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Tommy Tuberville Shares Masters Memories
Tommy Tuberville has been the SEC Coach of the Year at two different schools, has a 7-3 record in bowl games, led Auburn to six straight victories over archrival Alabama, and coached the Tigers to a perfect 13-0 season in 2004.
That’s an impressive resume.
But it you’re a golf fan like me and excited for the start of The Masters, then this might be the most interesting Tuberville factoid of them all: He’s golfed at Augusta National.
“I have some friends who are members and I’ve had the chance to play quite a few rounds,” Coach Tuberville told me on Wednesday. “Just being able to walk around that course knowing that Jack Nicklaus hit a shot from here…or play Amen Corner…or play the 16th hole and try to hit it in the middle of the green and watch the ball roll down toward where they always put the pin on Sunday.
“I’ve had a chance to stay in Butler Cabin, eat in the clubhouse, and go to the Crow’s Nest where the amateurs stay – it’s been a lot of fun just for the history of it.”
So inquiring minds want to know: What’s his best score at Augusta?
“I’ve never broken 80,” said Tuberville. “I’ve been pretty close to it – probably 81 or 82. The course is wide open – it’s not like some of these courses where you have to hit an iron off the tee to keep it in the fairway. The biggest challenges are the undulation in the fairways where you never have a flat lie and then the slick greens. If you just hit the ball on the green, there will probably be several times where your caddy will say, ‘You’ve hit the green but there’s no way you can get it in the hole from there in four putts.’”
Hold on a second. Has Tuberville actually four-putted on one of Augusta’s greens?
“I’ve five-putted,” Tommy said with a laugh. “The first time I played there, I hit a good drive on the first hole and my caddy said, ‘Whatever you do Coach, keep it below the pin. Don’t hit this shot above the pin.’ Well I hit what I thought was a good shot, but it was a little bit thin and rolled about 15 feet past the hole. My caddy kind of grunted and shook his head. I got up to the green and I had a 15 foot downhill putt and he said, ‘You’re going to end up in the sand trap.’ I just barely touched the ball and it rolled right into the trap.”
With that story in mind, Tuberville says that the winner this week will be the person that hits his approach shots to the most favorable areas on the green to putt. Since Tiger Woods is the popular pick to win, I asked Tommy if he would choose Tiger or the rest of the field?
“I’d take the field,” said Tuberville. “Tiger is not the Tiger of old even though he’s won a few times this year. Years ago I would have taken Tiger over the field, but there are so many good young golfers now that can hit the ball longer than him and putt. Tiger is putting as well as he’s ever putted, but I still say there are a lot of other guys that are putting just as well.”
After spending a few minutes discussing his experiences at Augusta National, I figured I would drop a little local knowledge on the Bearcats new head coach and asked Coach Tuberville if he knew that the coveted Masters’ green jacket is made at Hamilton Tailoring in Cincinnati.
“That’s very interesting,” Tommy said with a grin. “That will be a good trivia question for me to use with some of my buddies that are golfers.”
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A Look At The Time Jim Boeheim Outcoached Me
According to the NCAA Division I record book, Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim ranks second in all-time wins with 920.
He actually has 921.
When I was a young TV sports anchor (with hair!) at WTVH-5 in Syracuse, I did a weekly segment called “Dare Dan.” Each Friday, I accepted a challenge from a viewer(s) to compete against him, her, or them in their sport/game/adventure of choice.
There were normal challenges like golf, tennis, whiffle ball, etc…but I also competed against a dog at catching Frisbees (I won), and I took on 27 residents of a senior citizens home in “Simon Says” (and lost to three of them).
My final “Dare Dan” before leaving Syracuse for a job at Fox 19 in Cincinnati was a basketball challenge from Syracuse’s Hall of Famer: I coached a team of young girls against a squad coached by Jim Boeheim.
Enjoy!
After graduating from Syracuse, I covered Coach Boeheim’s teams for the first 10 years of my broadcasting career and – like nearly everybody on the Syracuse beat – got yelled at a few times. But I’ve always considered him to be a tremendous coach and learned a ton about basketball from hosting his radio show and watching his practices.
I’m thrilled that he’s going to his fourth Final Four and hope to continue my streak of being there for each of them.
