended up resulting in big gains for them. We knew coming in that they had a ton
of very skilled offensive weapons. We know they would get some, but I felt we
did a pretty good job aside from the missed assignments and broken plays."
--Sophomore
Isaiah Pead, who just two weeks ago recorded 175 rushing yards, got only four
carries and finished with minus-5 yards rushing. He dropped a third-down pass,
and you didn't see him much in the second half.
"Yeah,
he's OK," Kelly said. "He's been a little nicked up, and I just didn't get a good
feel for him today. I just didn't get that connection today. (John) Goebel is
really assignment correct in terms of pass protection with Jake (Ramsey) being
out. It just wasn't Pead's kind of game. It just didn't materialize that way."
Although
the Bearcats rushed for only 21 yards on 15 carries, they got two first-down
runs late in the game to seal it. Besides, the gameplan coming in
was to throw the ball.
"Historically,
you think about a Big Ten team, and it's going to be a power running conference,"
Pike said. "We knew
--I asked
Kelly if he was resigned to the thought that, assuming
"Yes," he
said.
So, there's
nothing you can do about that?
"I think
