Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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32 OCT. 2, 2021 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED GAME PREVIEW: CINCINNATI BY TYLER HORKA I f ESPN's College GameDay had chosen to go to South Bend this week to preview Cincinnati ver- sus Notre Dame instead of settling in at Soldier Field Chicago last week for the Fighting Irish's Shamrock Se- ries game against Wisconsin, then host Rece Davis and his colleagues would have needed to block off a considerable portion of the show just to thoroughly cover the ties between the coaches of the two programs. Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly coached at Cincinnati from 2007-09. Irish defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman was the Bearcats' defensive coordinator from 2018-20. Notre Dame cornerbacks coach Mike Mickens played at Cincinnati from 2005-08 and was the cornerbacks coach there from 2018-19. Irish director of strength and con- ditioning Jacob Flint was a member of Kelly's strength and conditioning staff at Cincinnati from 2007-09. Notre Dame defensive line coach Mike Elston and offensive line coach Jeff Quinn coached the Bearcats under Kelly, too. From the other side, Cincinnati of- fensive coordinator and tight ends coach Mike Denbrock coached in South Bend from 2010-16 in a variety of roles. Denbrock and Kelly connected at Grand Valley State when the two were graduate assistants there in 1987. Kelly became the head coach at GVSU in 1991, and Denbrock became his offensive coordi- nator in 1992. They remained together in Allendale, Mich., through 1998 be- fore reconnecting in South Bend when Kelly took the Notre Dame job ahead of the 2010 season. So there you have it. That guy knows this guy, and this guy knows that guy. And so on. But when it's time to kick the ball off at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday, none of it will matter. Just like graduate student quarterback Jack Coan's time at Wisconsin didn't matter last week when the Fighting Irish went against the Badgers in the Windy City. This is Cincinnati versus Notre Dame. The Bearcats bring what could be the best opposing team to trudge through the visiting tunnel at Notre Dame Sta- dium all year. Kelly and his assistants need to be focused on that, not the time they spent roughly 250 miles southeast of South Bend earlier in their careers. ON THE RIGHT TRACK Kelly guided Cincinnati to its best season in program history. Period. Never before had the Bearcats gone 12-0 during the regular season, but they did in 2009. Kelly left for Notre Dame before Cincinnati's appearance in the Sugar Bowl against Florida that winter. The Bearcats were trounced 51-24 by the Gators, and they've never quite risen to true national prominence since then — until now. Current head coach Luke Fickell has the program in as good of shape as it has been since Kelly departed. Cincinnati went 4-8 under Butch Jones the year after Kelly said goodbye. Jones followed with 10 wins, then nine, and Tommy Tuberville had a pair of nine-win sea- sons in 2013-14 as well. Back-to-back 4-8 campaigns under Tuberville in 2016 and Fickell in his first season at the helm the following fall, however, signaled a drastic decline from the Kelly era. Fickell didn't need much time to flip it around, though. With help from Free- man, the Bearcats turned in consecutive 11-win seasons in 2018-19. They went 9-0 with a win in the American Ath- letic Conference championship game in last year's COVID-shortened season before narrowly falling to Georgia 24- 21 in the Peach Bowl. Cincinnati can hang with the best teams in the nation, and the rest of the country has surely noticed. Fickell had to address specula- tion he was in contact with the brass at Southern California since former Tro- jans head coach Clay Helton was let go. Fickell shut that down, but he didn't do so by simply saying "no." He spun it in a way that reflected handsomely on what he has accomplished at Cincinnati. Facts & Figures CINCINNATI AT NOTRE DAME Date: Oct. 2, 2021 Site: Notre Dame Stadium Kickoff: 2:30 p.m. ET Television: NBC Radio: This game can be heard on Notre Dame IMG affiliates. Series Facts: This is the second time Cincinnati and Notre Dame have played. The Fighting Irish won the first meeting between the two programs 58-0 in South Bend on Oct. 20, 1900. Head coaches: Cincinnati — Luke Fickell (38-14, fifth season); Notre Dame — Brian Kelly (106-39, 12th season). Noting Opponent: Cincinnati is in its 134th season. The Bearcats have one of the 10 oldest programs in the FBS … Cincinnati has played in a bowl game in 12 of the last 15 years … Cincinnati ranked as a consensus top-10 team in the major polls at the end of the 2020 season for the first time since 2009 … The Bearcats also won an out - right AAC championship last year for the first time since 2009 … The squad returned 16 starters from last year … Cincinnati has started 3-0 in three of Fickell's five seasons … The Bearcats have gone 20-3 in AAC play in the last three years, which is the best record in the conference over that span … Fickell has focused on recruiting the state of Ohio; in the spring of 2017, Cincinnati had 11 scholarship players from Ohio. Last season, Cincinnati had 45 scholarship players from Ohio. This year's roster includes nearly 40 scholarship players from the tri-state area alone … During Fickell's five-year tenure, the Bearcats are 4-8 against ranked opponents. Three of those wins (No. 22 Army, No. 16 SMU and No. 23 Tulsa) came last season. HERE TO STAY Luke Fickell has the Bearcats in as solid a spot as they have been in since Brian Kelly orchestrated the best season in program history 12 years ago Fifth-year senior quarterback Desmond Ridder is off to a solid start in the 2021 season with 748 passing yards and seven touchdown passes dur- ing Cincinnati's 3-0 start. PHOTO COURTESY CINCINNATI ATHLETICS