For me, the story of the game was the crowd, all 35,097 of them. All week, I heard about the ever
changing estimates regarding Marshall’s fans attending the game. In the end, I estimated the Herd crowd
to be around 3,000 fans, and I sure didn’t see many of them with seats at the
50-yard-line. It was a vocal and
dominate Bearcat crowd led by the Cincinnati student section. If I had one criticism, I would have
liked to have seen more UC fans stick around until the end of the game to
celebrate the victory with the team.
The record crowd caused UC officials to remove the tarps
over the obstructed view rows behind the Marshall bench in the second quarter. Prior to kickoff, fans were even seen
climbing trees near the CCM building in order to get a view of the field. If any fans plan to attend the Louisville game on October
13, they better secure their tickets now because that Homecoming game is likely
to sellout within the next two weeks.
There were a number of recruits present including Ryan Wallace, Ike Iloegbu, Quincy Quetant, Lynell Payne, Sean Hooey, Luke Stein and Brendon Kay. As far as I know, only Quetant
and Payne were on official visits.
We’ll talk to both in the next few days to see how things went. I also saw a scout for the New England Patriots at the game, but I didn’t see him filming any defensive
signals.
The Bearcat defense wasn’t able to generate the kind of turnovers it’s
gotten in previous games, but All-BIG EAST performer Mike Mickens picked off a
pass and recovered a Marshall fumble for the only two UC take
aways. Joe Tresey’s defense
recorded three sacks and eleven tackles for loss. The sacks belonged to Anthony Williams,
Anthony Hoke and Ricardo Mathews.
Terrill Byrd recorded 2.5 tackles for loss, and Anthony Williams chipped
in with a couple more. Williams led
the Bearcats with nine tackle closely followed by Andre Revels with
eight.
Offensively, Greg Moore led the Bearcat running backs in yardage with 70
yards on six carries, but the play of the game may have been Jacob Ramsey’s 42
yard TD scamper midway through the 4-th quarter. Dustin Grutza threw for a couple of
scores while freshman Marcus Barnett caught two touchdown passes. Placekicker Jake Rogers was perfect with
five PAT’s and one 31 yard field goal.
On the negative side, the Bearcats again had a bad snap
from center, and the offensive line committed way too many holding
penalties. Cincinnati committed ten
infractions and was penalized 80 yards on the evening. Marshall was even worse with 13 penalties for
106 yards.
Once again, Bearcat Insider’s Mark Bixler was very accurate with his
predictions as the Bearcats covered the spread and the “over” was a
push.
All in all, it was another very enjoyable night in Nippert Stadium for
Bearcat fans.