The UC football team improved to 7-0 on Saturday with its 27-20 win over Navy to stay at No. 2 in the AP Top 25. Here’s a look at game seven in 2009 when the Bearcats went 12-0 under Brian Kelly, won the Big East championship, and played in the Sugar Bowl. This is from my 2019 book about that season, “This Is What The Top Feels Like.”
By Bill Koch
Zach Collaros found out rather quickly when he got to UC that the 30-0 won-lost record the Steubenville High School Big Red had compiled with him starting at quarterback meant nothing at this level. As training camp began in 2009, he was No. 3 on the depth chart behind Tony Pike and Chazz Anderson.
When Collaros asked head coach Brian Kelly what he had to do to get more playing time, Kelly - in his distinctly blunt manner - told Collaros he didn’t like the way he practiced. He also told his young quarterback that he shouldn’t be trying to make a big play every time the ball was snapped. There were times when he needed to appreciate the value of a short or intermediate pass, or even an incompletion. And even though he didn’t want to completely discourage Collaros from improvising – after all, that was one of his strengths – he preferred for him to operate mostly within the confines of the offense he had so painstakingly developed over the years.
Collaros finally got his chance against South Florida on Oct. 15 in Tampa when he took over for the injured Tony Pike late in the first half and led the Bearcats to a 34-17 win to improve to 6-0, 2-0 in the Big East. UC rose to No. 5 in the AP poll after that game.
Next up was long-time rival Louisville. The Cardinals were 2-4 overall, 0-2 in the league, and were last in scoring offense with 21.8 points per game, just a little over half Cincinnati’s average.
As the week leading up to October 24 Louisville game unfolded, Kelly did his best to keep alive the possibility – at least in the minds of the Cardinals’ coaching staff – that Pike might start after all. Pike underwent surgery on Tuesday to repair the plate that had been inserted into his left forearm in 2008 after he broke the arm against Akron, the one that had shifted after he absorbed two punishing hits in the South Florida game.
Reporters were told that Pike participated in Monday’s light workout and was examined after practice by team orthopedist Dr. Angelo Colosimo. At that point, so the story went, the determination was made to hold Pike out of practice for two days to see how his arm responded. After that, Pike would try to practice to see if he could play against Louisville.
That’s what Kelly wanted Louisville to believe. In fact, the surgery had already been performed and Collaros was told Wednesday that he would be the starter against Louisville on Saturday. He took most of the snaps in practice and immersed himself in preparation for his first career start.
It fell to Kelly, offensive coordinator Jeff Quinn, passing game coordinator Charley Molnar, and quarterbacks coach Greg Forest to adjust the offense to fit Collaros’ strengths. The adjustment wasn’t nearly as difficult as it could have been because Collaros played with a style similar to that of Dustin Grutza, Pike’s predecessor, with his running ability as a major part of his arsenal.
“We were already pivoting back to what we had started with,” Kelly said, “so we were OK with it. We were ready to go right away.”
Pike’s role that week was two-fold: help Collaros prepare for the game and to work to minimize his down time. It helped that Pike and his teammates had so much confidence in Collaros.
“Zach just had a whole different ability level,” Pike said. “He didn’t have the height advantage, but he was a tough kid from Steubenville, Ohio. He was going to do whatever it takes to win, whether it’s with his arms or his legs or running somebody over for a first down. You just knew you were in good hands with Zach. That helped me in so many ways while I was rehabbing, being able to say, ‘OK, we can still do this. I can get back and still make a run at this and we can still be undefeated.’ Having Zach in that spot was very comforting.”
Pike and Collaros enjoyed a good relationship long before Pike was injured. Based on what he had accomplished the year before, Pike was the unchallenged starter going into the season, so there was no sense of competition between them. Collaros, a sophomore with two more years to play, understood that Pike would run the show this year, opening the door for him to take over in 2010, providing he could beat out Anderson again. But there was more to their relationship than Collaros merely accepting the established pecking order. He genuinely liked being around Pike, whom he calls ”one of the funniest guys I know.”
When Collaros first got to Cincinnati in 2007, Pike was still buried on the depth chart. He wasn’t infused with the sense of urgency and purpose that served him and the Bearcats so well in 2008 and 2009.
