The headline tells the tale in this article. The American Athletic Conference released it’s 2015 schedule today. All the pieces for the season have been filled in. I won’t keep you waiting, here’s the 2015 Cincinnati slate.

2015 Cincinnati Bearcats Football Schedule
Date		Opponent	Time/TV	Tickets
Saturday Sept. 5		Alabama A&M Bulldogs Nippert Stadium, Cincinnati, OH	TBA	—
Saturday Sept. 12		Temple Owls Nippert Stadium, Cincinnati, OH	TBA	—
Saturday Sept. 19		at Miami (OH) RedHawks Yager Stadium, Oxford, OH	TBA	—
Thursday Sept. 24		at Memphis Tigers Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium, Memphis, TN	Time TBA ESPN	—
Thursday Oct. 1		Miami (FL) Hurricanes Nippert Stadium, Cincinnati, OH	Time TBA ESPN	—
Saturday Oct. 10	—	Open Date	—	—
Saturday Oct. 17		at BYU Cougars LaVell Edwards Stadium, Provo, UT	TBA	—
Saturday Oct. 24		UConn Huskies Nippert Stadium, Cincinnati, OH	TBA	—
Saturday Oct. 31		UCF Knights Nippert Stadium, Cincinnati, OH	TBA	—
Saturday Nov. 7		at Houston Cougars TDECU Stadium, Houston, TX	TBA	—
Saturday Nov. 14		Tulsa Golden Hurricane Nippert Stadium, Cincinnati, OH	TBA	—
Friday Nov. 20		at USF Bulls Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, FL	TBA	—
Saturday Nov. 28		at East Carolina Pirates Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium, Greenville, NC	TBA	—
Saturday Dec. 5		AAC Championship Game Hosted by one of the AAC division winners.	TBA	—

There you have it. The Bearcats play the first AAC game of the season in week two, as they play host to the Temple Owls. The Bearcats don’t leave Nippert until September 19 when they travel to Oxford to renew the series with Miami.

After what should be a 3-0 start, the Bearcats face the meat of their schedule. They travel to Memphis for a Thursday night game on ESPN. The following week, they come home for another Thursday night game, this time against the Miami Hurricanes. When the ACC schedule came out, it wasn’t known if this game would be on Thursday or Saturday. Now we know. The stretch ends with a road game at BYU. This stretch will let us know Cincinnati’s group of 5 hopes.

Central Florida and Cincinnati meet for the first time as conference foes on Halloween. The Bearcats make their final trip to Houston for a few years the following week. UC will meet Tulsa for the time time the second week of November. The last non-Saturday the Bearcats play is a trip to South Florida. The season ends at East Carolina.

This is a nice schedule for the Bearcats. You have some challenging road games, some big time home games, some balance for once. Unless UCF and East Carolina completely fall off, you have some conference challenges mixed in with the bottom of the league. It’ll help keep interest strong thoughout the season, something that’s definitely been a problem the first two years of the American. I don’t know if the schedule is that balanced for everyone, it’s nice that it is for Cincinnati.

Temple is a nice challenge to start the season. That and Miami should have Nippert Stadium rocking. Alabama A&M will be a sellout just because it’s the opener. The test is Temple. Miami will be damn near a sellout one would expect. Temple depends on the game time. There should be interest in the UCF game if the Knights are any good. That’s to be determined.

The announcement of the football schedule is always fun. Now we have something to think about, discuss and visualize when talking about the 2015 football Bearcats.