BY TOM GROESCHEN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The University of Cincinnati probably will be favored to beat Tulsa in its football opener Thursday at Nippert Stadium, but you won't get UC coach Rick Minter to admit that.
Minter, mindful of his 0-3 record in UC season openers, dismisses the fact Tulsa was 4-7 last year and has had five straight losing seasons.
"We respect Tulsa as a WAC (Western Athletic Conference) team coming in here that can score points," Minter said. "I think it will be contrasting styles, the West vs. the Midwest style of play." UC, 6-5 each of the past two years, prefers to run the football offensively. The so-called "smashmouth" style is favored by many Midwest teams who play cold-weather games. But Minter uses it because championships are won by teams who can both run offensively and stop the run defensively. "That's true on any level," he said. Tulsa, from the pass-happy WAC, plays more of a finesse game predicated on speed. The league, whose most notable member is Brigham Young, favors scores such as 45-35 compared to the lower-scoring game Minter prefers. Last season Tulsa was outscored by an average of 30-22 per game.
"If we win 10-7, I'll take that every time," Minter said. UC averaged 20.7 points and allowed 19.3 per game last season.
UC, with three of its four top rushers returning from a team that led Conference USA in rushing last year, will try to muscle through a Tulsa defense that ranked 107th of 111 Division I-A teams in rush defense last year.
Tulsa coach is Dave Rader, a former quarterback at the school. Rader, whose career record is 42-58-1, is under some pressure to win but faces a tough road, as the Golden Hurricane are picked to finish seventh in the eight-team WAC Mountain division.
Notable names for Tulsa are junior quarterback John Fitzgerald (6-3, 220), who started three games last year, and sophomore tailback John Mosley (5-10, 205). The top receivers are senior Wes Caswell (5-8, 180) and sophomore Damon Savage (5-10, 195), who combined for 1,440 yards receiving last year. Tulsa threw for more yards (2,293) than it rushed for (1,927) last year.
Signs point to a UC victory, given the Bearcats will be at home and facing a beatable team. But that also was the case last year, when UC was a 12-point favorite over lowly Tulane in the opener but lost 34-14.
Under Minter, UC has a 3-8-1 record in August and September games but is 11-10 in October and November, including 9-4 the past two years.
UC and Tulsa once were Missouri Valley Conference rivals. Tulsa leads the lifetime series 16-12-2. But UC is 3-0 in this decade, including a 24-5 victory in the last meeting, 1995 at Tulsa.
