Dec. 1, 2008
(11:16 a.m.): Waiting for BK’s big appearance on the final Big East coaches teleconference of the year, I wanted to talk about a few things that might have slipped through the cracks of Saturday’s Big East conference outright clinching victory (OK, that’s an awkward way to say it, but it’s Monday, you know?).
First, though, Jake Rogers has been named the Big East special teams player of the week.
“We feel like we’ve got 1A and 1B in the backfield positions,” BK said. “Goebel and Ramsey have been a great 1-2 punch for us all year. We felt like the game we were going to have, we were expecting a lot more pressure, and (we wanted to) get the ball out to a guy who’s a third-down back receiver. We thought that would be a good plan going into the Syracuse game.”
What, now, of Jacob Ramsey? He’s had problems hanging onto the football lately, and though he wasn’t needed in the Syracuse game – which is most likely why Isaiah Pead recorded eight carries for 49 yards – he also didn’t have a huge impact (four carries, 26 yards; two catches, 24 yards). I wonder where UC goes from here with him.
To be fair, the Bearcats didn’t run the ball as much as normal. For the first time this season, they had more pass plays (44) than run plays (31), which partially might have been a reaction to the Orange(men)’s ridiculously soft pass coverage (at times, those guys were 15 yards off the line of scrimmage). But Goebel looked pretty solid running the ball, averaging 6.7 yards per carry, and I wonder if there’s been a slight change at the top of the running back depth chart.
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“We want to play O State,” Gilyard said. “I’m trying to find the best way to say this the right way. We want to settle that big brother/little brother argument. We’re not the little brother no more in the state. We’re not. We feel we’re the big brother in the state, but you’ve got other guys up north that might say otherwise. I say: Play us and find out. We can end it right there.”
Gilyard himself isn’t quite sure why that play is so successful.
“Um, I don’t know, to tell you the truth,” he said. “We’ve run it forever. Sometimes when they call it, I’ll be like, ‘Man, come on coach.’ Teams just haven’t picked up on it lately, and our linemen are busting their butts. I tell them that if they just catch somebody and give me six inches, I’m going to make it happen some way or another.”
