MACTracking: Turn(er)ing Over In His Grave

I can only assume that'swhat Mark Mangino is doing right now watching this Kansas Jayhawk team from the...oh, what's that? That massive tub of jelly isn't dead yet? Well, if he was dead, that's what he'd be doing. But we'll come back to Turner and company after we discuss our other good buddies, Butch and Al.

Butchie's Boys played a weird one. With 27 seconds left in the first half, Isaiah Pead had only gained 43 yards on 10 carries, and the Bearcats - despite Zach Collaros' 91 yards passing and a score - had the ball at midfield down by two points. Three plays later Collaros tossed a pick-six, and Cincinnati was in the locker room trailing 16-7. This was new ground, for sure.

Not to fear, because the Bearcats finally awoke in the second half. The Cardinals opened the second half with a drive that reached the Cincinnati 40 yard line before an interception snuffed the drive. The next time they crossed midfield was on a fourth-down conversion with under a minute to play and no timeouts remaining, leaving them stuck behind a 23-16 loss.

The Bearcats appear to be at least a little more mortal than first thought, but so are the USF and Pitt squads they face on the road in their next two matchups. Keep on truckin', Butchie. More mayhem after the jump.

Al Golden directed his team to a win as well, though it was no more pretty than Cinci's victory (and the opposite scenario, in fact). Jacory Harris looked strong as he finished the first half 16 of22 for 232 yards and 3 touchdowns, pacing the Hurricanes to a 27-3 lead against North Carolina with just over five minutes left in the half.

Then the second half happened. Miami managed a total of 36 yards of offense in the second half, and their only points came on a field-goal drive that started when UNC got nutty and went for it on fourth and three from their own 29. UNC even scored late to cut it to 30-24 and then recovered the onside kick, but ran out of mojo about 30 yards out. Interestingly, I won't be shocked if Miami keeps alternating wins and losses, since the next two games are Georgia Tech's triple option and then Virginia.

Last, and probably least comes Turner Gill and his Jayhawks. They had everyone fooled this weekend against third-ranked Oklahoma. The stadium went nuts when the defense got lucky and a stumbling receiver in the end zone left Oklahoma kicking a field goal to take a 27-17 lead into halftime.

After that, well...the defense did their job, holding the Sooners to only three points in the third quarter. The offense, on the other hand, recorded one first down the entire second half - which came with 2:15 left to play and was immediately followed by: 13 yard sack, -1 yard completion, 9 yard sack. In the end, this game looked no different, as Kansas still wound up losing 40-17 and still wound up surrendering 600+ yards of offense for the third time in the last four games.

The defense played very respectably (given how overmatched they were) and probably would have been able to perform at that level for four quarters instead of three if the offense had managed more than -12 yards in the second half. Next week, Kansas State. Oy vey.

Tune in next week for: Is a Bearcat better than a Bull at being the best of a bad conference...can the Jayhawks keep handing out yardage like candy...can Miami hang with a ranked team and actually beat them this time...can Jerry Kill and the Gophers come off a bye and at least manage to look less inept?