In 1987, I was seated two rows directly behind Bobby Knight when Indiana beat the ‘Cuse 74-73 on Keith Smart’s game-winning jumper with :04 remaining. I was working on the Syracuse radio network as a post-game talk show host and with time winding down, I snuck to the edge of the court with my audio recorder in hopes of getting immediate reactions from the Syracuse players if they won the title. As it turned out, I was the first person to interview Smart moments after “the shot” before being shooed off the court by security.
By the way, for those who think that Coach Boeheim only plays a 2-3 zone, he actually went to a box-and-1 on Steve Alford on Indiana’s final possession (despite Billy Packer’s on-air call of man-to-man).
I’ve always thought it was a brilliant move by Boeheim as Alford never touched the ball in the final 28 seconds…unfortunately for SU fans, sometimes great coaching decisions don’t work out.
I moved to Cincinnati a few months before Syracuse returned to the Final Four in 1996 and couldn’t believe my luck when it looked like the Orange would face the Cincinnati Bearcats in the national semifinals (another free trip to cover a Final Four!) But Cincinnati was upset in the Elite 8 by Mississippi State and SU faced – and beat – the Bulldogs in the semifinals instead. I did make it to the Meadowlands as a ticket-buying fan, only to see Rick Pitino’s Kentucky team with nine guys that eventually played in the NBA beat the ‘Cuse for the title 76-67.
The 2003 Final Four is my favorite memory as a sports fan. I made the trip with my wife Peg (also a SU grad), and it was a basically a college reunion set in New Orleans. Not only did we see dozens of friends that we hadn’t seen in at least 10 years, but our team won!
Some of those college buddies verbally abused me for not wearing orange to the semifinal win over Texas, so I found the perfect shirt on Bourbon Street for the championship game against Kansas.
I haven’t worn that hideous shirt since, but I would love to break it out next Monday in Atlanta.
I can’t make it to the semifinals this time, but if Syracuse plays for the national title on Monday, I am determined to be there.
I would not want to miss Jim Boeheim going for his second national championship and his 922nd career win.
Make that #923.
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McClung Hopes Senior Season Is Big Hit
When the Syracuse Post-Standard did a story in November about SU’s hard-hitting safety Shamarko Thomas, they illustrated it with this photo of him leveling Bearcats wide receiver Anthony McClung.
What wasn’t mentioned in the caption is that McClung made the catch for a Cincinnati first down.
A week later, Temple’s Vaughn Carraway hit McClung so hard that the school’s media relations department immediately sent out the following Tweet:
Vaughn Carraway just leveled Anthony McClung on that last reception, but was flagged for unnecessary roughness. Bearcats @ the Owls 20.
— Owlsports_com (@Owlsports_com) November 10, 2012
Allow me to point out that McClung held on to the ball for a 29-yard gain with a 15-yard penalty tacked on.
I have no idea if UC’s new head coach Tommy Tuberville has seen video of either of those receptions, but he’s watched enough of McClung at practice to know that the Bearcats wide receiver doesn’t have “alligator arms.”
“He’ll catch the ball across the middle,” said Tuberville. “That’s what really separates a good receiver.”
“When the ball is in the air, I feel that it’s mine,” said McClung. “I can’t control what happens after that. All I try to do is look the ball in and make the catch for my team.”
Unlike Tuberville, McClung has definitely seen the video of his gutsy catches after some gruesome collisions.
“Sometimes you get goose bumps and say, ‘Wow that really happened,’ ” McClung told me. “But during the game, you have so much adrenaline going that you don’t really feel it.”
After having 49 catches for 683 yards and 6 touchdowns as a sophomore, McClung battled a series of injuries last season and saw his numbers drop to 34 catches for 539 yards and 2 TDs. To his credit, Anthony played with pain and appeared in 12 of 13 games.
“I pulled my quad, hurt my groin, my knee – there were a lot of different things,” said McClung. “But I’m a tough guy. I always want to play for my team.”
Now the senior-to-be is healthy again and it shows. In Cincinnati’s first scrimmage this spring, McClung finished with 4 catches for 151 yards and 3 touchdowns, and in Saturday’s second scrimmage held at Paul Brown Stadium, Anthony led all receivers with 7 grabs for 92 yards.
