Cincinnati Takes Advantage Of Huskie's Quarterback

Cincinnati saw another freshman quarterback and pinned its ears back ready, willing and able to pressure the kid into making mistakes. The result was a 41-16 win over the Connecticut Huskies to improve to 5-2.

Tim Boyle, a big true freshman with a very strong arm, is not used to the speed of the college game yet and the Bearcats took advantage of that.

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Cincinnati, who is at the top of the NCAA list in several categories, sacked Boyle eight times.  They also forced three interceptions.  The Bearcats are sixth in the nation in total defense.  They are fourth in first down defense and 17th in scoring defense.

"We got after the quarterback," UC coach Tommy Tuberville said. "We had eight sacks. We pressured him. We made him throw some interceptions. We did some things today we hadn't done in a while. We probably blitzed more today than we had in the first six games. And we did it because No. 1 you go after a young quarterback and No. 2, you've got to learn to play man coverage and press and make the quarterback throw on time and not sit back there all day."

Deven Drane's interception with 1:31 in the first half, setup a one-yard touchdown run by Brendon Kay that helped turn a 14-3 game into a rout.  UC scored then and when the defense forced a punt deep in Connecticut territory.  The short field allowed Cincinnati to pile on the 0-6 Huskies with a fourth touchdown with 17 seconds left in the half.

"Tim has to get faster at making his reads and he will," said Connecticut coach T.J. Weist, who returned to Cincinnati after coaching the Bearcat receivers last season and acting as the offensive coordinator in Cincinnati's Belk Bowl victory over Duke.

Boyle now understands the difference between the high school and college game.

"It is much faster," Boyle said.  "Looks in practice are great but it's nothing like the speed of the game.  I have to get faster at making my reads.  The protection doesn't hold up that long."

When Cincinnati switched to man coverage, Weist took the blame for some of the eight sacks, especially those late in the game.

"Some of those sacks were on me," Weist said.  "I probably went with an empty backfield too many times.  They adjusted to man coverage.  We have to learn to adjust back."

Kay quarterbacked the team after missing most of the practices during the week with a sore shoulder.

"Brendon played well. He played gutsy," Tuberville said. "He's playing out there like an ironman because he's so beat up. He needs these days off. We're going to give him pretty much the whole week off this week coming up. When we needed him, he was in there firing. He only practiced a day and a half this week. Even surprised me we came out and threw the ball deep on the first play because I didn't think our timing was going to be there because he hadn't thrown it a lot down the field."

Kay threw four 300 yards and four touchdowns while completing 17 passes in 24 attempts.

"We do the same things every week," said Kay dismissing the notion of rust from the inactivity this week. "I've had enough game experience that I can adjust to that and I know all these receivers."

Cincinnati has 11 days off before travelling to Memphis for a Wednesday night nationally televised game against the Tigers.