Austin Peay is arguably the worst scholarship-offering program in FCS, and they're probably worse than most of the Ivy and Pioneer League teams, too. The fact that Cincinnati struggled with them is quite damning. The only reason the Bearcats might win a few more games is because the bottom of the American conference is awful (Connecticut barely beat Holy Cross, East Carolina was dominated by James Madison, while SMU and Tulane have usually been bad), and they play all of those teams as well as Marshall and Miami OH (the Herd beat the RedHawks last weekend).... The Cincy - AP game had a 35 point spread that probably would've been higher if not for the coaching transition since the matchup was very similar to the UNLV - Howard (another historically terrible FCS program) upset.
It's unfortunate, because when this game was scheduled, I was happy about it as opposed to scheduling a MAC team. As it is, it should be at least as much of a blowout as last year's Hawaii and UCF games, and perhaps even Rutgers-level if they don't put in the walkons before the 4th quarter (because the Rutgers game was on the road, the limited travel roster didn't include walkons, of course). I'm surprised the spread is only 33. The most important thing is to get the newer starters comfortable and also give the backups who might contribute this year more experience.
