Reflections on 2024 and thoughts on 2025!

[Bearcat Chris]

1. Team regressed instead of improved as the season progressed.
2. CSS is a horrible play caller, and was all season. Absolutely no creativity.
3. CSS does not manage the clock well. Would have been nice to have 3 time outs left on the final drive against TCU.
4. Bright points: Joe Royer, Corey Kiner, the Godfather, and early season Brendan Sorsby. Also solid win over Arizona State, who right now near the top of the league.
5. Turning point for season was the loss to Pitt. Refs, with that pathetic "defensive delay of game" call to give them a first down at the end, might be where the season went south for us.
6. Probably should have ended up 7-5. with wins overs Pitt and WV.
7. Punting game was a strength at the beginning of the season, but got worse each week. Was Fletcher injured, and if so, why not use his brother?
8. In a way, glad the season is over. Playing New Mexico State in the New Mexico Bowl, or some other irrelevant bowl, would have been a disappointment, considering just 3 years ago we were in the top 4 in the nation.
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9. The portal is going to killl us. What solid team like UK or Indiana would not like to offer Royer a lot of $$ to play there next fall.
10. We lose a ton of seniors.
11. We are not recruiting Cincinnati well. Not sure if we have any solid commitments from any local players.
12. Next year does not have the foundation to be any better than this year. Look for another 4-8 season, and continued loss of fan interest.
13. When guys like me and my cousin tonight questioned if we wanted to buy expensive season tickets for next year, you know fan interest is waning.
14. John Cunningham has to "man up". CSS seems like a likable guy, but he just isn't the answer. Who is, I don't know, but bringing him back next year will invite further decline in a program that was one of the brightest, and most up and coming programs in the country, just a couple years ago.
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15. The portal and NIL (and gambling) are going to wreck havoc this year. It's almost like the big decision makers are trying to ruin one of America's greatest institutions, College FB.

The end.

B.C.

[Bearcat93]

UC football is at the lowest point it’s been in 20 years. The landscape has changed, assembling foundations with winning seasons can happen so much more quickly than the “HC needs 3-5 years to be judged” refrain from even 10 years ago. QB development has haunted Satterville for at least 6 years across two P5 programs, come on, enough of this already, who’s resume that screams “terribly ineffective QB development across 5+ years would anyone hire? It sort of makes sense, actually, that his play calling is so piss poor.

[leo from jersey]

CSS said this: "The portal's going to open up and it's going to be fast and crazy for about three weeks," Satterfield said. "That effort right there can make or break how you're going to be next year. We've already started on that. We feel very good about the next three weeks."

Since it seems he will be back, I would like to see him spend the time getting in quality players. I am torn as he could use the Bowl practices to get the frosh experience.

Can Mike Mickens be hired as full time Def. Coordinator.

[daveh]

the ONE and ONLY ONE thing that I like with CSS, versus prior coaches, is that we don't get the stupid personal fouls - CLF's players drove me nuts with frequent and inopportune PFs. Other than that, CSS's players just do stupid **** after stupid **** (mayes and the punt issue at the start of the game) - CSS doesn't exactly show a quick grasp of the flow of the game - clock management, play calls, WTF are they thinking, at a lot / most of time?. uc looks disorganized. there's no intensity, other than a few players who seem to be self motivated (Kiner, royer). when's the buyout drop to something that uc can afford? one more year of this, two?

[Lobot]

re BC's post and I'm not just doing this to be contrarian to Chris.

1. Agreed. They definitely regressed and it started after Sorsby hurt his thumb in the Tech game. The passing offense disappeared after that game.
2. I don't think he's a terrible play caller but he's very average. Not a lot of adjustments when something's not working.
3. Agreed. His time management is baffling in late half situations at times. Seems like a lot of it is getting the correct personnel on the field though.
4. Agreed. I might even add Tony Johnson to that list. I disagree about the ASU game though. ASU played that game with a backup QB, if we had beaten them at full strength I'd agree with you.
5. That Pitt penalty definitely stunk but I'd argue the injury to Sorbsy and the 10 seconds random runoff against Texas Tech were probably where it really fell apart.
6. Fair.
7. Mason was hurt. I know he hurt himself in some form making that sideline tackle. He may have been hurt before that. The thing that bothers me about that tackle is that the whole thing shouldn't be necessary if the coverage team does it's job better. The punter shouldn't have to save a TD. The reason why we didn't use Max is because he's redshirting this year. There's got to be more to it than that though you'd think.
8. Yeah, Put this season out of its misery. I thought they showed some fight in the 2nd half but it's been trending down hill for a while.
9. Indiana offering Royer NIL cash is more plausible. UK may not even have a coach tomorrow. Keeping Royer would be my top of list for an NIL investment from UC. I do expect some guys to go into the portal but it may not be as bad as when Fickell left.
10. I think we're losing big name seniors but it's not as bad as it looks. About half the seniors leaving weren't starters so it could be worse. I have us down for 26 guys leaving via graduation which is about right with balanced recruiting classes.
11. Fact. It's a problem that will probably never get solved with this staff. For the most part they are not from the area and don't have connections here. They'd rather recruit the Carolinas area where they know everyone. Any coach that's had success here and moved up, has recruited Cincinnati well. If this staff chooses not to, they'll most likely be out of a job soon.
12. Too soon to tell. It certainly looks that way . We have no idea who the portal pickups and losses are at this point so it's probably too early to predict that.
13. The casual fan that got on the bandwagon during Fickell era was always going to lose interest eventually. Hardcore fans and UC Alumni will ride this out.
14. I don't disagree with you here but JC is dealing with a situation where the donors are calling the shots. That's always going to be a an issue but I strongly believe that John would not have hired Satterfield if donors hadn't gotten involved with the hire. I think he's an an impossible position on the politics side. You don't alienate your top donors without losing your job.
15. This is an example of "it's always been this way, so why change it". It changed and we're going to have to adapt or stop watching. The reason why CFB is an institution is because the NCAA is a cartel and the courts and NLRB finally got involved. The players should have always been compensated with something other than just a scholarship. There is a possibility of Congress or the incoming presidential administration putting the toothpaste back in the tube here but we'll have to wait and see.


