Cincinnati Bearcats vs. Louisville Cardinals Picks, Trends, and Preview

The Bearcats have fallen victim to their own success this year. They are coming off of that perfect regular season, and now that they have a new head coach and a ton of new faces to work with, things just aren’t working out right. Poor QB Zach Collaros has to feel like he is going at this all by himself at times. He is completing 63.2 percent of his passes for 1,1801 yards. The great thing about this signal caller is that you know he is protecting the pigskin. Collaros only has one INT against 12 picks this season, and he has a fantastic TD/INT ratio of 22/3 for his career. RB Isaiah Pead has put together back to back awesome games for Cincinnati, as he has 31 carries for 366 yards and a TD in his L/2 games. The schedule has been brutal to date for the Bearcats, and they have to hope that Big East play is going to signal a new beginning in a march towards a BCS bowl game for the second straight year. Last week’s 45-3 victory over the Miami Redhawks, a game in which they easily notched their second straight cover after three straight failed attempts, might just be that springboard they needed.

The Cardinals are playing well right now under first year HC Charlie Strong, and the possibility is there, especially with a win on Friday night, that they could go bowling for the first time since Steve Kragthorpe totally screwed up the program that Bobby Petrino built. The Redbirds rank in the Top 50 in the nation in every major offensive category and virtually all of the major defensive categories as well. A lot of that is due to the recent success of RB Bilal Powell, who is emerging as one of the top running backs in the Big East. Powell, who only ran for 392 yards last year, has 361 just over his L/2 games, including last week’s 204 yard performance that made him the top rusher amongst legitimate running backs in the nation. He has found the end zone at least once in all five games this season and has eight scores to speak of in total. Powell is averaging 7.6 yards per carry, over double his margin from last year. QB Adam Froman is improving week after week as well. His completion percentage is still a tad low at 59.7 percent, but Strong has to be thrilled with his 1,177 yards and 9/4 TD/INT ratio.

The Cardinals just seem to have a positive mojo about them that cannot be stopped right now. This wasn’t an easy out of conference slate for them either, and we fully expect to see them come out and try to make a major statement on national television. Cincinnati is a lot better than its record suggests, but this college football betting affair is going to the birds.