“It was my third day (at Cincinnati),” Collaros said. “We were working out and somebody said, ‘You’ve got to meet this guy, the quarterback.’ We worked out together and Tony was maybe the biggest smack-off ever. I belly laughed. I cried during the whole workout. I got nothing done. After awhile you kind of get accustomed to his humor, but I remember that first time meeting him I was laughing my ass off.”
A crowd of 35,009 showed up on a cold, windy, late Saturday afternoon at Nippert Stadium to watch Collaros play against Louisville in his first game as a starter, eager to find out if what he did against USF was the result of adrenalin or if the Bearcats’ quarterback of the future was capable of keeping them unbeaten until Pike returned.
Long before kickoff, Collaros was sitting on a bench outside the locker room at the north end of the stadium contemplating his first collegiate start when Kelly approached him. The conversation had nothing to do with game strategy.
“He said, ‘Hey, uh, you know this game’s on ESPN (actually ESPNU),’” Collaros said. “I’m already nervous. I said, ‘Yeah, Coach, I know.’ I was just thinking, be cool, calm and collected, telling myself, ‘You’ve got this.’ Then he looks at me and he says, ‘If I yell at you, if you yell back at me, you’re coming out of the game.’
“Right or wrong I always have an opinion, and there were a couple of times in practice where we would disagree and he would tell me, ‘I’m going to give you a black jersey and put you on defense.’ That’s one of the clearest memories I have of my entire time as a player. That interaction with BK was so funny to me. It kind of calmed me down. He gave me a little wink and laughed. At the time, I was deathly afraid.”
Collaros needn’t have worried because Kelly scripted the first 15 plays for him, and as Collaros would quickly discover, “He was a master of the first 15 plays.”
Kelly told him to get the ball to Mardy Gilyard early, knowing that once Gilyard got involved the offense would start rolling. The first play was a run for Gilyard, who gained five yards. He also caught one pass for 16 yards and a first down. The Bearcats needed only 10 plays to go 78 yards for their first touchdown, on Isaiah Pead’s one-yard run to take a 7-0 lead with 10:10 left in the first quarter.
After the Cardinals went three-and-out on their first possession, Cincinnati charged down the field again, this time going 90 yards in nine plays, covering two minutes, 49 seconds, and scoring on Collaros’ 24-yard touchdown pass to Armon Binns. It had taken only 16 plays from scrimmage – one more than Kelly had scripted - for the Bearcats to take a 14-0 lead.
Cincinnati led 21-7 at the half and 38-10 after three quarters. The Bearcats walked off the field with a 41-10 win and possession of the Keg of Nails trophy to go 7-0 for the first time since 1954 when coach Sid Gillman, an offensive innovator in his own right who was inducted into the Pro Football and College Football Hall of Fame, was in charge. That team finished 8-2.
Collaros played a nearly perfect game against Louisville with 15 completions in 17 pass attempts for 253 yards and three touchdowns without a sack. He also ran 11 times for 52 yards. Pead carried six times for 88 yards and two touchdowns. Gilyard, Binns and D.J. Woods each had more than 50 receiving yards.
“I was hoping Tony Pike would play,” Louisville coach Steve Kragthorpe said after the game. “It makes them one-dimensional and a better matchup for us. I knew Collaros could run.”
Collaros had gone about things a little differently from Pike, but the Cincinnati offense was still hitting on all cylinders.
“You never know until somebody gets into a game and starts playing, but Zach was a really confident individual, very smart, very competitive,” offensive lineman Jason Kelce said. “We knew, if given the opportunity, he would get the job done. His coming-out party at South Florida had been maybe a little bit more than any of us were expecting, especially as good as South Florida was that year, and it being an away game. That was a big stage for him to showcase what kind of player he was.”
It was a difficult time for Pike, who was worried about what the future held for him while trying to be a good teammate to his replacement. He was relieved to hear that his surgery had been successful. It turned out that the metal plate in his arm had not shifted. What really happened, according to trainer Bob Mangine, is that the bone started to buckle on the plate when Pike absorbed the hit at South Florida.
“Colosimo put another plate in there, got it straightened and then he played,” Mangine said. “We just had to take that one out and refresh the plate.”
Once the procedure was finished and Pike was assured that he would be OK, the psychological burden he was carrying was removed.