“He’s deceptive,” said Tuberville. “He’s one of those guys that doesn’t show up, doesn’t show up, and then all of a sudden makes big plays.
“I’ve been very impressed with him. He works hard and never says anything.”
McClung might not say much to his new head coach, but he’s very talkative to the less-experienced receivers that Cincinnati will be counting on this season.
“He’s been a great leader in the room,” said receivers coach Blake Rolan. “The kids listen to him and that makes my job easier. They’ve been trained well in the past and won a lot of games and he understands what it takes.”
“They ask me a lot of questions,” said McClung. “When I was younger I used to look up to great receivers like Armon Binns, D.J. Woods, Vidal Hazelton, and Kenbrell Thompkins. They were leaders to me and now I have to fill that role and be the leader to the younger guys.”
“He’s a quick learner,” said Rolan. “He studies the game and it means a lot to him.”
Following the departures of Thompkins and tight end Travis Kelce, McClung appears likely to be Cincinnati’s number one receiver in 2013.
“I trust him to get open, and he trusts me to get him the ball,” said quarterback Brendon Kay. “The more reps we get together, the better we’ll be as a duo.”
“I have a great opportunity with two great quarterbacks,” said McClung. “Hopefully we’ll win a lot of games. But even if I’m not the number one guy, I want to play a role and make plays when my number is called. The bottom line is that we want to win the league title outright this year.”
Well-stated from a guy who will go over the middle to get to the top.
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Can ‘Cats Contain McDermott?
In Division I college basketball history, there have only been seven players who have scored at least 3000 points. If Creighton’s Doug McDermott returns next year for his senior season, he’s got a legitimate shot to be the eighth.
“He can beat you by himself,” said Bearcats coach Mick Cronin. ”Our guys see a lot of great players, but we have not seen a scorer of his magnitude.”
Maybe not in person, but the Bearcats say they have seen players that McDermott reminds them of in the NBA.
“I think he’s like Dirk Nowitzki,” said Cashmere Wright. ”You don’t find too many 6’8″ guys with the skill level that he has. He’s got a nice game.”
“He’s very crafty — like a Larry Bird type,” said Justin Jackson. ”He’s not that athletic, but he knows the game. He’s the best scorer that I’ve seen in college by far.”
Wait a second. Wasn’t Jackson one-year-old when Larry Legend played his last NBA game?
“I’ve watched him on film when the NBA Classics come on,” said Jackson with a grin.
This year, McDermott has made more field goals than any other player in college basketball, even though he ranks 17th in shots attempted. Of his 273 baskets, 124 have been bank shots (45%) and 24 have been scored with the left hand.
“He’s got an old-school flavor to his game,” said Titus Rubles. ”You can tell that his dad (Creighton coach Greg McDermott) worked with him when he was younger.”
“He’s a coach’s son,” said Wright. ”You have no choice but to learn it — especially if you love the game.”
In addition to a wide variety of low-post moves, McDermott is a great outside shooter, draining 74 of 149 3-point attempts (.497).
“He shoots 50% from the three point line at his height — that’s insane,” said Rubles.
“After two days of film, (our players) have tremendous respect for his game,” said Coach Cronin. ”Whenever you’re able to show video of guys making three point shots that don’t touch the rim or the net — with him, you can pick out shots that are so clean that they literally don’t hit anything.
“Finally one of our guys says, ‘He doesn’t even hit the net.’ That’s when you pause and say, ‘You see what we’re dealing with.’ ”
Rubles and Jackson figure to spend the most minutes trying to defend the two-time First Team All-American.
“The key is to make him earn every basket that he gets and make him defend too,” said Rubles. ”He’s going to score because he’s a great player, but the key is to make him work for every point that he gets.
“We’ve got to be calm, stay on our feet, and make him shoot over us,” said Jackson. ”And we can’t foul him because he ain’t going to miss free throws. Keep him off the line, make him shoot over us, and hopefully he’ll miss.”
I told Rubles and Jackson that they could be the Bearcats MVPs on Friday without scoring a point, if they can hold McDermott to his scoring average or less — a notion that I shared with Cashmere Wright.
“I agree.” said Wright. ”I tell them all the time, ‘We really don’t need you to score too much, but we need you to do everything else.’ “
“This isn’t something that I’m scared of,” said Rubles. ”I’m embracing the challenge. I wish the game were today to be honest.”
