If Rick Minter is ahead of anything right now, it is his own schedule. The University of Cincinnati football coach figured 1999 might be lean, but his hour of need is already at hand. It can't get much worse unless the Bearcats are besieged by a plague of locusts or a pack of lawyers. It can't get much worse than Miami 41, UC 0.
People have short memories.
One day you're drinking wine, the next day you're picking grapes. We're not even picking right now. We haven't found the field. Ten months removed from their Humanitarian Bowl triumph, the Bearcats find themselves strangely revisiting Square One. Saturday's blowout was UC's eighth straight of a winless season, their most lopsided loss of an ancient rivalry, and a painful reminder that forward progress is promised to no one in college football.