“Brian Kelly looked at all of us and asked ‘what are different ways we can exploit a defense?’” former UC tight ends coach Lorenzo Guess told The Enquirer. “Coach Kelly came up with a Wildcat package so he could get Kelce on the field more. We had so many guys at that time who were good football players, we had to find different roles for different people.”
The coaches left that meeting with a Wildcat package that revolved around Kelce as its quarterback. There was no backup Wildcat quarterback, and the Bearcats coaching staff believed so strongly in Kelce that they gave him some of Pike’s snaps.
UC practiced the Wildcat package almost every other day during the preseason. Kelce lined up in the backfield next to former Bearcats star wide receiver Mardy Gilyard, and Armon Binns was the single wide receiver on the outside.
It was mostly a series of zone reads, and Kelce could call a speed option, hand the ball to Gilyard or keep it himself and run.
“It was all Travis’ world, whatever he wanted to do back there,” Gilyard told The Enqurier. “What he did was crazy, but it worked because we all trusted his athleticism.”
In a season opening win over Rutgers, the Bearcats used the Wildcat package on four plays, and Kelce had three carries for 18 yards. The following week, Gilyard ran for a touchdown out of the Wildcat formation. In the Sugar Bowl loss to Florida, Kelce had UC’s second-longest play of the game, a 19-yard run out of the Wildcat set.
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