Cincinnati Bearcats 26 Pittsburgh Panthers 23 Box Scorin

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Yesterday the Bearcats proved once again that they are a second half team in every sense of the phrase. They played good, not great in the first half, but the special teams and the defense in particular played exceptionally well down the stretch. Nothing illustrates this better than Pitts yardage totals by half. In the first half the Panthers ran 30 total plays for 230 yards of offense, that's an average of 7.6 yards per play. In the second half however UC completely shut down the Panthers 167 yards of offense on 40 plays, 4.2 yards per play. In fact after scoring a TD on the opening drive of the half the Panthers next 7 drives ended fumble, fumble, interception, punt, punt, punt, turnover on downs. It was a remarkable turnaround for a defense that looked completely out of their depth in the first half.

Defense

• Dan Giordano had one of the strangest games I have seen in a while. Watching it live he was everywhere, he was always close to making the play, but I thought for sure that he made a couple. As it turns out he didn't. His stat line read zero tackles, zero sacks, zero everything, except for hurries, where he led the Bearcats with 3
• Derek Wolfe is back on the sack train again after registering just 1 in the month of October he came up with two last night.
• Chris Williams is becoming a real terror blitzing from the nickel. He picked up another sack and generaly wraught chaos when he came off the edge.
• J.K. Schaffer had 13 tackles and a hurry. Ho hum

Offense

• Zach Collaros had another weird game. He didn't do much as a passer, his completion percentage was fine (19 of 32) and his yardage was OK. But he once again threw two picks, neither of which was particularly redeemable
• Isaiah Pead got off to a fast start with 101 yards on his first 12 carries, all in the second half. After the break the Panthers really keyed in on Pead and his next 10 carries produced 17 yards. Pead also went scoreless for the first time all season.
• I thought the offensive line really struggled. Sean Hooey looked rusty, and its probably safe to say that his Ankle isn't 100 per cent. Alex Hoffman just looked off for most of the night. But overall they did well against a complex scheme that is still rich with athletes up front from the Wanny era.
• Nothing really notable about the receivers yesterday, though I think that Kenbrell Thompkins and Anythony McClung have leapfrogged D.J. Woods in the pecking order for good. But that is just my read on things, and obviously not official.
• targeting data

As ever you can check out the official DTD targeting spreadsheet if you are interested

Special Teams

• Tony Miliano was clutch, 4 for 4 on the night for FG's 2 of 2 on PAT's. Dare I say Ruffian?
• Pat O'Donnell was pretty good too, 5 boots for 219 yards for a 43.8 average, 1 inside the 20, zero touch backs and an average net of 42
  
• Not too much from the return game this week