“If Tony’s fully healthy, he’s our starter.”

Brian Kelly couldn’t have been any clearer, or any more unequivocal. Zach Collaros just threw for 480 yards, rushed for 75, led Cincinnati to an absolutely absurd 711 yards of total offense and no, Kelly said, it wasn’t enough to supplant regular starting quarterback Tony Pike.

Sure, Collaros’ body of work in replacing Pike has been “outstanding,” Kelly said, but “take Tony Pike’s body of work, Tony Pike’s the starter. There’s not even a question about that.”

There was no hesitation, or even a hint of wavering, in Kelly’s voice, but the Cincinnati coach promised this wasn’t as straightforward a decision as his tone makes it sound now. He’d said after Cincinnati’s 47-45 win over UConn Saturday night that he’d have to re-examine his QB pecking order and today, he said, “I re-examined it. Absolutely.”

“I went back and thought about clearly the pluses and the minuses,” he said. There are “a lot of pluses with both guys,” he said, and then listed the pluses that put Pike over the top: “Six-foot-6, can see the entire field. He’s got a great arm, all the things that he’s shown leading up to the season. I haven’t forgotten about any of that stuff.”

Of course, Pike actually starting this Friday night against West Virginia is contingent on his left hand being alright. He re-injured his already surgically-repaired hand down at South Florida and then underwent a procedure to reposition the plate holding things together in there. Kelly said now “it’s a day-to-day” situation, with daily x-rays and “so much that’s out of my hands.”

Still, the decision wasn’t. And that one’s made.