In 2017, Fickell took his first head coaching job at Cincinnati. His Bearcats are one late-season challenge away from throwing the College Football Playoff (CFP) into chaos we may not see until the field potentially expands.
Currently the Bearcats sit fifth in the Associated Press poll and sixth in the Coach’s poll. The teams in front of them (Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, Penn State and Oklahoma) are going to be shuffling around more than a deck of cards at the World Series of Poker. Iowa and Penn State meet this weekend, Penn State has to play Ohio State and Georgia is likely to meet up with Alabama in the SEC Championship.
This is rarified air, as Cincinnati has a better chance of crashing the CFP dance than Boise State ever had. Not bad for a school typically thought up when discussing basketball. Remember that Georgia needed a two touchdown rally in the fourth quarter of the Peach Bowl on New Year’s Day to upend Fickell’s squad. Now one year later, the Bulldogs are the most legitimate threat to Alabama’s reign.
When Chris Peterson and Boise State upset Oklahoma in that magnificent 2006 Fiesta Bowl, Peterson immediately received headlines about whether he would jump to a larger program. The jump became official in 2014, as he took the head job at Washington, where he led the Huskies to a berth in the 2016 playoff.
Stories are already running about where Fickell could end up if he leaves Cincinnati after a Cinderella run. The thing is that with the upcoming move to the Big 12, Fickell should stay right where he is until the program has a downturn. He could earn interviews or jobs at higher-paying programs, but what better way to combat the powerhouses than to steal some of their top-tier recruits in a place that could be competing for a Big 12 title most years.
The lone roadblock left for Cincinnati to destroy everything the Power Five conferences set out to prevent comes on November 20 against SMU. The Mustangs are the only other American Conference team to be ranked at the moment (#24 in both polls). The Mustangs have to play Houston still in 2021, while the Bearcats do not. A win by SMU over the Cougars makes the potential of a top-15 matchup at Nippert Stadium even more perceivable.
Indiana finished as a top 10 team in 2020, and Cincinnati pulled off a 38-24 victory in Bloomington two weeks ago. Going on the road to a top-10 Notre Dame and winning last week is just what Dr. Pepper ordered for Cincinnati’s resume.
Remember that the soft drink is the official sponsor of the CFP and its trophy.
The Bearcats would be guaranteed a spot if the CFP field was six and would almost certainly host a quarterfinal if the field was eight.
You get that anomaly every so often that has staying power from a smaller conference. Gonzaga was a game away from a perfect season in men’s basketball last year. Akron has five wins in football since going to the Boca Raton Bowl in 2017, but they have a National Championship and two runners-up in men’s soccer since 2009. Coastal Carolina, Cal State Fullerton and Rice all have College World Series championships to their credit since 2003. In fact, the Titans at Fullerton have five of them in program history.
As the scope of college football is about to be shaken as early as next season, Cincinnati is poised to keep derailing any train they choose.
I know, it makes zero sense that a team from Ohio will be playing in a southwestern conference.
-JC24