New Year’s Six Watch: Chanticleers defeat Cougars, Herd upended
By Dante Pryor
No. 7 Cincinnati Bearcats
One of the reasons Bearcats head coach Luke Fickell decided not to take the Michigan State head coaching position is he felt that this was the best team since becoming head coach of Cincinnati. It turns out he was correct. Fickell has the Bearcats poised to win the AAC for the first time since 2014 and their first outright conference title since they were in the Big East.
This was one of the teams that was favored to win the AAC, but many thought that quarterback Desmond Ridder would be a limiting factor.
In the second half of the season, Ridder has turned it on. Not only has Ridder not been a limiting factor, but he has been the catalyst of their big boy bully ball offense. The secret sauce to Ridder’s success and the offense’s potency is running the junior quarterback.
Running Ridder 10 times per game makes the defense respect the pitch on option read plays. No one was respecting Ridder as a runner so none of the RPO or option-read stuff was working. When the Bearcats let Ridder run, the offense found another level.
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We know what the defense is. No one expected the secondary to be one of the best in the country. The secondary along with the pass rush makes this one of the best defenses in the country.