Cronin Surprises ‘Cats With Tourney Goal
After grinding through hundreds of practices over the last several years, Cincinnati’s veteran players figured that they had heard every motivational tactic that Mick Cronin had in his bag of tricks. But he surprised them on Monday as they began preparing for Friday’s NCAA opener against Creighton.
“I told our guys that we have two goals for this week: Going 2-0 would be goal number two,” Coach Cronin told me. ”And goal number one, which we can achieve regardless of outcome, is to have more fun that any other team in the tournament. In practice, in our travel, and with each other.
“They need to have fun. They’ve earned it. I want them to enjoy their accomplishments. It’s an accomplishment to make the tournament and I’m structuring things this week so that they can enjoy it.”
“What’s gotten into him?” said Sean Kilpatrick when I asked for his initial reaction to Coach Cronin’s remarks to the team. ”We’ve never heard him say that. It’s good because it makes the players comfortable and reminds us that he’s with us. Not only does he want us to win, but he wants us to have fun.”
“He says a lot of stuff, so we were like, ‘I wonder how he’s going to act tomorrow,’ said Cashmere Wright with a laugh. ”But it seems like he meant what he said and he’s following through on it.”
One way that Coach Cronin showed the players that he meant what he said was by opening Tuesday’s practice to the public. It virtually guaranteed a less stressful environment with no tirades from the head coach.
“We knew when the fans were here that practice wasn’t going to be crazy,” said JaQuon Parker.
“I’ve thought a lot about the whole event and I’m trying to make it the most memorable for our players,” said Cronin. ”There’s no secrets this time of year anyway with the film and the scouting — everybody has everybody’s play calls and there’s nothing that’s going to go on at practice that people don’t already know about our team.
“We have to make sure that we’re fresh on Friday, so you won’t see World War III at practice.”
Of course, there’s a method to his (March) madness. Coach Cronin undoubtedly hopes that a relaxed team will perform well in Philadelphia.
“I think that’s been our problem,” said Parker. ”We’ve been too uptight around here. Now in our last few practices, we’ve been loose and having fun. It feels good.”
“We’re our best when we relax and nobody worries about making mistakes and we’re just out there playing basketball,” said Wright.
But don’t get the mistaken impression that having fun and working hard are mutually exclusive.
“It will not detract from our preparation — I can assure you that,” said Cronin. ”Our guys understand how hard you have to play to win games. We play in a league where if you don’t play hard you don’t even have a chance.”
“He’s telling you to go out there by any means necessary and get it done,” said Parker. ”Just win and have fun doing it. That means a lot to us.”
“It’s my last go-round and I’m just enjoying every day, every practice, and getting ready for the game,” said Wright.
Of course, there are limits in the quest to have the most fun of any team in the field of 68. For example, the players do not expect to have their nightly curfew lifted in Philadelphia.
“We’ve got to have curfew,” said Kilpatrick with a grin. ”That’s mandatory. If you leave some of our guys with no curfew, they might not come back.”
And while the players would undoubtedly be able to have fun if given free rein on the road, there’s nothing more enjoyable in the NCAA Tournament than advancing.
“At the end of the day, if this is going to be our last hurrah, let’s go all-out,” said Kilpatrick. ”Especially for our seniors. This is their last shot and they deserve to have fun, so we’re going to try to make a run in this tournament.”
“Once you’re in you’ve got a chance,” said Cronin. ”Now it’s time to win games.”
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A Big East Dream
The following story is not true. Unfortunately.
September 18, 2011
After initially accepting an offer to leave their current conference for the ACC, Syracuse and Pitt abruptly reversed course on Saturday and reaffirmed their commitment to the Big East.
“The Big East is where we belong,” said Syracuse chancellor Nancy Cantor in a statement released by the university. “We simply could not envision a future that did not include playing Georgetown, much less traveling to Greensboro, North Carolina for our postseason basketball tournament instead of Madison Square Garden.”
“While the offer from the ACC was tempting, we are convinced that the Big East can survive and thrive,” said Pitt chancellor Mark Nordenberg. “Plus, after spending 20 years in this league without an outright championship in football, we have decided to keep trying.”
