Beginning last year, the NCAA changed the look of college football by ending the season with a four-team playoff, rather than the Bowl Championship Series it had used for roughly 15 years. Every team dreams of being one of those four finalists, which would give them a chance to walk away with a National Championship at the end of the season. Based on the way last season went, it proved that it’s not easy to pick the “four best teams,” as everyone seems to have a different opinion of who those four teams are.
Is it possible for the Cincinnati Bearcats to be one of those four teams in 2015? And if, so how well will they do?
Obviously, my desire is to answer with an emphatic “Yes!” However, when I truly sit back and think about it, I’m not sure it’s something that simple. Ideally, the Bearcats would go undefeated, including a win the AAC Championship game, in what could be a possible rematch from the regular season against the Memphis Tigers and UCF Knights, the two teams that the Bearcats tied for the AAC Championship last season. There was just one team that went undefeated in the regular season last year, Florida State, who made it into the CFP as the No. 3 seed. If something similar happens this year where Cincinnati ends as the only undefeated team, one would think that the Bearcats have a fair shot at it.
As Lee Corso would say, “Not so fast, my friend!” While the likelihood for one undefeated team is extremely strong, considering that there haven’t been two teams undefeated in the regular season since Cam Newton and Andy Dalton led their respective programs to undefeated seasons in 2010, that team tends to fall within a major conference. When the teams that went undefeated from a “non-Power 5 Conference,” they don’t get anything close to the same respect from the voters, as we saw by TCU going undefeated in 2010 and not getting a shot at Auburn in the National Championship Game.
My fear is that, likely, the Bearcats would end up in a similar situation if they went undefeated this season. It’s not unheard of that teams with one loss pass up or stay ahead of undefeated teams, much like what happened last season with Florida State finishing as the No. 3 seed in the CFP. Just because Cincinnati isn’t part of a power conference, I would certainly worry that they wouldn’t even get a shot at playing with the Alabamas, Oregons, or Ohio States of the world.
Although, I can’t necessarily say that having the Bearcats in a situation like the CFP doesn’t scare or worry me. Sure, I’d love to see make a run where they could play for a National Championship, but, historically speaking, those big games against teams from the SEC, for example, don’t tend to favor Cincinnati. When they were representing the Big East and getting an automatic bid for a BCS game, the games didn’t exactly go in their favor. They lost to Virginia Tech in 2008 20-7 and lost to Florida in 2009 51-24, while having nothing but success under Brian Kelly.
It just becomes a red flag, because it seems the bigger the bowl game is, the worse the Bearcats have played. I have nothing but faith in the coaching job that Tommy Tuberville can do, because he is a fantastic coach. I have nothing but faith in this offense because no one can deny that they can score on anybody they want if they show up like they should, but it doesn’t always happen that way. The defense is never something that the Bearcats are known for and I don’t expect them to be able to carry the team if the offense doesn’t show up. In order for the Bearcats to do well in the CFP, if they were to make it, they will truly need to show up as a team, from top to bottom. A little bit of luck won’t hurt either.
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