By Bill Koch
Before the UC Bearcats lined up to take on No. 7 Rutgers at Nippert Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 18, 2006, they had already faced four teams ranked among the top 11 in the country.
They lost to all four of them, including No. 1 Ohio State, but that didn’t deter them from feeling confident against the Scarlet Knights, one of three unbeaten teams left in the country after they had defeated No. 3 Louisville 10 days earlier.
“We felt good about the game plan,” said former UC cornerback Mike Mickens. “We just knew that if we go out there and execute, that good things would happen.”
Before the night was over, the Bearcats, who entered the game with a 5-5 overall record, 2-3 in the Big East, had produced the biggest victory in the 119-year history of their football program by stunning the Scarlet Knights, 30-11, before a Senior Night crowd of 27,804, the largest crowd of the season, many of whom swarmed onto the field after the game to celebrate. UC had never beaten a team ranked so high. Previously, the highest-ranked opponent it had beaten was No. 9 Wisconsin on Sept. 18, 1999 at Nippert.
“This was a program win,” UC coach Mark Dantonio said on the field after the game, surrounded by ecstatic fans and drenched in the traditional Gatorade victory shower. “We talked about how we had to take every inch and defend every inch of this field and our guys got it done.”
Dantonio was in his third – and as it turned out - final season at UC in his first head-coaching job. He had built the UC program on toughness and defense, both of which were on full display that night. The Bearcats limited Rutgers to 288 yards, intercepted four Mike Teel passes, and held running back Ray Rice, the nation’s third-leading rusher who was averaging 148.2 yards per game, to 54 yards on 18 carries, his lowest output of the season.
“Everybody got to the ball,” Mickens said. “We knew he was a hard runner. The year before, against us, he went over 1,000 yards as a freshman. That was in our minds that we let him get over 1,000 yards on us. We remembered that feeling.“
In retrospect, the Bearcats probably didn’t have a good reason to feel so confident going into the game, considering they were playing without starting quarterback Dustin Grutza, who was held out because of an injury to his throwing shoulder that he aggravated in a loss at No. 10 West Virginia the previous week. Starting in his place was senior Nick Davila, a junior college transfer from Chaffey (Calif.) College, who had never started a game.
Davila had entered the West Virginia game – a 42-24 UC loss – after Grutza was hurt, and completed 10 of 17 passes for 167 yards, with two touchdowns and one interception.
“I knew there was a high possibility that I would start that game,” Davila said, “because the week before, I played almost the whole fourth quarter against West Virginia. Dustin was limited in practice that week so I was preparing in case I was the starter. I didn’t want to let my teammates down. I was spending some long nights in the film room by myself.”
When Davila fumbled on the Bearcats’ first play from scrimmage, it looked like they could be in for a long night.
“I think it had to do with a little bit of nervousness,” Davila said. “I pulled out (from the center) a little too quick.”
Mickens admits that he and his teammates didn’t know what to expect from Davila, but they were determined to do all they could from the defensive end to help him.
“We knew he could throw the ball,” Mickens said, “And we knew that Nick had a lot of confidence in himself. The defense was ready to go. We were like, what can we do to help? How many opportunities can we give the offense to do what they do? I think that was a big part of it. He saw guys making plays and thought they’re not going to be the only ones making plays. We’re going to make some plays too. We were feeding off each other and giving each other energy.”
After Davila’s fumble on the UC 31, Rutgers missed a field goal. On UC’s next possession, he drove the Bearcats 65 yards on 11 plays to set up a 32-yard field goal by Kevin Lovell with 5:04 left in the first quarter. The Bearcats took a 10-0 lead less than a minute into the second quarter when Davila directed a 10-play drive that he capped with a 1-yard touchdown run, the first rushing touchdown of his UC career.
Sophomore cornerback DeAngelo Smith, who was also making his first start, then picked off a pass from Teel and returned it 84 yards for a touchdown to give UC what proved to be an insurmountable 17-0 lead with 9:43 left in the first half.
“We had them on the ropes,” said Mickens, who intercepted two passes of his own that day. “We could feel it. But we hadn’t had the big turnover yet. That’s what we needed. That was the play that ignited the (upset). When D-Lo got that interception, it was like, OK, now let’s put ‘em down. When they were going in to halftime, they looked like, wow, what just happened? I think they knew they weren’t going to make it out of there (with a win).”