Whew.

[D.A.H.]

i believe that the PA announcer said that there were 30 seniors "walking" last night. Of course, as bad as the PA system is, he could've said that there were 30 people sending out for pizza - its hard to tell sometimes.

[Bearcat Chris]

re BC's post and I'm not just doing this to be contrarian to Chris.

1. Agreed. They definitely regressed and it started after Sorsby hurt his thumb in the Tech game. The passing offense disappeared after that game.
2. I don't think he's a terrible play caller but he's very average. Not a lot of adjustments when something's not working.
3. Agreed. His time management is baffling in late half situations at times. Seems like a lot of it is getting the correct personnel on the field though.
4. Agreed. I might even add Tony Johnson to that list. I disagree about the ASU game though. ASU played that game with a backup QB, if we had beaten them at full strength I'd agree with you.
5. That Pitt penalty definitely stunk but I'd argue the injury to Sorbsy and the 10 seconds random runoff against Texas Tech were probably where it really fell apart.
6. Fair.
7. Mason was hurt. I know he hurt himself in some form making that sideline tackle. He may have been hurt before that. The thing that bothers me about that tackle is that the whole thing shouldn't be necessary if the coverage team does it's job better. The punter shouldn't have to save a TD. The reason why we didn't use Max is because he's redshirting this year. There's got to be more to it than that though you'd think.
8. Yeah, Put this season out of its misery. I thought they showed some fight in the 2nd half but it's been trending down hill for a while.
9. Indiana offering Royer NIL cash is more plausible. UK may not even have a coach tomorrow. Keeping Royer would be my top of list for an NIL investment from UC. I do expect some guys to go into the portal but it may not be as bad as when Fickell left.
10. I think we're losing big name seniors but it's not as bad as it looks. About half the seniors leaving weren't starters so it could be worse. I have us down for 26 guys leaving via graduation which is about right with balanced recruiting classes.
11. Fact. It's a problem that will probably never get solved with this staff. For the most part they are not from the area and don't have connections here. They'd rather recruit the Carolinas area where they know everyone. Any coach that's had success here and moved up, has recruited Cincinnati well. If this staff chooses not to, they'll most likely be out of a job soon.
12. Too soon to tell. It certainly looks that way . We have no idea who the portal pickups and losses are at this point so it's probably too early to predict that.
13. The casual fan that got on the bandwagon during Fickell era was always going to lose interest eventually. Hardcore fans and UC Alumni will ride this out.
14. I don't disagree with you here but JC is dealing with a situation where the donors are calling the shots. That's always going to be a an issue but I strongly believe that John would not have hired Satterfield if donors hadn't gotten involved with the hire. I think he's an an impossible position on the politics side. You don't alienate your top donors without losing your job.
15. This is an example of "it's always been this way, so why change it". It changed and we're going to have to adapt or stop watching. The reason why CFB is an institution is because the NCAA is a cartel and the courts and NLRB finally got involved. The players should have always been compensated with something other than just a scholarship. There is a possibility of Congress or the incoming presidential administration putting the toothpaste back in the tube here but we'll have to wait and see.


Whew.

Excellent analysis Lobot. Certainly the players should’ve been compensated over the years, but now they’ve gone too far.
Don’t they ever check the PA system before the game, or the ref’s wireless microphone? That has been a problem at Nippert since I’ve been going to games.

B.C.

[leo from jersey]

Lobot wrote" 14. I don't disagree with you here but JC is dealing with a situation where the donors are calling the shots. That's always going to be a an issue but I strongly believe that John would not have hired Satterfield if donors hadn't gotten involved with the hire. I think he's an an impossible position on the politics side. You don't alienate your top donors without losing your job.-----
Some of the football Alums have some $$$ power and they know football. I can't imagine that there are very many happy alums right now. I do realize buildings come to price tags other than money and is one man able to accept blame for a miscall?

[Lobot]

Lobot wrote" 14. I don't disagree with you here but JC is dealing with a situation where the donors are calling the shots. That's always going to be a an issue but I strongly believe that John would not have hired Satterfield if donors hadn't gotten involved with the hire. I think he's an an impossible position on the politics side. You don't alienate your top donors without losing your job.-----
Some of the football Alums have some $$$ power and they know football. I can't imagine that there are very many happy alums right now. I do realize buildings come to price tags other than money and is one man able to accept blame for a miscall?

That's a question for the donor to answer but I don't think we're ever going to hear about it in public whether he does or doesn't accept blame.