FanHouse Brian Kelly

CINCINNATI -- Cincinnati senior Tony Pike is rated as the third-best NFL quarterback prospect by NFLDraftScout.com. He likely will make a fine NFL quarterback one day.

Yet, the No. 4-ranked Bearcats are better off without him.

Last season, Pike led the Bearcats to their first Big East title. This year, he led Cincinnati to a 5-0 start before he re-injured his left (non-throwing) arm – the arm he broke last season.

Pike, who had missed the past 2½ games, was cleared to play Saturday against UConn, but he never left the bench. He should stay there the rest of the season.

That's because sophomore Zach Collaros is smokin' hot.

Just three weeks ago, we called Pittsburgh the Pitts-ophrenic Panthers after their up-and-down performances earlier this season against Buffalo, N.C. State, Louisville and UConn.

Uh, is it too late to take that all back?

As impressive as Cincinnati has been all season, Pittsburgh might be playing the best overall of any Big East team. The offense is balanced and the defense gets more dominating each week. Saturday, the Panthers (7-1, 4-0 Big East) scorched South Florida 41-14.

Since allowing 505 yards at N.C. State, the Panthers have improved their defensive numbers in each of the past four games. Pitt allowed 305 yards to Louisville on Oct. 2, 303 to UConn on Oct. 10, 286 to Rutgers on Oct. 16 and 212 to USF on Saturday.

CINCINNATI -- A few days ago, a former long-time resident of the Queen City was asked if he ever could have imagined that the University of Cincinnati's football team would overshadow the Bearcats' tradition-rich basketball program.

Without hesitation, Bob Huggins replied: "Not in my lifetime."

These are strange days indeed in Cincinnati, where the football team -- not the basketball program -- is a legitimate national title contender.

On Saturday, coach Brian Kelly's big, bad Bearcats kept steamrolling through the Big East with a 41-10 seal-clubbing of Louisville in the battle for the Keg of Nails.

TAMPA, Fla. -- Defensive coordinator Joe Tresey said he never saw it coming.

A couple of months after Cincinnati won the Big East title and played in the Orange Bowl and just days after National Signing Day in February, Tresey was fired by Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly. Tresey had spent the past three seasons as Kelly's defensive coordinator -- one year at Central Michigan and the past two seasons at Cincinnati.

"Yes I was surprised," Tresey told FanHouse. "I think it was over a 3-to-4 day period [that he talked with Kelly]. We had a discussion about going to the 3-4 [defense]."

Sources told FanHouse that Kelly's decision was based on Tresey interviewing for the Miami defensive coordinator position after last season. Tresey basically had the job locked up, but insisted on coaching UM's defensive backs. Miami coach Randy Shannon wanted Tresey assisting with another position and that ended up being a deal breaker, sources said.

If there's a recession in college football, it has yet to reach the coaching ranks. Well, not the head-coaching ranks, anyway. In the past week, three head coaches, Bob Stoops, Pat Fitzgerald, and Brian Kelly, have signed contract extensions that will keep them at their present jobs for a while longer.

We start at Oklahoma, where Bob Stoops is now signed through the 2015 season. Despite several big-bowl bloopers, the people in and around the Oklahoma program are happy with their head coach, and who can blame them? In addition to the extension, Stoops also gets a $250,000 raise to $3.675 million a year, plus $700,000 each July if he remains at OU. If he doesn't stay, they are so defriending him.

The Orange Bowl already has one team locked up -- again, the anti-climatic downside of the BCS Selection Show -- because Virginia Tech beat Boston College for the ACC championship and guaranteed themselves a spot in the Orange Bowl.

The thing that stinks for fans of this game is that the Orange Bowl gets the last pick of all the BCS games, meaning that they get the "leftovers." That's not to take a shot at Cincy, who did win the Big East ... which, um, is somehow worse than the ACC.

On the bright side, the two worst major conferences do get to play each other, so we'll know by the beginning of 2009 which conference really was the most mediocre this past season.

Cincinnati did lose two games -- albeit one to Oklahoma -- and theoretically took care of business.