Another Lovell field goal, this one from 19 yards, put UC ahead, 20-3, with 5:35 left in the third quarter. Then, with 3:11 left in third quarter, Davila threw a short pass to tight end Brent Celek, who turned it into an 83-yard touchdown to increase UC’s lead to 27-3. Rutgers, which fell to 9-1 overall, 4-1 in the Big East, didn’t score a touchdown until Rice’s 1-yard run with 5:34 left in the game. By then, the outcome had been largely decided.
Davila, who finished with 11 completions in 15 pass attempts for 277 yards, was at a loss for words on the field after the game.
“I’m just caught up in the moment right now,” he said as he fought back tears. “This is the greatest scene in the world.”
His family had flown in from the West Coast to see him play at UC in person for the first time.
“My father, who has since passed away, was my baseball coach all the way up through Little League and it was Senior Night,” Davila said. ”It was hard for me (at UC). I was a juco college player. I broke a lot of records at my school. I was all-conference and All-American, so I expected a lot of things. I was missing home, being the first athlete in my family to go away to college and play sports. Having my mom and dad there, it was really a special moment for me, to be a part of that, when the fans were running around on the field. Even my five-year old brother was crowd surfing. Some of the fans picked him up.”
Before the Bearcats played in the International Bowl, Dantonio left UC to become the head coach at Michigan State.
UC fans remember the win over Rutgers as the game that catapulted the program to a higher level than it had ever known. Two years later, under Brian Kelly, the Bearcats were in the Orange Bowl and then the Sugar Bowl the following season.
After he left UC, Davila played from 2008 to 2018 in the Arena Football League, where he was a three-time MVP with the Arizona Rattlers.
Mickens became a third-team Associated Press All-American as a senior and played briefly in the NFL with the Dallas Cowboys, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Cincinnati Bengals. He’s currently the cornerbacks coach at Notre Dame under Kelly after spending two seasons at UC in the same capacity.
“We felt we turned the corner that night,” Mickens said. “We knew we could play with anybody in the country. After we won that game, our mindset now was that we shouldn’t be losing period. It changed the outlook of Cincinnati football. It showed that Cincinnati could be a national level team.”
Before the UC Bearcats lined up to take on No. 7 Rutgers at Nippert Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 18, 2006, they had already faced four teams ranked among the top 11 in the country.
They lost to all four of them, including No. 1 Ohio State, but that didn’t deter them from feeling confident against the Scarlet Knights, one of three unbeaten teams left in the country after they had defeated No. 3 Louisville 10 days earlier.
“We felt good about the game plan,” said former UC cornerback Mike Mickens. “We just knew that if we go out there and execute, that good things would happen.”
Before the night was over, the Bearcats, who entered the game with a 5-5 overall record, 2-3 in the Big East, had produced the biggest victory in the 119-year history of their football program by stunning the Scarlet Knights, 30-11, before a Senior Night crowd of 27,804, the largest crowd of the season, many of whom swarmed onto the field after the game to celebrate. UC had never beaten a team ranked so high. Previously, the highest-ranked opponent it had beaten was No. 9 Wisconsin on Sept. 18, 1999 at Nippert.
“This was a program win,” UC coach Mark Dantonio said on the field after the game, surrounded by ecstatic fans and drenched in the traditional Gatorade victory shower. “We talked about how we had to take every inch and defend every inch of this field and our guys got it done.”
Dantonio was in his third – and as it turned out - final season at UC in his first head-coaching job. He had built the UC program on toughness and defense, both of which were on full display that night. The Bearcats limited Rutgers to 288 yards, intercepted four Mike Teel passes, and held running back Ray Rice, the nation’s third-leading rusher who was averaging 148.2 yards per game, to 54 yards on 18 carries, his lowest output of the season.
“Everybody got to the ball,” Mickens said. “We knew he was a hard runner. The year before, against us, he went over 1,000 yards as a freshman. That was in our minds that we let him get over 1,000 yards on us. We remembered that feeling.“
In retrospect, the Bearcats probably didn’t have a good reason to feel so confident going into the game, considering they were playing without starting quarterback Dustin Grutza, who was held out because of an injury to his throwing shoulder that he aggravated in a loss at No. 10 West Virginia the previous week. Starting in his place was senior Nick Davila, a junior college transfer from Chaffey (Calif.) College, who had never started a game.