“I knew at the time that whatever was going in there was going to be steady and hold,” Pike said. “Having the assurance of the doctor saying that you can play again this year, to go from the emotions of ‘OK, I’m in the Heisman race, to now my season and probably my career is over too,’ to ‘You’re going to get back this year,’ changed the whole dynamic of fighting to get back quicker.”
By Bill Koch
Zach Collaros found out rather quickly when he got to UC that the 30-0 won-lost record the Steubenville High School Big Red had compiled with him starting at quarterback meant nothing at this level. As training camp began in 2009, he was No. 3 on the depth chart behind Tony Pike and Chazz Anderson.
When Collaros asked head coach Brian Kelly what he had to do to get more playing time, Kelly - in his distinctly blunt manner - told Collaros he didn’t like the way he practiced. He also told his young quarterback that he shouldn’t be trying to make a big play every time the ball was snapped. There were times when he needed to appreciate the value of a short or intermediate pass, or even an incompletion. And even though he didn’t want to completely discourage Collaros from improvising – after all, that was one of his strengths – he preferred for him to operate mostly within the confines of the offense he had so painstakingly developed over the years.
Collaros finally got his chance against South Florida on Oct. 15 in Tampa when he took over for the injured Tony Pike late in the first half and led the Bearcats to a 34-17 win to improve to 6-0, 2-0 in the Big East. UC rose to No. 5 in the AP poll after that game.
Next up was long-time rival Louisville. The Cardinals were 2-4 overall, 0-2 in the league, and were last in scoring offense with 21.8 points per game, just a little over half Cincinnati’s average.
As the week leading up to October 24 Louisville game unfolded, Kelly did his best to keep alive the possibility – at least in the minds of the Cardinals’ coaching staff – that Pike might start after all. Pike underwent surgery on Tuesday to repair the plate that had been inserted into his left forearm in 2008 after he broke the arm against Akron, the one that had shifted after he absorbed two punishing hits in the South Florida game.
Reporters were told that Pike participated in Monday’s light workout and was examined after practice by team orthopedist Dr. Angelo Colosimo. At that point, so the story went, the determination was made to hold Pike out of practice for two days to see how his arm responded. After that, Pike would try to practice to see if he could play against Louisville.
That’s what Kelly wanted Louisville to believe. In fact, the surgery had already been performed and Collaros was told Wednesday that he would be the starter against Louisville on Saturday. He took most of the snaps in practice and immersed himself in preparation for his first career start.
It fell to Kelly, offensive coordinator Jeff Quinn, passing game coordinator Charley Molnar, and quarterbacks coach Greg Forest to adjust the offense to fit Collaros’ strengths. The adjustment wasn’t nearly as difficult as it could have been because Collaros played with a style similar to that of Dustin Grutza, Pike’s predecessor, with his running ability as a major part of his arsenal.
“We were already pivoting back to what we had started with,” Kelly said, “so we were OK with it. We were ready to go right away.”
Pike’s role that week was two-fold: help Collaros prepare for the game and to work to minimize his down time. It helped that Pike and his teammates had so much confidence in Collaros.
“Zach just had a whole different ability level,” Pike said. “He didn’t have the height advantage, but he was a tough kid from Steubenville, Ohio. He was going to do whatever it takes to win, whether it’s with his arms or his legs or running somebody over for a first down. You just knew you were in good hands with Zach. That helped me in so many ways while I was rehabbing, being able to say, ‘OK, we can still do this. I can get back and still make a run at this and we can still be undefeated.’ Having Zach in that spot was very comforting.”
Pike and Collaros enjoyed a good relationship long before Pike was injured. Based on what he had accomplished the year before, Pike was the unchallenged starter going into the season, so there was no sense of competition between them. Collaros, a sophomore with two more years to play, understood that Pike would run the show this year, opening the door for him to take over in 2010, providing he could beat out Anderson again. But there was more to their relationship than Collaros merely accepting the established pecking order. He genuinely liked being around Pike, whom he calls ”one of the funniest guys I know.”
When Collaros first got to Cincinnati in 2007, Pike was still buried on the depth chart. He wasn’t infused with the sense of urgency and purpose that served him and the Bearcats so well in 2008 and 2009.
“It was my third day (at Cincinnati),” Collaros said. “We were working out and somebody said, ‘You’ve got to meet this guy, the quarterback.’ We worked out together and Tony was maybe the biggest smack-off ever. I belly laughed. I cried during the whole workout. I got nothing done. After awhile you kind of get accustomed to his humor, but I remember that first time meeting him I was laughing my ass off.”
