Bill Koch

bkoch@enquirer.com

If quarterback Gunner Kiel is as good as his pedigree and background suggest, the UC Bearcats should have a potent passing attack this season because he'll have plenty of quality weapons to throw to.

Kiel was the nation's top quarterback prospect in high school and is the nephew of former Notre Dame quarterback Blair Kiel.

UC coach Tommy Tuberville said this week that his receiver corps is the deepest he has ever had in 18 years as a head coach at Mississippi, Auburn, Texas Tech and now UC.

"I've never had this many," Tuberville said. "Our first year at Texas Tech we were close to this. Of course, that's all they recruited was receivers. We didn't have any DBs or anything else, but we had receivers. Here we were very fortunate to get two junior college guys some in."

Tuberville was referring to Johnny Holton and Casey Gladney, who will provide depth at the position along with Alex Chisum, and starters Max Morrison, Mekale McKay, Chris Moore and Shaq Washington.

"You know that every time you're out there you've got to make big plays," Moore said, "because somebody behind you can make plays, so you're already got to stay on your toes."

The Bearcats also figure to benefit from the return of Chisum, who was redshirted last year with an ankle injury. During his first two years at UC, Chisum caught 28 passes for an average of 15.8 yards and two touchdowns.

"It's good to have more than one guy," Tuberville said. "It's good to have a lot of different weapons. That helps every receiver because they see a lot of zone coverage. We're trying to get them in different positions and different routes. We could leave the same guys out there the whole time. The problem is we're going to get a little tired. So as we go through the year it's going to be good to have We've got pretty much two and a half deep, which gives us an opportunity to keep guys fresh and be able to play them on special teams and get the most out of them as the year goes on.

"We didn't have it last year obviously, but it's something that we've been blessed with to this point. Knock on wood, we can keep them healthy."