Cincinnati playing to win vs. Louisville in awkward, narrative-rich Fenway Bowl -

CINCINNATI — Kerry Coombs likes to tell stories. So when someone asked the Bearcats’ interim coach about playing a football game inside Fenway Park, Coombs quickly flipped through the back pages of his childhood.

“So 1975, I’m a young kid, right? I was 14 years old, watching Carlton Fisk do this,” says Coombs, excitedly pantomiming the former Red Sox catcher famously directing his home run ball into fair territory to win Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. “Against my Big Red Machine. I remember that explicitly. I remember the couch I was sitting on watching that play. I’ve never been to Fenway Park, never seen a baseball game there. I’ve seen it on TV. I think it’s really cool. I think we’re all pretty excited about that.”

Coombs has never lacked excitement, which has been on full display while preparing the Cincinnati Bearcats to face the Louisville Cardinals in the Wasabi Fenway Bowl on Saturday (11 a.m., ESPN). Coombs was named Cincinnati’s interim coach in the wake of Luke Fickell’s departure to Wisconsin and has remained in charge of bowl practices and game-planning even after Scott Satterfield was hired as the new coach last week.

It’s a tight, two-week turnaround for a bowl game, with Cincinnati cramming in as many practices as possible amid a coaching change and the subsequent roster juggling that followed. But Coombs has tapped into his endless supply of energy and reactivated his head-coaching muscle memory from his days at local Colerain High to prepare the Bearcats, who departed for Boston on Tuesday.

“If you sit down and listen to him for two, three minutes, you’re ready to run through a brick wall,” starting quarterback Evan Prater said after practice Monday. “That’s the type of guy he is.”

Amid some unexpected turbulence for the Cincinnati football program, Coombs and the Bearcats have embraced a bowl game that will feature plenty of interesting and awkward subplots. The inaugural Fenway Bowl will kick off Saturday after the first two iterations were canceled because of COVID-19 in each of the past two seasons. The bowl, slated to host a matchup between the AAC and ACC each December, will feature a football field stuffed inside the baseball dimensions of Fenway Park, including both team benches along the same sideline.

“It’s weird as hell, and I don’t think it’s going to work,” said Jabari Taylor, a sixth-year defensive lineman playing in his final game for Cincinnati. “I’m very interested and excited to see how it goes down.”

The benches will be on the left-field grass, facing away from the famous Green Monster, and the end zones will butt up against the other outfield walls and backstops behind home plate.

Same sideline.

*High-pitched voice* Awkward. pic.twitter.com/d129S1GwfX

— Howie Lindsey (@howielindsey) December 5, 2022

“It’s going to be interesting. Two teams on the same sideline makes me nervous as all get out, but we’re going to handle it,” said Coombs, who also mentioned the team is planning to spend some time in the ballpark and hopefully take batting practice this week. “It’s different, it’s unique, it’s cool. I keep looking at the field, and one corner of the end zone about runs into something. There’s lots of things to think about. … But when you think about all of the great baseball players who have walked out of that tunnel, it ain’t all bad.”

Adding to the gawkiness, of course, is that a day after the bowl matchup was officially announced, Satterfield left Louisville for the Cincinnati job, pitting two teams against each other whose campuses are 90 minutes apart and, in a sense, coached by the same person. It’s why Satterfield has removed himself from any bowl prep since his hiring last Monday and won’t be attending the game. But that won’t change the narrative.

“I know it’s mad awkward,” Taylor said.

Running as an undercurrent to all of that is the revival of the Keg of Nails rivalry between Cincinnati and Louisville, which was last played in 2013. The rivalry, as the legend goes, started in 1929 between a pair of fraternities looking to settle which football team was “tough as nails.” Saturday will mark the 54th meeting between the sides in a matchup that spanned the Missouri Valley Conference, Conference USA, the old Big East and one year in the AAC. Cincinnati holds the all-time series lead at 30-22-1, but Louisville won the two most recent games with overtime victories in 2012 and 2013. The winning team gets to claim a literal keg of nails, adorned with logos for both teams. Satterfield said the Cardinals managed to track down the keg at the home of one of their equipment managers, and Louisville will bring it to the Fenway Bowl.

