The University of Cincinnati Bearcats (1-0, 1-0 C-USA) football team will play the West Virginia University (WVU) Mountaineers (1-1) this Saturday night at Nippert Stadium with a 7:00 p.m. ET kick off. There is no TV coverage, the radio broadcast is on 700 WLW (Dan Hoard, Jim Kelly & Scott Springer) and is simulcast on the school web site WWW.UCBEARCATS.com for the out-of-towners. Come to Cattitude on the Commons which is a pregame picnic beginning at 4:00 pm on the Sigma Sigma Commons north of Nippert Stadium. WLW is having a pregame broadcast from Christy's/Lenhardt's Saturday afternoon from 4 to 6. The first 10,000 fans entering this game will receive a free football t-shirt of Buddy Lee wearing an old fashioned football uniform, courtesy of Lee Jeans/Pepsi, get there early. If you're a betting man UC is a 5-6 point favorite over WVU at the time of this publication. WVU will try to end a 7-game regular-season road losing streak that dates back to 12/27/2000 when the Mountaineers won the Music City Bowl 49-38 over Mississippi. West Virginia is 1-1; they clobbered division I-AA Tennessee-Chattanooga (UTC) 56-7 while scoring on 6 of 7 attempts from the red zone in their season opener. Then they lost to #22 Wisconsin (UW) 34-17 last week. The Mountaineers were losing 34-3 at the half as UW cruised to 16 first downs, 173 yards passing, and 27 points in the 2nd quarter to blow the game wide open. Wisconsin head coach Barry Alvarez said he ran it up the middle virtually the whole second half to keep from embarrassing WVU. Most of the Mountaineers offensive stats came in the 2nd half against the Badgers 2nd and 3rd team players. WVU is 12th (479.5 YPG) in the nation in total offense because of the huge UTC numbers and the inconsequential 2nd half numbers versus UW. Does this sound familiar, a sophomore QB, Rasheed Marshall, who uses a no-huddle spread offense and has 3 senior receivers to throw to, leads WVU. Rasheed is more of an athletic slasher/runner at QB (see George Murray) who came to WVU from the same Brashear High School in Pittsburgh as Major Harris, a famous WVU alum that was a Heisman candidate. He had a big game against Division II Tennessee-Chattanooga as expected, but against Wisconsin, Rasheed was very inconsistent and struggled early against the Badger 1st team defense. WVU's no-huddle offense should have been called no-good. The Mountaineers looked confused and never seemed to gain an advantage from the no-huddle (see UC vs. TCU). Rasheed is a skillful runner also who runs the option also. WVU has some good skill players that their coaches try to catch you off guard with to get the 1-on-1 match-ups they want. The Mountaineers feature Avon Cobourne at RB who is a smallish runner who has the moves to make defenders miss while showing tremendous strength for a runner of his size. The UC defenders must contain him with pursuit on every run. Avon was held to 40 yards on 17 carries until he broke a 39-yarder with 1:20 left against UW. His 118 YPG average was 2nd in the Big East last year. Avon was the WVU 2001 MVP after his 3rd consecutive 1,000-yard season. Avon has 3,640 yards and needs 447 to break the WVU record of 4,086 set by Amos Zereoue (who is in his 4th season with the Pittsburgh Steelers). AC is 3rd in career rushing TD's at WVU with 28 and has been ranked in the top 30 nationally 3 straight years. Avon will be making house calls and UC's defense is not buying! AC will play at the next level The Bearcats will put a big emphasis on stopping the run and forcing them to pass, testing Marshall's arm again, as Wisconsin did. WVU's defense is the new 3-3 stack with 3 down lineman, 3 linebackers, and 5 DB type positions to give them a chance to improve one of the worst defenses in the nation against the run last year when they used the 8-man front. Last year WVU was ranked #1 in the nation in pass defense (136.7 ypg) but were one of the worst against the run so they made the change. WVU had 4 guys' in double figures for tackles in the Wisconsin game. UC is 3-3 in its last six games against the Big East, time for win number 4. UC 38 WVU 21.