A crowd of 35,009 showed up on a cold, windy, late Saturday afternoon at Nippert Stadium to watch Collaros play against Louisville in his first game as a starter, eager to find out if what he did against USF was the result of adrenalin or if the Bearcats’ quarterback of the future was capable of keeping them unbeaten until Pike returned.
Long before kickoff, Collaros was sitting on a bench outside the locker room at the north end of the stadium contemplating his first collegiate start when Kelly approached him. The conversation had nothing to do with game strategy.
“He said, ‘Hey, uh, you know this game’s on ESPN (actually ESPNU),’” Collaros said. “I’m already nervous. I said, ‘Yeah, Coach, I know.’ I was just thinking, be cool, calm and collected, telling myself, ‘You’ve got this.’ Then he looks at me and he says, ‘If I yell at you, if you yell back at me, you’re coming out of the game.’
“Right or wrong I always have an opinion, and there were a couple of times in practice where we would disagree and he would tell me, ‘I’m going to give you a black jersey and put you on defense.’ That’s one of the clearest memories I have of my entire time as a player. That interaction with BK was so funny to me. It kind of calmed me down. He gave me a little wink and laughed. At the time, I was deathly afraid.”
Collaros needn’t have worried because Kelly scripted the first 15 plays for him, and as Collaros would quickly discover, “He was a master of the first 15 plays.”
Kelly told him to get the ball to Mardy Gilyard early, knowing that once Gilyard got involved the offense would start rolling. The first play was a run for Gilyard, who gained five yards. He also caught one pass for 16 yards and a first down. The Bearcats needed only 10 plays to go 78 yards for their first touchdown, on Isaiah Pead’s one-yard run to take a 7-0 lead with 10:10 left in the first quarter.
After the Cardinals went three-and-out on their first possession, Cincinnati charged down the field again, this time going 90 yards in nine plays, covering two minutes, 49 seconds, and scoring on Collaros’ 24-yard touchdown pass to Armon Binns. It had taken only 16 plays from scrimmage – one more than Kelly had scripted - for the Bearcats to take a 14-0 lead.
Cincinnati led 21-7 at the half and 38-10 after three quarters. The Bearcats walked off the field with a 41-10 win and possession of the Keg of Nails trophy to go 7-0 for the first time since 1954 when coach Sid Gillman, an offensive innovator in his own right who was inducted into the Pro Football and College Football Hall of Fame, was in charge. That team finished 8-2.
Collaros played a nearly perfect game against Louisville with 15 completions in 17 pass attempts for 253 yards and three touchdowns without a sack. He also ran 11 times for 52 yards. Pead carried six times for 88 yards and two touchdowns. Gilyard, Binns and D.J. Woods each had more than 50 receiving yards.
“I was hoping Tony Pike would play,” Louisville coach Steve Kragthorpe said after the game. “It makes them one-dimensional and a better matchup for us. I knew Collaros could run.”
Collaros had gone about things a little differently from Pike, but the Cincinnati offense was still hitting on all cylinders.
“You never know until somebody gets into a game and starts playing, but Zach was a really confident individual, very smart, very competitive,” offensive lineman Jason Kelce said. “We knew, if given the opportunity, he would get the job done. His coming-out party at South Florida had been maybe a little bit more than any of us were expecting, especially as good as South Florida was that year, and it being an away game. That was a big stage for him to showcase what kind of player he was.”
It was a difficult time for Pike, who was worried about what the future held for him while trying to be a good teammate to his replacement. He was relieved to hear that his surgery had been successful. It turned out that the metal plate in his arm had not shifted. What really happened, according to trainer Bob Mangine, is that the bone started to buckle on the plate when Pike absorbed the hit at South Florida.
“Colosimo put another plate in there, got it straightened and then he played,” Mangine said. “We just had to take that one out and refresh the plate.”
Once the procedure was finished and Pike was assured that he would be OK, the psychological burden he was carrying was removed.
“I knew at the time that whatever was going in there was going to be steady and hold,” Pike said. “Having the assurance of the doctor saying that you can play again this year, to go from the emotions of ‘OK, I’m in the Heisman race, to now my season and probably my career is over too,’ to ‘You’re going to get back this year,’ changed the whole dynamic of fighting to get back quicker.”
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