The news was a relief to Big East commissioner John Marinatto whose job might have been jeopardized if Syracuse and Pitt had bolted for the ACC.
“The Big East remains a premier conference and will soon improve with the addition of TCU as our 17th member,” said Marinatto. “Believe it or not, when the Syracuse/Pitt rumor began circulating, I was briefly worried that TCU might decide to leave us before ever playing a game.”
Other Big East schools admitted that the potential loss of Syracuse and Pitt would have caused them to investigate the possibility of switching leagues.
“We would have been forced to strongly consider a move to the Big 12,” said West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck. “Thank heavens that didn’t happen. Not only will our fans still be able to travel to watch the Mountaineers play, but we think that Geno Smith will be a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate in the Big East in 2012. I’m not sure that’s realistic if we’re facing the likes of Oklahoma and Texas.”
“The Big East helped put UConn on the map and we are excited about its future,” said UConn president Susan Herbst. “But in the last nine months, we won our third national championship in basketball and went to our first BCS bowl game in football, so if the Big East undergoes significant changes, we’ll have no problem finding a new home.”
The key to the league’s long-term stability remains its television contract. After rejecting ESPN’s nine-year, $1.2 billion dollar offer earlier this year, Big East members figure to get a lucrative pay day if they stick together.
“There are strong rumors that Rupert Murdoch and Fox want to start a sports network to compete with ESPN,” said one TV executive who asked not to be named. “I’ve even heard they would be willing to pay $4 million a year to the Catholic schools just for basketball. Imagine the bidding war that’s going to result for a football and basketball package that still includes Syracuse, Pitt, West Virginia, Louisville, UConn, and Cincinnati.”
Of course, the future of the Big East could still be jeopardized if rumors of Big 10 expansion are accurate and Commissioner Jim Delany targets a Big East school.
“Unless Notre Dame decides to give up its independence in football, I can’t see Delany pursuing a Big East school,” said a Big 10 athletic director who did not want his name used. “I mean, we’re certainly not going to go after Rutgers.”
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Grans Looks To Help “The Best Man” Win At Cincinnati
So why would Eddie Gran – one of Florida State’s top assistant coaches and one of the nation’s best recruiters – leave such a storied program to join Tommy Tuberville at Cincinnati?
“He was the best man at my wedding,” said Gran with a grin.
“I knew I had a chance to hire him because nobody knows him as well as I do,” said Tuberville.
The two coaches met in 1989 when Tuberville was a defensive coach at the University of Miami and Gran was a graduate assistant at East Carolina under defensive backs coach Chuck Pagano.
“We were at a coaching convention in San Francisco and Coach Tuberville was getting ready to go ski,” Gran told me. “They had just won the national championship at Miami and Coach Pagano introduced me to him. I met him and shook his hand and he said, ‘Be there on March the 10th.’ That was the beginning.”
“I raised Eddie from a pup,” said Tuberville. “I’ve seen him grow up from a young man that wanted to coach to becoming one of the better ones in the country. I’m proud to be his friend.”
When Tuberville got his first head coaching job at Ole Miss, he hired Gran to be his running backs coach. After four years there, it was on to Auburn where they coached together for another 10 seasons.
“He taught me what work ethic was, he taught me that technique and fundamentals are the things that win games, and you have to get kids that are smart and willing to work hard,” said Gran. “If you get that combination and have a great work ethic you have a chance. And he taught me to make sure that you treat people the way you want to be treated. It’s not that hard.”
Now Tuberville is giving his long-time assistant his first opportunity to be an offensive coordinator.
“To be a coordinator has always been a dream of mine,” said Gran.
“I’ve watched him grow and work at it and it’s hard to become a coordinator when you’re the running backs coach,” Tuberville told me. “I’ve always told him that you have to know more than just the running backs. So over the last six or seven years, he’s really made himself learn the quarterback position, the offensive line position, and all he needed was somebody to give him a chance. I know what he can do. He works hard and works well with players.”
Tuberville’s confidence in Gran’s ability to make the step to coordinator was evident in the makeup of Cincinnati’s offensive coaching staff.
“I let him hire his coaches,” said Tuberville. “I interviewed them too, but I said, ‘You know these guys…you know what you want to do. You pick ‘em out and we’ll sit down and interview as many as we can.’ He did a good job and they’re working well together. This is all new for him, but he’s excited.