Davila had entered the West Virginia game – a 42-24 UC loss – after Grutza was hurt, and completed 10 of 17 passes for 167 yards, with two touchdowns and one interception.
“I knew there was a high possibility that I would start that game,” Davila said, “because the week before, I played almost the whole fourth quarter against West Virginia. Dustin was limited in practice that week so I was preparing in case I was the starter. I didn’t want to let my teammates down. I was spending some long nights in the film room by myself.”
When Davila fumbled on the Bearcats’ first play from scrimmage, it looked like they could be in for a long night.
“I think it had to do with a little bit of nervousness,” Davila said. “I pulled out (from the center) a little too quick.”
Mickens admits that he and his teammates didn’t know what to expect from Davila, but they were determined to do all they could from the defensive end to help him.
“We knew he could throw the ball,” Mickens said, “And we knew that Nick had a lot of confidence in himself. The defense was ready to go. We were like, what can we do to help? How many opportunities can we give the offense to do what they do? I think that was a big part of it. He saw guys making plays and thought they’re not going to be the only ones making plays. We’re going to make some plays too. We were feeding off each other and giving each other energy.”
After Davila’s fumble on the UC 31, Rutgers missed a field goal. On UC’s next possession, he drove the Bearcats 65 yards on 11 plays to set up a 32-yard field goal by Kevin Lovell with 5:04 left in the first quarter. The Bearcats took a 10-0 lead less than a minute into the second quarter when Davila directed a 10-play drive that he capped with a 1-yard touchdown run, the first rushing touchdown of his UC career.
Sophomore cornerback DeAngelo Smith, who was also making his first start, then picked off a pass from Teel and returned it 84 yards for a touchdown to give UC what proved to be an insurmountable 17-0 lead with 9:43 left in the first half.
“We had them on the ropes,” said Mickens, who intercepted two passes of his own that day. “We could feel it. But we hadn’t had the big turnover yet. That’s what we needed. That was the play that ignited the (upset). When D-Lo got that interception, it was like, OK, now let’s put ‘em down. When they were going in to halftime, they looked like, wow, what just happened? I think they knew they weren’t going to make it out of there (with a win).”
Another Lovell field goal, this one from 19 yards, put UC ahead, 20-3, with 5:35 left in the third quarter. Then, with 3:11 left in third quarter, Davila threw a short pass to tight end Brent Celek, who turned it into an 83-yard touchdown to increase UC’s lead to 27-3. Rutgers, which fell to 9-1 overall, 4-1 in the Big East, didn’t score a touchdown until Rice’s 1-yard run with 5:34 left in the game. By then, the outcome had been largely decided.
Davila, who finished with 11 completions in 15 pass attempts for 277 yards, was at a loss for words on the field after the game.
“I’m just caught up in the moment right now,” he said as he fought back tears. “This is the greatest scene in the world.”
His family had flown in from the West Coast to see him play at UC in person for the first time.
“My father, who has since passed away, was my baseball coach all the way up through Little League and it was Senior Night,” Davila said. ”It was hard for me (at UC). I was a juco college player. I broke a lot of records at my school. I was all-conference and All-American, so I expected a lot of things. I was missing home, being the first athlete in my family to go away to college and play sports. Having my mom and dad there, it was really a special moment for me, to be a part of that, when the fans were running around on the field. Even my five-year old brother was crowd surfing. Some of the fans picked him up.”
Before the Bearcats played in the International Bowl, Dantonio left UC to become the head coach at Michigan State.
UC fans remember the win over Rutgers as the game that catapulted the program to a higher level than it had ever known. Two years later, under Brian Kelly, the Bearcats were in the Orange Bowl and then the Sugar Bowl the following season.
After he left UC, Davila played from 2008 to 2018 in the Arena Football League, where he was a three-time MVP with the Arizona Rattlers.
Mickens became a third-team Associated Press All-American as a senior and played briefly in the NFL with the Dallas Cowboys, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Cincinnati Bengals. He’s currently the cornerbacks coach at Notre Dame under Kelly after spending two seasons at UC in the same capacity.
“We felt we turned the corner that night,” Mickens said. “We knew we could play with anybody in the country. After we won that game, our mindset now was that we shouldn’t be losing period. It changed the outlook of Cincinnati football. It showed that Cincinnati could be a national level team.”
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