Cinci is getting set for the “River City Rivalry” (RCR).

The game will also launch a new college football regional rivalry and trophy game. Cincinnati and Pittsburgh will begin the River City Rivalry. The winner will get to keep the River City Trophy, an award composed of a riverboat telegraph and a graphic silhouette of the Ohio River.

Oh, goody. And I’m sure that for the Cinci players, the prospect of this trophy will more than make up for losing their Victory Bell Trophy to Miami of Ohio. I mean that was old. That was the 110th meeting of the teams. Who cares now. Who wouldn’t prefer to say they were there for the very first time the conference dictated “rivalry” game was played?

Their game notes (PDF) also contain the tidbit that the team is taking a bus from Cinci to Pittsburgh — a five hour or so drive — and then, wait for it…

To commemorate their entry into the River City Rivalry, the Bearcats will arrive at their Friday walk-through at Heinz Field via riverboat. Arrangements have been made for the team to bus to Pennsylvania and then board a riverboat for the final miles of the trip to downtown Pittsburgh.

Apparently Cinci is 2-7 when playing on October 8. The wins came against Temple and Western Michigan.

That’s what I am trying to figure, because it’s been mostly low.

The first half of Pitt’s season has been filled with too many emotional highs and lows for coach Dave Wannstedt’s liking.

The first five games marked by near-misses, wasted chances, crushed hopes and flat-out failures. Now, the Panthers (1-4, 0-1 Big East) must shore up their battered self-confidence — again — before Saturday’s game against Cincinnati.

That, according to Wannstedt, is one reason for team’s struggles.

“We’ve got to change that mentality of (things being) a roller-coaster ride,” Wannstedt said Monday. “Every week, it’s a new adventure, with the psyche and the attitude. It shouldn’t be that way.

“We’ve got to create a tough mentality of consistently going out there and performing at the level you need to win, regardless of who you’re playing. Right now, we don’t have that.”

I accept that there are a lot of things that are truly out of the hands of a coach. Keeping the team on an even-keel — if that really is an issue — seems like one of the things that is exclusively within the control of the coach. It reads like he isn’t just talking about the game, he’s also talking about practice in the week leading up to the game. This is very disturbing.

If it means anything, Pete Carroll’s first season at USC started out 1-4. They managed to finish 6-6. Granted, they didn’t lose to teams like Ohio and Rutgers, and had been 5-7 the year before.

Despite, the success of the no-huddle offense, Coach Wannstedt does not appear in a hurry to use it very much.

“I think there’s a place for [the no-huddle offense], and we did talk about it leading into the game,” Wannstedt said during his weekly press conference yesterday. “Normally, it’s very dangerous going into a stadium at night on the road and try to do a no-huddle offense where all your communication happens at the line of scrimmage.

“That’s not the best environment to do some of that stuff. … We were sacked five times, and Tyler was knocked to the ground 20 times. The no-huddle did slow them down to some degree, and we had some success. But I wouldn’t say that’s the answer. If we’re going to be a good team we have to be able to run the ball some.”

And if Pitt is going to be a winning team, they have to score some. So if Cinci brings a lot of pressure and Pitt finds itself playing from behind, then perhaps he might use it. I have to expect Cinci will be bringing pressure. Cinci Coach Mark Dantonio was a defensive coordinator, and likes to pressure.

Coach Wannstedt is still making noise about changing the line-up and depth chart. He made some noise after the Rutgers game, but didn’t. If Pitt somehow loses this game, he won’t have but much choice.

As the Panthers look ahead to their game against Cincinnati (2-2) at 2 p.m. Saturday at Heinz Field, Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt is becoming increasingly frustrated with the team’s “inconsistency” in a number of areas.

Wannstedt met with the media yesterday for his weekly news conference and did his best to address these issues but admitted there are no easy or quick solutions to any of them. He said he would expect to see some changes in the lineup if things continue as they have and he’s not ruling out a youth movement to lay a foundation for the future of the program.

“We’ve got to try and keep it competitive,” he said. “We’ll continue to play as many guys as we can. We’re trying to rotate in as many linemen as we can. The lines are the two areas where we can rotate guys to keep the competitiveness going.”

The lines have been a major disappointments thus far. They are the two areas that needed to be overhauled in the offseason because of graduation.

And the problem Wannstedt has, particularly with the offensive line, is that there is very little quality depth. That’s why he’s considering giving some freshmen opportunities to play.

“You talk about graduating a couple of guys and their backups are true freshmen this year or redshirt freshmen,” Wannstedt said. “And those guys, like C.J. Davis and possibly a John Bachman, need to get their feet wet and get some playing time now.”

Davis, a freshman guard, has played some this year and the coaches believe he has the ability to be a star in the future. Bachman, a freshman tackle from Moon, has been the most pleasant surprise of the Panthers’ most recent recruiting class. If he were 30 pounds heavier, he might have worked his way into the starting lineup.

Other freshmen who are looking at increased playing time include LaRod Stephens-Howling, although an ankle injury has held him back, safety Tommie Campbell, defensive tackles Corey Davis and Rashaad Duncan, defensive end Gus Mustakas, receiver Marcel Pestano and offensive tackle Chase Clowser.

The running back position, suddenly very thin, looks to remain that way.

Beyond that, the Panthers have been without the services of Brandon Mason, who Wannstedt said has an ankle injury, LaRod Stephens-Howling (ankle), Marcus Furman (ankle) and Rashad Jennings (shoulder).

Jennings was in uniform Friday for the Panthers’ loss to Rutgers, but Wannstedt said he was not ready to play.