The rivalry no longer resonates as much for the current players, with most of both rosters in grade school the last time the teams squared off. Yet it means something to the fan bases and to Coombs, who grew up in Cincinnati and was previously an assistant with the Bearcats from 2007 to 2011. He has made sure to educate his players over the past two weeks.

“The whole conversation was about which team was tough as nails. That’s where the Keg of Nails came from, and it’s been around for a long time. We made sure they understood,” Coombs said. “If the contest is going to be who’s tough as nails, then let’s go find out. That’s what our kids pride themselves on. It’s a really cool rivalry.

“I think they genuinely feel that, like there is something there. It’s just another cool piece to what is otherwise a really, really weird environment.”

Storylines and all, the deficiencies endemic to many of these lower-tier bowl games have only been amplified as both teams work through head-coaching transitions: bare-bones staffs, transfer portal departures and opt-outs for the NFL Draft. Cincinnati is expected to be without four assistants for the Fenway Bowl: defensive coordinator Mike Tressel, offensive coordinator Gino Guidugli, safeties coach Colin Hitschler and receivers coach Mike Brown. First-year tight ends coach Nate Letton will handle offensive play-calling duties for the Bearcats, with help from offensive line coach Mike Cummings and running backs coach Darren Paige. It’s even more of a skeleton crew for the Cardinals, who anticipate having only three full-time assistants for the bowl game, according to On3.

Both squads have double-digit players in the transfer portal — including Louisville offensive lineman Luke Kandra, who already committed to his hometown Bearcats for next season — and have had notable opt-outs. Cincinnati receiver Tre Tucker and tight ends Josh Whyle and Leonard Taylor have announced their intentions to skip the bowl game and enter the draft, and the same goes for Louisville quarterback Malik Cunningham, running back Tiyon Evans and cornerback Kei’Trel Clark. Prater will start his second straight game at quarterback for UC, taking over for previous starter Ben Bryant, who remains sidelined by a foot injury suffered against Temple.

Still, the Bearcats aren’t treating the game as an exhibition or showcase for a new coach next season, with several seniors, such as Jabari Taylor, linebacker Wil Huber, cornerback Arquon Bush, safety Ja’Von Hicks and running back Charles McClelland, all set to play.

“We’re going up there to win the game,” Coombs said Monday. “I talked to those veteran kids, and why else would they be here to play in this game? They are coming to honor the Cincinnati Bearcats with their efforts and how they play, honor the last few years.”

Huber is chief among them, a sixth-year senior who originally committed to Cincinnati under Tommy Tuberville, then recommitted to Fickell and has played tight end and linebacker throughout his career. The son of former Bearcats tight end Daryl Huber, Wil said he never considered sitting out the bowl game.

“I started this a long time ago, and I wanted to finish it the right way,” Huber said. “Other guys have their own decisions to make, and I completely respect that, but for my part, I wanted to play this game, finish with my brothers, and hopefully finish my career with a win.”

Saturday will officially mark the end of a remarkable and historically successful run for Cincinnati football under Fickell, who departs after six seasons as the winningest coach in school history, having led the Bearcats to two AAC titles and five bowl games, including the 2020 Peach Bowl and 2021 Cotton Bowl, the latter as part of an unprecedented run to the College Football Playoff last season. Come Sunday, the Bearcats will embark on a new era, in a new conference, under a new coach. It will be a season of change. But for players like Huber and Jabari Taylor — who were there for the entirety of Fickell’s tenure and resurrection of the program — they would prefer to end the previous era on a victorious note.

“I’ve grown so much as a man, as a person, off the field just as much as on the field,” Huber said. “I’m incredibly grateful for the last six years. They’ve been the best six years of my life, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

(Photo of Jabari Taylor: Katie Stratman / USA Today)

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