CINCINNATI - The football offices at the University of Cincinnati are located inside the Shoemaker Center.
That's the same building where the Bearcats play basketball.
While coach Bob Huggins' basketball teams have captured six straight Conference USA titles and consistently are ranked among the nation's Top 25 teams, coach Rick Minter's football program still is seeking its first conference championship, and first national ranking.
And although Cincinnati (7-4) will be playing in back-to-back bowl games for the first time in 51 years today when it meets No. 25 Toledo (9-2) in the Motor City Bowl, Minter's Bearcats receive very little attention - here in the Queen City or nationally.
“It's a perception that's out there that I don't know if we'll ever change,” Minter said. “What we're looking for is more of a co-existence and prominence. We're not going to say, `Let's become a football-only school,' because we're not going to destroy that basketball image and we don't want to.
“We just want to evolve into one of those programs where you think of both football and basketball. When you think of Michigan, do you think of Wolverine football or the Fab Five? I think it's a case of both. At North Carolina, football and basketball co-exist. At UCLA, they co-exist. That's what we want.”
Minter, 47, is completing his eighth season at UC, which lost to Marshall 25-14 in last year's Motor City Bowl. He has one year left on his contract.
Minter, a former defensive coordinator at Notre Dame and Ball State, has 41 victories, second only to Sid Gillman's 50 in Cincinnati history. Minter also has 48 losses, the most of any coach in UC history.
And although he doesn't have the personality of Huggins, and he doesn't win as much, Minter has led the Bearcats to five winning seasons during his tenure.
On top of that, Minter's players graduate. Sixty-seven percent of the players who entered UC in the fall of 1995 have left with their degrees.
“We've become consistently competitive,” athletic director Bob Goin told the Cincinnati Enquirer last month. “We've been in every game. That's a big change from a couple of years ago.
“The growth is coming, I think. It's like everything else. You should learn in your job, know your job and get better at it through experience. That's exactly what Rick has done. He's a fine head coach right now.”
In 1993, the year before Minter succeeded Tim Murphy as UC's coach, Murphy was saddled with a team that had only 59 scholarship players and faced the loss of 19 more in upcoming years because of NCAA sanctions.
Back then, UC's home field at Nippert Stadium was condemned, there was no conference affiliation - Cincinnati was a Division I-A independent - and the football program received little support from the community, although the Bearcats finished 8-3.
This past season, UC averaged 23,055 fans for six home games, the second-highest average in school history. Nippert Stadium has a seating capacity of 35,000.
“This is a consistent program, a program that people enjoy,” Goin said. “I've seen some games at Nippert Stadium that are fun Saturday afternoons, whether it's Indiana or Louisville or Wisconsin or Purdue. I've seen that environment where people have enjoyed the atmosphere, enjoyed the day. That's not done every Saturday, but it's more frequent now than it has been.”
“I remember coming over here to the gym to play basketball when I was in high school,” said junior defensive end Antwan Peek, who grew up 15 minutes from UC's campus. `One day someone opened the door, and I said, `What's that?' They said it was the football office. I said, `Wow, I didn't even know UC had a football program.”
Peek, who played one season of basketball for Huggins as a walk-on, now has become one of the stars of the football team, compiling a school-record 121/2 sacks this season.
Another star is 18-year-old freshman quarterback Gino Guidugli, the team's MVP. The godson of NBA Hall of Famer Dave Cowens, Guidugli was named Conference USA freshman of the year after setting league and school marks for passing attempts (317), completions (185), yards (2,573) and touchdowns (16).
“The football program is starting to get a lot more recognition for the simple fact that Coach Minter has done a good job of bringing in guys from the city and more high-profile guys like Gino,” Peek said.
Minter said building a solid program takes time.
“When people think of UC basketball, they think of the two national titles, they think of Oscar Robertson, they think of the recent successes of Bob Huggins, including a Final Four team in 1992, and right on down the line.
“But it's not like our basketball program has been this strong for 40 years - it's had its moments - but you haven't heard of UC football on a regular basis, particularly when it comes to bowl games.
“We've now entered the modern football era here at Cincinnati. We're in a prominent conference, we're getting some television notoriety and exposure and we've won some big games and helped ourselves out a little bit. And we've been in the postseason three out of the last five years, so we're doing our part and are beginning to increase our public perception.”
First Published December 29, 2001, 1:07 p.m.
