Let's be real, we all knew at some point Cincinnati was going to pull away. I thought maybe we'd see a little more fire and competitiveness like we did for three quarters at Temple and the first half against Houston, but I guess not. It did feel like the balloon completely deflated when it was quickly 21-0 in favor of the Bearcats. At that point it was going through the motions on defense.
The University of Cincinnati is north of downtown, buffered by a heavily-depressed, run-down area. You wouldn't feel very safe going just a block south of the campus edge.
It's an old city campus. It was okay, nothing awe-inspiring but not bad either. Old buildings mixed in with new. The stadium is situated on the southern edge, not far from their other athletic facilities.
Nippert Stadium reopened this season after undergoing a nearly two-year renovation. The main change being the new pressbox/suites tower with club seating. The rest of the stadium (which is sunk down into the ground) was basically unchanged. From what I saw of the tower, it seemed pretty nice though obviously I didn't see the suites/club area.
It blends in seamlessly with the rest of the campus. You exit one academic building, turn a corner and all of a sudden you're inside the stadium. On game day to keep out non-paying fans, they use quite a few metal barricades to herd people into makeshift gates.
As a noon game, it was a late-arriving crowd. Average crowd. Not packed. The student section was maybe half full, and there were wide swaths of empty seats on the east side (including nearly entire sections). The announced number was 30,131. A sellout would have been 39,000 or so. I'm guessing maybe 25,000 at its peak, hard to say.
Of course, it really emptied out after halftime with the score being so lopsided. Most of the students left. Being Halloween, many students and fans wore costumes as evident by the photos I posted yesterday.
I'm sure the atmosphere wasn't indicative of what it could be.
During the game, UC President Santa Ono just strolled by on the UCF sideline wearing jeans, sneakers and a UC windbreaker. You could have easily mistaken him for a random fan who won field passes.
Their P/A announcer sounds exactly like Paul Porter of Orlando Magic fame.
I have now attended games in every AAC venue other than Navy. Cincinnati would be in the upper tier with ECU. It's hard to rank them based on atmosphere because past UCF games at Houston, Memphis, SMU, Temple, Tulane, Tulsa, etc. totally lacked atmosphere with a dearth of fans.
Miami University Side Trip
On Friday, I made the short 40-minute drive northwest to Miami University (the real Miami) located in Oxford, Ohio, a stone's throw from the Indiana border. Totally different from UC. It's a true college town with a beautiful campus setting. Many moons ago Robert Frost had this to say about Miami: "The most beautiful campus that ever there was." They really want you to know that too - it's on banners all over campus.
There's a quaint downtown just steps off campus with a variety of shops, restaurants, bars, etc.
I peeked inside the basketball arena - UCF will actually play here on Saturday, Nov. 28. Millett Hall opened in 1968 and I don't think it's changed very much. It's got a definitely old-school feel from the lobby to the seating and even the bathrooms. And carpet! The seating area was entirely carpet-lined. One wing of the expansive lobby features the Hall of Fame, which amounts to large black & white photographs of inductees.
The football venue - Yager Stadium - is steps away. The Redhawks (formerly the Redskins) beat Buffalo here on Thursday night. The stadium was locked up, unfortunately. You can see they take their "Cradle of Coaches" moniker very seriously as evident by the giant banner and statues.
John Harbaugh was the latest statue addition. From a MU press release:
The statue of Harbaugh joins the existing Cradle of Coaches statues of Earl "Red" Blaik, Paul Brown, Carm Cozza, Paul Dietzel, Wilbur "Weeb" Ewbank, Ara Parseghian, John Pont and Glenn "Bo" Schembechler. The statues honor Miami graduates who have earned recognition as national collegiate or professional coaches of the year, who have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame or the Pro Football Hall of Fame, or whose teams won national collegiate or professional/Super Bowl championships.
Harbaugh's image also will be added to the Cradle of Coaches mural that is on front of the scoreboard on the south end of Yager Stadium.
Harbaugh's image also will be added to the Cradle of Coaches mural that is on front of the scoreboard on the south end of Yager Stadium.
Kate Upton was slumming it on Frontier
I flew home on the Frontier Airlines daily nonstop from CVG. There were a handful of other UCF fans and a couple parents on this particular flight. As it always is on flights to Orlando, the majority seemed to be families heading to Disney World.
I tried to sleep for the two hours or so, so I didn't notice her until the flight landed. A young woman, seated in the first row, turned around a couple times with that look of "I need to get my carry-on" that was located a few rows back because the first bins were dedicated to the crew's usage.
My first thought was she looked familiar. It took a few seconds to make the connection. Attractive in a girl-next-door sort of way - she wasn't glammed up. Minimal makeup, big glasses, hair in a ponytail. I noticed the mole above her lip, which I was pretty sure she has.
Of course, people just jam the aisles as soon as the plane touches down. As soon as I could get in the aisle myself, I retrieved a couple bags for folks in rows 1 and 2, including Upton's. I was 90% sure it was her at that point, but the tag on her carry-on wasn't visible for me to read in the two seconds I grabbed it and handed it over. "Thanks," she said.
Just seeing her body language, you could tell she was trying to keep a low profile. As soon as she got the bag, she made off the plane at a pretty good pace. We actually ended up in the same tram to the main terminal and I took the opportunity to play discreet paparazzi with the purpose of trying to prove to myself later on that it really was Kate Upton. She had been covered up on the plane, but on the tram she disrobed the large shawl which revealed proportions that Kate Upon would possess.
Upon consulting Instagram and Google, Kate Upton was in Lexington yesterday (about an hour away from the Cincinnati airport) to attend the Breeder's Cup. Justin Verlander was with her then, and on Friday when the couple were spotted in NYC. She was flying solo today. She actually grew up in Melbourne, so my guess is she was traveling back home to visit family.
That's probably the most exciting part of the entire trip. Sorry, William Howard Taft.
