Spring practice

[Lobot]

Spring practice starts at 5:00 am in the morning tomorrow

[cpawstoney]

Lance McAlister: UC football: Luke Fickell just gets it

Those connections and relationships withered and were ignored under Tommy Tuberville. He didn't seem to give a damn about the high school football scene in the area. When he was fired, I talked about the need for the next coach to reconnect the program to the UC fans base, the university, the community and the city. Fickell has picked up that cord left laying on the ground by Tuberville and plugged it back into the wall. The result has sent a bolt of electricity throughout this area.
Just think, if Fickell can accomplish all of this in 90 days, what can he accomplish over the next several years?

[Lobot]

There will be an open practice at Elder HS stadium coming in the near future.

[Lobot]

The Elder Pit Practice will be Saturday 4/1 at 10am. It's free to attend.

[Lobot]

This was the hype video from this mornings practice Strobe light warning. https://twitter.com/GoBearcatsFB/sta...54253382131713

[Lobot]

The seems like a good time to mention that all of the spring videos for practice etc. get archived by the video staff at : https://www.youtube.com/user/RepresentTheCFilms/videos

[Lobot]

Reminder that the Spring game is Friday night. There will be a fish fry.

[bearcatbret]

Lot of activities. I will be there with my grandson. http://www.cincinnati.com/story/spor...ame/100282124/

[Lobot]

Koch article on the game tonight.

http://www.gobearcats.com/sports/m-f...041317aaa.html

[bearcatbret]

I had my grandson with me so we left at half time. Great atmosphere in Clifton tonight. I would guess maybe 8k fans there but that may be high. I sat around the 40 yard line on the east side and the west side crowd looked pretty good but I do not think that the east side was near that. My grandson got to high five the bearcat mascot which was cool. To the game, in the first half, outside of a couple of long passes, Hayden could not get a drive together or sustain one with the red team. Trail was able to put together drives but could not get it into the end zone. Half time score was 12-0. It was difficult to judge the QBs because they were counted down by touch so no real scrambling or running. Also, no run backs off of punts and there were no kick offs.
From GoBearcats.com - http://www.cincinnati.com/story/spor...ame/100494014/

[swilsonsp4]

The final was 22-6 Black, with Ross Trail running that side. Overall, he outplayed Hayden Moore. His passes were crisper and more on target. He also had a better collection of receivers, which helped. Moore threw two ill-advised passes that Alex Thomas jumped for picks. Trail ran in a long TD off a read option through a hole the size of the Grand Canyon.

The offensive lines were a mishmash of players and there didn't appear to be much cohesion early, especially for the Red squad.

Mike Boone played sporadically for the Red, but mostly in receiving situations, even being slotted a few times. I believe he carried up the middle only once. Gerrid Doaks carried quite a bit for the Black and ran hard. He looks like a keeper.

I also guessed a crowd of about 8K.

Torrence Gibson was on the East sidelines in a Reds jersey, intermixing with the Red players.

Josh Pasley was 5-for-5 on FG's, one from 52 and two others outside 40. All were solid. Andrew Gantz didn't kick.

[longtimefan]

As I saw it Moore had a really bad night, he missed a few open throws and was not even close, not to mention at least 2 (or 3) interceptions. He had one really nice throw in the 4th qtr but was really off the whole night. Trail and Sopko both looked better. Alex Thomas was everywhere on defense with multiple interceptions. Crowd looked 10-12 thousand to me. Really good time tonight.

[Geaux Juan]

Attendance-wise, I thought the crowd size was rather large by UC standards. The excitement level rivaled that of the Brian Kelly years. Being at night, albeit Good Friday, seemed to help the numbers, too. I think the 8K figure is too low; there were at least that many standing in line for the fish sandwich meal at the end zone restaurant through the 1st half.

A couple of things stood out for me. First, I'd never seen a UC scrimmage start out with the Oklahoma drill like this one did. And the last two combatants were the QBs, Moore and Trail.

And I'm guessing the separation of Sam Geraci and UC is amicable since Sam was not only there, in uniform, but actually punted.

Moore would have benefited by putting some air under some of his passes; a couple of times his receivers got separation but the pass was too much on a line for them to catch the ball. And there were too many dropped passes. I think overall, though, we're still paying the price of having 6 senior receivers two years ago, with no experience behind them. Just because a pass isn't completed doesn't mean the receiver ran the correct route.

I didn't see anything exceptional about the O-lines, and many potential holding calls were not made; I say potential because it's not a hold if it's not called.

Doaks looked the best of the runners (actually the QBs looked the best, but that's not what I'm talking about here), but as stated before Boone wasn't very involved in the running game.

As I would expect, the defense looked ahead of the offense. But it's hard to determine quality without the benefit of video, especially the way the squads were constructed (a draft of each team rather that the 1st team O vs. the 1st team D, 2nd O vs. 2nd D, etc.

But still, it was football, and that's a good thing! Go Cats.

[coach]

Excellent crowd compared to what we would typically have. I give them credit for trying to put something a little unique together given last year's season and also the holiday to deal with. Highlights, much better tackling period. I realized it's not a real game, and our offense has had recent struggles but it starts with fundamentals. I would be surprised if the players do not note this. Also, Cortez B was not in the middle given his surgery so that's encouraging. I would say at this point it's the "Torrence Gibson" watch given they clearly need a spark on offense, and there is hope there. Just have to see how much he picks up after not playing qb for a couple seasons. Have to give credit to Paisley the kicker. He was on no one's radar a year or so ago, and honestly his first several games were shaky. However, he's worked and it shows. We've got 2 kickers now. It reminds me a little of the Red's Meseraco/Barnhart situation. Lastly, it will be interesting to see how many of the new recruits this summer will be red shirts, and how many will be thrown into action. That will be a read of this roster in my mind.

[Lobot]

Recap by CLF, Trail and Thomas via GoBearcats:

http://www.gobearcats.com/sports/m-f...041417aad.html