However, the Bearcats will likely be in trouble come New Year's Day, when whatever analysts FOX assigns to this game will suffocate their ability to perform by reminding them that they have to go head-to-head with "BEAMER BALL!" for four quarters. And when people yell that at you for 60-plus minutes of football, even from the booth, it's a total nightmare.

There was a ton of speculation this week that Charlie Weis, after meeting with his boss on December 8, might be out as the head coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Of course, that didn't stop Weis from telling potential recruits that he would still be in charge of the football team.

Turns out ... he was right.

Sources have told Irish Eyes that athletic director Jack Swarbrick will publicly announce, most likely within the next 24 hours, that Weis will be back for his fifth season in South Bend.

There has been some uncertainty about Weis' future since the 38-3 loss to USC, but it appears Swarbrick will be sticking behind Weis.

"Uncertainty" is a nice way of putting it I suppose; it seemed almost guaranteed that there would at least be some sort of ultimatum put on Weis regarding win totals in the future, at the very least.

But there's been no official word of that and presumably, Sportscenter's reporting of this information can count as "confirmation", right? (Assuming, of course, that Scoop Mortensen isn't behind this story, in which case Weis is almost assuredly fired.)

The fact of the matter is that it would be incredibly difficult for the Irish to actually let Weis go given the, ahem, weight of his contract, and the best case scenario -- with potential replacements Skip Holtz, Tom O'Brien and Brian Kelly all staying put -- seems to be letting the big man ride out his whale of deal.

While the product on the field might be pretty good this year for the Cincinnati Bearcats, I have to say that this advertisement for Cincinnati season tickets is a new low in music even remotely associated with football. I don't think anything this bad has been produced since San Diego Super Chargers came out in the 70's. I guess it is understandable, though. They did build that new all sports facility, and have done their best to keep Brian Kelly as head coach. But apparently, that left like 25 cents and a bag of donuts for the advertising department.



WOOOOOOOOO! The claws are out Cincinnati!

Along with 21 other College Football Stars, Pat White is going to write a weekly article for Sporting News Today.

White is among 22 college football players who will write weekly columns in Sporting News Today, the nation's first digital daily sports section. The players will cover topics on the field and off it, from the big game of the week to the life of a student-athlete.

It's not exactly a ground breaking move, as pro athletes like Chris Cooley have written for national publications and Cincinnati head coach Brian Kelly wrote a daily blog during summer camp last year. A blog that was remarkably honest and informative. But these are amateur athletes that have been trained to give canned responses to questions since they were put in front of reporters. So it will be interesting to see how many come out of their box. I think we've seen that with White and he can be quite entertaining when he wants to be.

Also of interest will be the weeks that have these budding journalist facing each other on the field. White has four future opponents on that list including Hunter Cantwell of Louisville, George Hypolite of Colorado, Sen'Derrick Marks of Auburn, and Scott McKillop of hated rival Pitt. If the smack talk is flowing at all, those last two could be epic!

Hear that? It's the pitter-patter of fantasy football season approaching. Fantasy FanHouse is here to get you ready by previewing every team from a fantasy perspective.

Meet The ...
Adam Sandler movie of the NFL: always entertaining, yet never really winning anything notable. Whether it's drafting a WR in three consecutive first rounds (slapstick/unrealistic comedy like Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore), putting together a highly productive offense in terms of fantasy football (funny, yet quasi-legit Big Daddy or Wedding Singer? Maybe?), or guaranteeing ten wins ("I'm gonna go legit with Spanglish!"); you'll always be entertained and they'll always avoid the playoffs. This year is no different. The former laughingstock of a division is now somewhat of a powerhouse, and the Lions are still a step behind even the obviously third-best Bears. If you want entertainment, though, they won't disappoint.

The Breakout
Calvin Johnson is ready to take the next step after becoming acclimated to the NFL in his rookie season. I love it when people proclaim a rookie to have freaky mad skills and then if he doesn't perform to expectations he's an afterthought one year later. That's a year of experience, man. Never a bad thing. He's ready to make the leap into fantasy stud-dom. You'll see.