“I told him that the number one thing that he had to do was hire a good quarterback coach and you’ve got to lean on him. Darin Hinshaw (former QB coach at Tennessee) is a good guy and he works well with Eddie and I think it’s going to be a good relationship.”
“He allowed me to hire a staff that I think is as good as any in the country,” said Gran. “It’s a great unit that works well together and we’re all on the same page.”
In addition to coordinating Cincinnati’s offense, Gran will continue to recruit in South Florida.
“I’m in my 28th season and I have not had another recruiting area – ever – at any school,” said Gran. “There are high school head coaches in South Florida now that I recruited when they were players.
“The coaches here will all have a Cincinnati area – all nine of us will have 10 schools in this area. Ohio is where we are going first. But everybody will also go out into other areas, and for me, that will be South Florida.”
“I made him stay in South Florida all of his life and he’s developed a lot of relationships,” said Tuberville. “That goes a long way in recruiting. Eddie has the personality where he can sell, and recruiting is nothing but selling yourself, your school, and your football team. He’s earned a lot of respect from high school coaches because when he takes a player, he takes care of them. He makes sure they get an education number one, treats them fair, and those coaches in South Florida understand that. It’s made him one of the best recruiters that I’ve ever been around.”
Gran is also a man of faith whose life was changed when the third of his four daughters was born in 1999.
“She had a rare brain disease and was given between two and four weeks to live, and she lived almost six years,” said Gran. “It made me a better father, it made me a better husband, and it made me a better coach. I really understood where my priorities were. She gave me and my family the greatest gift that a man could ever have: We all know where we’re going when this life ends. We’re very blessed for that.”
“I remember getting that call from him three or four days after she was born,” said Tuberville. “He said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but she’s not responding.’ I tell you, he and his wife Rosemary were two tough troopers – It’s awfully tough to lose a child. All of the players there at Auburn rallied around him and I think the kids learned a lot from it.”
Eddie and his wife started a charity called The Sydney Gran Foundation to support children’s hospitals and other families whose children are facing serious illness.
“We would like to raise somewhere between 60 and 80 thousand dollars because that would get us up to $500,000 dollars and then it would be endowed forever,” said Gran. “Sometime here, I think we’ll have another fundraiser to try to help out the foundation.”
But for now, Gran is busy getting to know his players…and happy to be reunited with his old boss.
“I was away from Coach Tuberville for four years, and to get back together with him is just fantastic,” said Gran.
“He has a lot of enthusiasm and works well with kids,” said Tuberville. “He’s going to make a great head coach. He’ll be a head coach in a few years and I think this is the next step. He’s interviewed for a lot of head coaching jobs, but he’s been turned down because he’s never made his own calls. Well, now he gets that chance. Let’s see what he can do.”
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Gruden Has Suit But Wants Ring
Last year when I asked Jay Gruden why he turned down opportunities to interview for NFL head coaching jobs after the 2011 season, the Bengals offensive coordinator joked that his reason was sartorial.
“I didn’t have a good coat and tie,” Jay deadpanned at the time.
Clearly clothes are no longer an issue since Gruden interviewed for head coaching positions in Philadelphia, Arizona, San Diego, and Jacksonville in January. And while Jay didn’t get any of the jobs, at least he has a new suit.
“I wore it four times – the same one every time,” Gruden said with a laugh. “It was exciting and flattering that these teams would even think to interview me. It says a lot about our offense and how far we’ve come and Coach Lewis and what people around the league think about what he’s done with his program. It was a great opportunity.
“I knew that it was probably a long-shot. I think that I had good interviews and felt good about the process and if I am ever fortunate enough to have another opportunity, I’ll feel a lot more prepared.”
Now that he’s back for a third season as Cincinnati’s offensive coordinator, Gruden is currently working on two things: Studying skill-position players for the upcoming NFL draft, and reviewing tape of the Bengals from last season.
“We’re very involved as coaches in the draft process, but you also have to take the time to look back at what you did offensively and figure out ways to get better,” said Gruden. “You have to see if you had any tendencies over the course of the year that you have to correct, but overall, you’re trying to find out what your players are good at and what you had trouble with and get things fixed that you need to fix. We definitely feel that we have not reached our full potential on offense, and it’s my job as a coordinator to get it out of them.”
