Cincinnati Bearcat running back, Gerrid Doaks made the most of his 10 carries for 20 yards. Three of the carries were across the goal line defended by the Austin Peay Governors in a 55-20 season-opening win.
Doaks also caught a touchdown pass from Desmond Ritter to lead the Bearcats against their FCS opponents from Clarksville, Tennessee.
Cincinnati took the opening kickoff and drove it down the field 74 yards in five plays ending with a 32-yard pass from Ritter to Tre Tucker.
Austin Peay took the kickoff after touchdown and drove to the Bearcats 13 before the drive stalled.
The halftime score was 28-6 after Doaks scored on one-yard runs twice and a two-yard plunge.
"It has been a long time since I've had that many carries and a chance to get the ball and take control," Doaks said.
Austin Peay kicked a field goal after a 63-yard drive in 15 plays to open the scoring in the second half.
""We won the toss and kicked off. They came right down and scored. Our offense came right back. It was 28-6 or something like that. We had a chance to get them off the field and we had a chance to play with a top 15 team," interim coach Marquase Lovings said.
Instead, Doaks took a 32-yard pass from Ridder into the endzone.
The Bearcats broke the game open after that with another score, a two-yard run by Jerome Ford and a 40-yard scamper by backup quarterback Ben Bryant.
"We wanted to get him out there with the score closer," Cincinnati coach Luke Fickel said. "We wanted him to know we have confidence in him. We're not afraid to put him in at any time during a game."
Austin Peay then scored off Cincinnati's substitutes.
In between Peay touchdowns, Bryant hit Cincinnati LaSalle grad, Josh Whyle with an eight-yard strike.
"I give Austin Peay credit. They came after us. We hoped they would," Fickel said. "There is only one way to learn and that's by making mistakes. I told the threes and fours, I don't care what mistakes you make as long as they play hard and are aggressive."
Lovings sought lessons for his team also.
"As a competitor you don't like to give up 55 points two weeks in a row."
Pittsburgh beat them 55-0 last week.
"We are playing top 15 teams in Pittsburgh and the team we played today," Lovings said. "It shows us what we need to work on if we're giving our best. If we're not giving our best, then why not."
The Covid has been hard on both teams. Cincinnati will have a full schedule but Austin Peay will be shut down for the fall and will play a spring schedule instead.
The Governors will take a week off to concentrate on academic study. Then the will have two eight week sessions in which they will do weight training and social skills training. The team will get instructions on dealing with police, when to have an insurance card for instance. They will be instructed on how to register to vote. Then will have four weeks to prepare for games in the spring.
The game today had just parents in the stands. The band stood in the stands off one corner of the end zone with plenty of room between members.
"It was definitely weird not having fans but want you had a few plays, I won't say it was like practice but I was really able to focus<" Doaks said. "It was weird though."
Cincinnati will take on Army at Nippert next Saturday at 3:30 pm.
No comments:
Post a Comment