Sept. 29, 2009

(1:16 p.m.): When Craig Carey first arrived at UC in 2005, he watched during his redshirt year as the Bearcats struggled to win games in their first Big East season.

Penn State gave them a beating. Miami University decimated them by four touchdowns. And West Virginia, South Florida and Rutgers slapped them around in the final three weeks of the season by a combined score of 113-25.

The season was over by Nov. 27, and to a team not used to having a major postseason presence, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for the Bearcats.

“You can’t complain about it now, but my freshman year it was like, ‘We’re not going to a bowl? Great, we can stay home for Christmas,’” senior linebacker Craig Carey said. “Now, you don’t want that. You want to go to that New Year’s Day bowl. You don’t want that Christmas break. It’s a lot different now. We didn’t even know what it was like to go to a bowl game my freshman year. It was almost like, ‘Who cares?’ Now, if you’re not going to a bowl game, the season almost wasn’t even worth playing.”

Contrast those feelings Carey had five years ago to a program that now is ranked No. 10 in the country. Carey calls it almost surreal. Junior tight end Ben Guidugli knows the feeling. He remembers sitting in Nippert Stadium, surrounded by 10,000 people, watching his brother, Gino, try to quarterback the Bearcats to a better future in the early part of this decade. Ben Guidugli, in fact, almost committed to Colorado, because he was still unclear on what the UC football program would become.

Not difficult to assume, at this point, that Guidugli made the right decision.

But the Bearcats, when they travel to Oxford on Saturday at 1 p.m. to face Miami, certainly won’t take their top-10 status for granted. As Carey and Guidugli know, it wasn’t too long ago when UC was irrelevant on the national stage.

“It really comes from the coaching staff at the top,” Guidugli said. “Coach Kelly is not going to take a different approach than he would if we were playing West Virginia this week. That’s really what keeps our team on track. It’s the consistency from coaching. Knowing what we have to do at practice, getting it done and getting off the field. It’s the same approach every week.”

Yeah, but the top-10 ranking must mean something to a program that’s never been in such exclusive company.

“It will get you on a couple radio shows, maybe a little more recognition for your program as you’re building it,” BK said. “It doesn’t give you anything else but recognition. I’m not saying I’m not pleased with it, but it doesn’t help you win games, it motivates your opponents and you don’t get any extra points at the end of the game.

“(The team) knows I’m not very impressed. We’re pleased that we’ve made that progress. But they’re not patting themselves on the back.”

Junior linebacker Robby Armstrong – who is 10th on the team in total tackles and also has recorded a sack – is done for the year after tearing the ACL and MCL in his knee while trying to break through a wedge on the kickoff return team in the win vs. Fresno State.

“We’re going to have to scramble a little bit,” BK said.

Without Armstrong, the Bearcats have three players (Carey, Demetrius Jones and Walter Stewart) for two linebacker positions – the Cat (who plays on the short side of the field and is used mostly for pass rushing) and the Drop (who stays on the wider side of the line of scrimmage and can drop back into pass coverage). As UC continues to wait for Curtis Young to return from his knee injury, it’ll rely on sophomore Alex Delisi and redshirt freshman Dan Giordano for help.

Then, when Young returns, he will join Stewart at the Cat, while Jones and Carey will play the Drop position.

BK said running back John Goebel likely will return for the Miami game and will play on special teams.

“We’re going to try to activate him this week and get him ready, so South Florida is not his first time playing,” BK said.

And according to BK, that, even though Jacob Ramsey and Isaiah Pead have been successful gaining rush yards, Goebel still will be in the running back mix.

“His skills are of a good-sized kid who can catch the ball really well,” BK said. “That fits in our offensive structure. There’s a place for him.”

FYI: be on the lookout for a four-page feature on the UC football team that’s in this week’s Sports Illustrated. Just got finished reading it, and though most of the fodder you already know, I’m sure you’ll be excited to pick up the magazine. Especially for this line:

Yes, Cincinnati—a program whose stadium is a crumbling concrete bandbox with no luxury boxes and a capacity of barely 35,000, a program whose pinnacle before its Orange Bowl appearance last January was winning the Missouri Valley Conference title in 1964, a program that hasn’t produced a first-round NFL draft pick in 38 years—is the beast of the Big East and perhaps the best team in the state of Ohio. (That includes you, Buckeyes.)

So, go pick up a copy.