This and that

• Six takes on the Bengals' climbing/falling to 1-8-1 for the season:

Paul Daugherty: Here's to, uhhh, not losing. This is as close to a "Why on earth did they stop throwing it to T.J.?" take as I was hoping to find first thing this morning.

DDN's Chick Ludwig: Defense dominates in first tie since '02. Includes the quote from Donovan McNabb about how he didn't know a game could end in a tie. Wow. Really?

philly.com's Rich Hofmann: NFL overtime rules? Don't ask McNabb. Teaser on the front of philly.com reads as follows:

The fact that Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb turned over the ball four times in a game for the first time since 2003 will be slowly forgotten. This will always be remembered, though, as the day McNabb admitted to not knowing that an NFL game could end in a tie.

Exactly.

Philly Inquirer's Ashley Fox: McNabb's reign likely is over. Ouch. McNabb really didn't play well. You couldn't even tell who he was throwing to on some of those. But isn't he having a pretty good year? I have a feeling that as disappointed as Bengals fans are over Sunday's outcome, they're taking it much harder in Philadelphia.

Ludwig: Crocker comes up big at the safety spot. Yeah, the defense, despite allowing a ton of passing yardage, really did play so well that it's a shame they didn't win.

Bengals.com's Geoff Hobson: Offensive woes persist. Indeed.

• Did anyone hear (ESPN play-by-play guy) Sean McDonough absolutely ripping Brian Kelly at the end of the UC-Louisville game Saturday? Wow. Apparently there was a pre-game dispute between Kelly and Louisville head coach Steve Kragthorpe over a prayer the Bearcats gathered for at midfield where they joined hands in a circle around the Cardinal emblem (which they evidently do before every game and even invited Louisville players to participate).

Kragthorpe claimed the Bearcats were disrespecting Louisville by surrounding the emblem. So he came out and started arguing with Kelly. Maybe to fire his team up, as Chris Spielman suggested.

After the game, Kelly headed over to shake Kragthorpe's hand and saw that Kragthorpe had turned and trotted off the field in the other direction (not seen on TV). Kelly gestured at Kragthorpe in disgust - which was seen by the television audience - and McDonough ripped Kelly. Kragthorpe did meet with Kelly to shake his hand at the post-game press conference.

• You've got to love Kelly's quote - from the UC-Louisville post-game conference - about the upcoming UC-Pitt game.

"I think it (Saturday-Pitt) is the biggest game in school history," Kelly said. "There's no question about that. If that place doesn't have 500,000 people in it, I'm going to be pissed. I'm going to be pissed because we've done everything to elevate this football program. If you can't support us next week, there's nothing else we can do. We've won, we've been consistent. It's now time for our fans to show up. They've been good, but it should be the hardest ticket to get in Cincinnati."

• Kelly gets some serious love from the New York Times.

• And finally: FOX Sports considers dream matchups and nightmare matchups for each of the BCS bowls. Their nightmare matchup for the Orange Bowl: Any 8-4 ACC team vs. Cincinnati or Ball State.

My buddy Stewart Mandel (Sycamore HS) has Maryland-UC as his projected Orange Bowl. He just doesn't call it a nightmare.

ESPN has a couple of different projections: Mark Schlabach says Maryland-UC; Bruce Feldman says Miami (FL)-UC.

• Nice feature in the Boston Globe about Holy Cross quarterback Dominic Randolph, who was a backup to Rob Schoenhoft at St. X.

Non-local link of interest: None. Instead, I'll provide a little bit of the unsolicited fantasy football advice I've been promising. See next post.