With three of the top 53 picks in the draft, the Bengals are obviously in position to boost an offense that ranked 22nd in the NFL in total yards. So what is at the top of Gruden’s wish list?
“We need another playmaker and we need someone who can take the ball 80 yards on a swing pass, or a hand-off, or what have you,” Jay told me. “A little bit of speed. But we’re pretty good everywhere – we need to take our pretty-good players and turn them into great players, and our great players need to be extraordinary. We just have to keep pushing the envelope and making sure that everybody gets better.”
One thing that the Bengals are not looking for is a new starting quarterback. Andy Dalton has started every game in his first two NFL seasons, led the Bengals to back-to-back playoff appearances, and has tossed 47 TD passes in 32 regular season games. But Gruden says that his 25-year-old QB has plenty to work on.
“In the offseason you work on your arm strength, your footwork – basically your fundamentals of football – and obviously he needs to get better with his deep ball accuracy and touch,” Gruden said. “There’s not really one part of his game that he can’t improve upon. Scramble ability, foot quickness, accuracy, deep accuracy, short (accuracy), anticipation – he’s got a long way to go. He’s done some great things for a second-year quarterback, won a lot of games and thrown a lot of touchdown passes, but we feel that he has not come close to his potential and it’s our job to get it out of him.”
Dalton finished his second season with a passer rating of 87.4, but it dropped to 67.0 in his last six games, and Andy struggled in the playoff loss in Houston going 14-for-30 for 127 yards with 0 TD and 1 INT. That led to a surge in the number of people questioning whether Dalton will ever be good enough to lead Cincinnati to a deep playoff run. Gruden says that he isn’t bothered by the criticism of his quarterback.
“It’s the nature of the position and that’s what he signed up to be,” said Gruden. “He’s getting paid a pretty good chunk of change to be a quarterback, and anytime you sign up to be a quarterback, you have to take the good with the bad. One of the biggest strengths that you have to have as a quarterback is being mentally tough. When things don’t get well, people are going to be all over you. They’re going to boo you; they’re going to want you out of town and your coaches out of town. He has to take that criticism and use it as fuel to make himself better. Hopefully he’s doing that. He’s a very competitive person – as I am – and we’re going to do the best that we can to make this franchise something to be proud of.”
After all, a new suit is nice – but it pales in comparison to a Super Bowl ring.
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Who Were Those Guys?
When Sean Kilpatrick watched footage of Sunday’s lopsided loss at Notre Dame, he felt like he was watching the wrong guys in the Cincinnati uniforms.
“It didn’t look like us at all,” Sean told me. “It didn’t even feel right. Honestly, it didn’t even feel like I had a Bearcat jersey on – it just felt like I had a shirt on.”
The Bearcats only scored 41 points – their lowest total in Mick Cronin’s seven years as head coach – and JaQuon Parker was the only Cincinnati player to finish in double digits with 12. Kilpatrick scored a season-low 6 points, and Cashmere Wright failed to score for only the second time in his last 113 games.
“We’ve really played one bad game this year,” said Coach Cronin. “Our three best players average 41 points a game and they got 18. When that happens, you’re going to be in trouble.
“We need to get our main guys healthy and playing well because they’re the answer. I get a lot of questions about production from Cheikh Mbodj, or David Nyarsuk, or this guy or that guy – we have to make sure that we’re getting Cash, JaQuon, and SK open and getting the ball where they can make plays for us. That’s the answer. For every team in basketball – high school, college, or pro – your best players have to play well or you’re not going to win. So that’s my focus. I have to do everything that I can to help them play well.”
Kilpatrick’s scoring ability is especially vital to Cincinnati’s success. Sean is averaging 19.4 points in the Bearcats’ wins this year, but only 13.6 in their losses. The junior guard is fourth in the Big East in scoring at 17.6 per game, despite being the focal point of every opponent’s defensive scouting report.
“It can be frustrating but then again, I like it,” said Kilpatrick. “It’s making me a better player and it means that people respect me for what I do on the court. But it’s tough. It’s one of the hardest things that I’ve ever had to overcome because this is the highest level of basketball that I’ve ever played and to have two or three guys guarding you is really difficult.”