HEAD COACH

Rich Rodriguez (West Virginia '86) now coaching for whom he played, he lettered 3 years at WVU while playing in 3 bowl games from 82-84. Coach Rodriguez has a 4-9 record at WVU while his career numbers are 49-45-2. He was 43-28-2 at Glenville State and 2-8 at Salem College. He coached 7 years at Glenville State; taking them to 4 conference titles and a 2nd place finish in the 1993 NAIA playoffs. He also served as offensive coordinator at Tulane (1997-98) and Clemson (1999-2000) where he made his name putting up some big numbers. His only year at Tulane produced a 12-0 record with big numbers from QB Shaun King. At Clemson, Woody Dantzler led his spread offense to even bigger numbers and a 9-3 record. This is his first game against UC.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

2 Rasheed Marshall, So. QB -- The Wisconsin game was only his 2nd

college start is a multi-purpose-type player who can run and pass well, very athletic. Rasheed was Big East Offensive Player of the Week versus UTC. He had 76 yards on 18 carries versus UW.

22 Avon Cobourne, Sr. SB -- He rushed 18 times for 79 yards, 1 TD, and 3 receptions for 18 yards against Wisconsin. Avon has 19 career 100+ yardage games, last year he had 169 yards and a 60-yard TD at Notre Dame and rushed for 132 yards at #1 Miami. Last year Avon ranked 15th in the nation in rushing. He could be just the 5th Division I-A running back to rack up 1,000 yards in each of his four seasons, wow.

48 Jahmile Addae, So. DB -- Was the team's top tackler against the Badgers with 13 stops.

7 Angel Estrada, Sr. DB -- Led WVU against UTC with 11 tackles, 8 solo. High energy defender, always in pursuit.

95 David Upchurch, Sr. DT -- A three-year starter, is a no-nonsense technician who recorded 66 tackles and 14 TFL last season.

12 A.J. Nastasi, Sr. WR -- Mountaineers leading receiver with 42 catches for 334 yards last year.

6 Grant Wiley, Sr. LB -- Is a 3 year starter who was the 2000 Big east Rookie of the Year who averaged 10 tackles/game last year in a injury plagued season. At Wisconsin he had 11 tackles. Last year he had 22 versus Syracruse.

83 Miquelle Henderson, So. WR -- He had 5 catches for 106 yards against Wisconsin, his 1st 100+ yardage game.

1 James Davis, Sr. LB -- He had 12 tackles versus Wisconsin, very active in the loss.

DID YOU KNOW

* West Virginia dominates the football series with UC, it leads 10-0-1, UC has never beaten them, the last time the teams played in Cincinnati WVU won 51-13 with Reggie Rembert scoring 3 times. Mike B. was/will probably be watching.

* The WVU mascot carries around an antique musket during games and fires it if they score, last week Wisconsin initially told them no way but later deferred. UC said he could bring it but no firing, something about a WVU fan running around with a loaded gun and Coach Huggins being in attendance.

* LaDaris Vann needs 1 catch to set the UC record 33 consecutive games with a reception that he is shared now with Jason Stargell. *The nationally televised UC/TCU game drew a seven share from the Nielsen rating system which translates loosely into 12.5 million viewers who watched at least five minutes of the game, this was a very good rating for an ESPN broadcast football game.

* WVU's last opponent, Wisconsin, had it's game at UNLV called with 7:41 left in the 4th quarter due to a power outage at Sam Boyd Stadium. If were up, I know where the switch is. *WVU's opening crowd of 54,455 was its largest since 1998 when 68,409 saw them play the #1 Ohio State Buckeyes. *WVU is 11-and-0 when they score 30 points or more. *A WVU fan has produced an "Avon Cobourne for Hesiman Trophy" web site. I guess they needed something to replace the "Here Comes Huggins" site.

* In an effort to boost WVU's student attendance for their opening game against UTC, Head coach Rodriguez left a taped message on the telephones of all WVU freshmen living in the dormitories, now that's marketing. *UC is one of 5 opponents for WVU this season that had the week off prior to their match-up with WVU, nice scheduling.