Doc: QB Kiel is key to UC's football potential
It’s very much a work in progress, as they say. Not the UC football team. The UC football stadium.
To get to Tuesday’s press conference on the new fifth level of the new Ol’ Lady Nippert – “the first event in our new, renovated stadium,” coach Tommy Tuberville called it – we had to absorb sideways glances from guys in hardhats, then wait for the elevator to clear of workers bearing boxes of furniture. “Bar stools and tables,” one said.
All new, most likely.
The new lipstick is stunning: Glassy levels hang above the old dowager’s brick and concrete essence, like a blonde wig on a gray head. Nippert looks new while still looking old. If you’ve seen Soldier Field in Chicago in the last 15 years or so, Nippert looks like that. Nippert is the centerpiece of UC’s ongoing effort to show the Big 12 some leg. If looks were the only criterion, the Bearcats would be hosting Kansas Saturday, not Alabama A&M.
Speaking of the Big 12: Let’s not speak of it anymore, OK?
In the spirit of peace, love and understanding and because I'm bored with the Big 12 talk, I'm urging everyone to stop bemoaning UC's small-potatoes status and embrace what the Bearcats have, and are. It ain’t bad.
They are the best offensive team in the AAC, and could be among the best nationally as well. Remember the Tony Pike-Mardy Gilyard days? Like that.
They will be highly entertaining, no matter the competition, and they do have a game with the Miami Hurricanes here this fall. If the defense picks up – Tuberville said he has 25 D-1 quality defenders now, compared with 15 last year – the Bearcats could be in the mix for the Throw-‘Em-A-Bone bid to the playoffs.
We know UC needs to leave the AAC. We know eventually there will be four, 16-team associations in the quasi-am big leagues and that UC better be among them. We know athletic director Mike Bohn is working the back channels, furiously. Talking about it ad nauseam isn’t hastening a thing. It's time to be happy with what we’ve got. As John Prine sang:
“Unhappy, unhappy you have no complaint/
“You are what you are and you ain’t what you ain’t.”
Said Tuberville, “UC football was not even existent 10-14 years ago. I’m talking about on a higher scale. Now, there are a lot of teams in the Power 5 that wouldn’t play us. We’re probably better than half the teams in the Power 5. We’re in a good situation. We’re the big kid on the block, thanks to the finances we’ve been able to put into play.”
Or, as QB Gunner Kiel put it, “We do have lots of studs on our team.” Kiel needs to be Stud No. 1, because even Tuberville admits his defense isn’t exactly bulletproof. “It’s really all on the offense,” he said. “Our luxury is going to be how good our defense plays.
“At least we’ve got guys that are athletic enough. Even if most of them don’t know what they’re doing yet.” Six rookie starters will learn on the job.
Kiel is the key. He could be the best QB in school history, if he sticks around. NFL body and arm strength, football pedigree, good weapons. Tubverville says he graded his quarterback a “C-plus, no higher” last season. The coach wants Kiel to step up in the non-stats department: Be the team leader, get the offense in the right plays, even be more willing to tough out minor hurts, now that the Human Soft Landing, Munchie Legaux, has moved on.
Kiel’s good with that. He even pondered putting his Honda Accord into Uber action in the offseason, partly to be at the beck and call of his teammates. He decided against it at the urging of his parents. “Being up late, picking up drunks,” Kiel explained. “Not a good idea.”
What it all means is, this team could be more fun than a barrel o’ Go routes. High-scoring games, high-wire finishes.
“If the defense grows up, we have a chance to win double digits,” Tuberville said. “Maybe more.”
More than double digits?
The Big what?
Someone call me an Uber.