Despite the constant defensive harassment, Kilpatrick has managed to deliver. This week, Sean was named one of 30 candidates for the 2013 Naismith College Player of the Year award and ESPN’s Jay Bilas selected Kilpatrick among his six “most clutch players” in college basketball.
(You can watch the Bilas clip here: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:8989382)
“That’s a strong statement coming from someone like him,” Sean told me. “I thank my team for that because they put me in those types of situations where I have the ball at the end of games. I just try to make the right plays and whatever is open is open.”
After dropping five of their last six games, the Bearcats are desperately in need of a win on Saturday vs. UConn to solidify their hold on a NCAA Tournament berth. But Kilpatrick says he is not the least bit concerned with “bubble” talk.
“All we can control is what happens in the next game and that’s what we’re focusing on,” said Kilpatrick. “We’re not worrying about the tournament or anything like that.
“We know exactly what we’re capable of. When things aren’t going right, a lot of people aren’t going to be behind us, but we have each other and that’s the best thing about this team.”
Hopefully, we’ll all recognize the guys in the Cincinnati uniforms on Saturday.
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Night And Day Difference For Frazier
I have urgent breaking news about Reds third baseman Todd Frazier.
Fans at Great American Ball Park will not be hearing the same two Frank Sinatra songs (“Fly Me To The Moon” and “Come Fly With Me”) when he steps to the plate in 2013.
“I’m still going to have ‘Fly Me To The Moon,’ but I’m also going to have another song,” Frazier told me on 700 WLW. “I can’t really tell you what it’s going to be right now, because I’m in the midst of choosing from a couple.”
Are we talking about another Sinatra tune or might Frazier be considering a different legend from his home state of New Jersey like Bruce Springsteen?
“I like him too, but I don’t get as relaxed and as fired up as I do when I listen to Frank,” said Frazier.
You’ve got to love a 27-year-old major league baseball player who gets fired up listening to Francis Albert Sinatra.
The most appropriate Sinatra classic for Frazier to add as a walk-up tune might be ‘Night and Day’ because Todd’s role with the Reds going into this season is as different as night and day from where it was a year ago.
Last season, Frazier led the Reds during spring training in HR (5) and RBI (15) only to get sent to Triple-A Louisville one day before the season opener when the team claimed pitcher Alfredo Simon off of waivers.
“It was tough and I’d be lying to you if I said that it wasn’t,” said Frazier. “Not many people get to experience something like that. I’m just lucky to have family and friends behind me that helped me understand that it was not the end of the world. They said, ‘You’re going to get called up and you’ve got to believe that.’ I certainly did.”
The call-up came in 13 days and Frazier spent the rest of the season in Cincinnati, batting .273 (.331 OBP/.498 SLG) with 19 HR and 67 RBI to finish third in the National League Rookie of the Year vote.
“I was certainly disappointed that we didn’t make it farther in the playoffs, but for me personally, I was happy with my season,” said Frazier. “I thought that I could have done better, but at the same time, for my first season I thought that I did pretty well.”
So well, that he’s not fighting for a job this spring. Even before Scott Rolen retired, the Reds made it clear that Frazier would be their primary third baseman this season.
“I went into spring training last year and put a little pressure on myself because you want to be ‘that guy’ and get up to the big leagues,” Frazier told me. “But for me this year, everything is good. I’m happy and I’m more comfortable understanding that I do have that job. It feels good to even hear that come out of people’s voices. I can’t wait – it’s going to be fun.”
Frazier’s expanded role with the team goes beyond the field as he’s been named the captain of the Reds Heads Kids Club featuring autograph sessions and other members-only experiences for fans that are 14-and-younger.
“I remember when I was young, I sent letters to famous people and tried to get as many autographs as I could and I know how it feels,” said Frazier. “I might have sent out about 15 to 20 letters. I had this book that had everybody’s name and address in it. It was pretty silly to think about it now. I only got one back. I can’t remember all of the people that I sent letters to, but I remember Cal Ripken sending something back.
“I think that giving back to little ballplayers like that is pretty cool. I can’t wait to see them happy and excited and to be the face of the ‘Kid’s Club’ this year is pretty exciting.”
Perhaps he can even get the Reds youngest fans to start listening to Sinatra.
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Dan Hoard
