Final Huddle: Cincinnati Bearcats Football Beats Bowling Green to Break Six-Game Losing Streak

 Cincinnati rolled over the Bowling Green State Falcons 34-20 on Saturday afternoon to get its first win of the season and snap a six-game losing streak dating back to last year.

Brendan Sorsby brought it with his arm early and often, passing for 333 yards and three touchdowns on 71% completion to ignite life into that part of his game after just 69 yards passing and touchdowns through the air against Nebraska. It marked his third 300-yard passing game at Cincinnati and second such outing without an interception.

Cincinnati is now 1-4 all-time against the Falcons after their first meeting since 1994. UC did see star defensive tackle Dontay Corleone suffer what looked like a foot or ankle injury, but it was a strong day all around for the Bearcats.

Let's dive into the Final Huddle from Cincinnati's first win of the season.

Passing Points

Getting Brendan Sorsby on track with his arm is the top thing to fix before facing Kansas on the road in two weeks, and things are trending the right way after his BG outing.

Sorsby wasn't fully dialed in with his accuracy, but worked through his progressions much better this week and dialed up a bunch of different targets for catches. All in all, he logged a 7-of-7 completion mark on passes of 15-plus yards after going 0-3 on that front in the 20-17 loss to Nebraska.

Joe Royer (two catches for 104 yards) got to display some of his added explosiveness in this game with a career-long 73-yard catch to set up an eventual Jeff Caldwell (five catches, 109 yards, one score) TD catch. Caldwell was not a factor last week, but he made plenty of hay on Saturday and looks to be a nice complement to Cyrus Allen (three catches, 45 yards, two touchdowns) as UC's top target.

Allen nearly led Cincinnati in receiving targets once again (five) and is forming a formidable connection with Sorsby as an option UC canmove all around its formations. His impact helped open things back up for Royer over the middle after nearly half a season's worth of games with him bottled up.

UC dropped in some nice route designs that Royer took advantage of in the best shape he's been in at UC.

Corleone Dinged Up, Run Defense Reels

The biggest news of all from Saturday's game was a lower-body injury to Dontay Corleone that knocked Cincinnati's best player out of the game in the first half.

UC's defense held up okay without him, but the run defense lagged a bit compared to last week, albeit with most of the big gains coming on the outside, where Corleone would have less of an impact. BGSU ran for 121 yards across four yards per carry on the day to help put together some longer drives here and there, but the quarterback play was never good enough across the whole game to get them close on the scoreboard

Drew Pyne (29-of-36, 274 yards, one score) was mediocre again, like he has been for most of the past three seasons, up until the second half, where he led BG to 7.4 yards per play in the third quarter. BGSU never threatened enough with their passing attack more than 10 yards downfield, and it helped Cincinnati stuff a key 4th & 2 late in the third quarter to leave no doubt what the result would be. Still, Pyne finished with a 153.7 passer rating, about 50 points higher than he's averaged over the past three seasons.

Cincinnati essentially has a bye week next Saturday when Northwestern State comes to town. A team that just had to forfeit against Minnesota in a 66-0 loss. Corleone can take the full next two weeks to get healthy if needed before the Big 12 gauntlet begins in Lawrence, Kansas.

A quick shoutout to Jake Golday (14 tackles, one sack), who's been all over the field through two weeks. He posted a second-straight outing with 10-plus tackles and a sack. The athletic marvel has taken a leap in his football acumen over the past six months, and it's showing on the field in a big way.

Special Teams Stays Sound

Cincinnati's glaring issues on special teams from a year ago have not surfaced much at all through two games. UC is yet to miss a kick from Stephen Rusnak so far this season after he hit all of his extra points and another two field goals on Saturday.

On the flip side, Max Fletcher only had to boot two punts thanks to an efficient offensive day, averaging 56 yards a punt on those booms. Both of which were clinically covered down the field with immediate tackles.

Cincinnati didn't bust through for any big return gains in this one, but they took all the breathing room given to them and didn't have any mistakes on that front cost any field position. The Bearcats' defense went through some rough patches on Saturday afternoon amidst the big injury, but the impact on offense and special teams was enough to never have the result seem in doubt.

Next up is Northwestern State at home next Saturday afternoon, kicking off at 3:30 p.m. ET on ESPN+.