Stephens-Howling did not practice yesterday and Mason wore a red jersey (no contact). Wannstedt said all three are questionable for the game against Cincinnati Saturday at Heinz Field.

Stephens-Howling has a high-ankle sprain, and no one ever comes back after only a week off from that. Especially someone who cuts and moves like Stephens-Howling. If Pitt is lucky, they will at least have Rashad Jennings to help in the backfield.

Brian Bennett is out for the season with a knee injury — ACL damage.

The most worrying and disturbing concern is H.B. Blades.

Middle linebacker H.B. Blades was too hobbled stand to talk with reporters after the Rutgers game, and his status for the Cincinnati game is uncertain. “We’re about out of linebackers,” Wannstedt said.

Blades is the leading tackler, not just for Pitt, but for the Big East. I’m guessing he goes. He’s too tough.

As for Cinci, well they appear to be on the verge of a QB controversy/change.

University of Cincinnati football coach Mark Dantonio isn’t giving up on quarterback Dustin Grutza, but he made it clear Monday that Grutza will have to compete in practice this week with backup Nick Davila to keep his job as the starter.

“Nick Davila deserves an opportunity to be in the mix,” Dantonio said. “How he practices this week relative to how Dustin practices will determine who’s going to start.”

UC (2-2) plays at Pittsburgh (1-4, 0-1) Saturday in its first Big East Conference game.

“That makes it unique for us,” Dantonio said. “It gives us a little more motivation.”

Grutza was intercepted five times in UC’s 44-16 loss to rival Miami last Wednesday. Over his last two games, he has completed 32 of 63 passes for an average of 143.5 yards per game, with no touchdowns and six interceptions.

In two appearances in the late stages of blowout losses to Penn State and Miami, the 6-foot-3, 200-pound Davila – a transfer from Chaffey (Calif.) Junior College – has completed seven of nine passes for 92 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions.

“Nick Davila has gone in at the tail end of games and has performed well,” Dantonio said. “But it’s been at the tail end of the game . . . The only thing I will say is if we’re struggling, he’s going to play.”

Grutza has 3 TDs and 8 INTs.

I noted that during the Rutgers game the announcers were talking about their conversation with Coach Wannstedt.

Here’s the thing, during the game, the announcers said that Coach Wannstedt told them he knew the team wasn’t as good as the preseason ranking, and he may have let the kids buy into the hype.

I have a problem with that. It strikes me as some after-the-fact excuse making and ass-covering. Something I wasn’t expecting from Coach Wannstedt. There was no indication or hint that the team would struggle like this.

This isn’t just starting from scratch, this is also wasting the talent that is there.

Looks like Matt Hayes at the Sporting News heard those comments as well (either that or he is reading this site).

Look, I haven’t given up on Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt yet, but it’s certainly disturbing when Wanny says his team’s preseason ranking might have been a little skewed considering the Panthers’ lack of speed.

This is a team that won eight games and went to a BCS bowl last season — and returned 17 starters and one of the nation’s best pass-catch combinations. Excuses are a sign of a frustrated — or, even worse, desperate — coach.

Looks like the South Florida game next Saturday will not be televised. It is slated for a 2 pm start time. If your high speed internet provider offers it, though, you can watch it on ESPN360.

Finally, there was the Dave Wannstedt press conference. Judging by the transcript, and this is just my reading of it, it wasn’t a particularly pleasant outing for Coach Wannstedt.

On analyzing the season to this point:

I think you have to go back and look at each game individually. Throw the Notre Dame game out. But if you look at the Ohio University game and say, what was the difference in winning and losing this game? Nebraska game – what was the difference in winning and losing this game? And then last week. That’s how you have to almost look at it. When guys get the opportunity to make some plays, we’ve got to make them. Every team has only so many guys that are capable of maybe making the big plays. Everybody has to kind of perform at the level that they’re capable of. That’s what we haven’t done. That’s been the difference in two wins, maybe three wins in my mind.

Um, uh, yeah. Sadly nothing about play-calling, game plans and adjustments as contributing factors.

So about the passing game this past week. Seemed to pick up a bit with the running game not working?

On passing more against Rutgers:

There were a lot of plays that we felt like we could have made running the ball, too. You can’t be one-dimensional. Very few teams are good enough to be that. We’ve got to do what we have to do to try to score some points. If it means throwing it a little bit more, we would do that. Coming in to the game, we felt like we could run the ball. We watched the tapes of Buffalo and people they played earlier that had success running the football.

Maybe I was watching a different game, but I didn’t see many plays that could have been made with the run. Maybe I am misunderstanding the response, but it seems that Coach Wannstedt is saying they could have run, but decided to pass.

On executing the blitz:

We blitzed them 27 times and get one sack. Our pressure, handling the pressure, we’ve got to do a better job. We’ve got to be more consistent, and when we bring some heat, we’ve got to get there. I don’t care if he gets sacked, but you’ve got to get him throwing off his back foot. You’ve got to knock him down some. The touchdown pass, he stood back there and stepped up and threw it. Everybody gets bent out of shape with the secondary guys when that happens, but guys shouldn’t be able to step up when you’re blitzing and make the perfect throw down the field – maybe quick, but not down the field.

Okay, this scares the hell out of me. Pitt blitzed that many times? Rutgers ran 71 plays, Pitt blitzed 38% of the time and it was hardly noticeable. I thought Pitt blitzed maybe 8 times. How bad does that speak about the ability of the defensive line to generate pressure?

Linebacker Brian Bennett is out for the rest of the season. The transcript didn’t say why, but he is having season ending surgery (I think it’s the knee).

Just read the whole thing. Cliches are out in force.