You have to win on first and second down to have a realistic chance against them. They take great, sound angles and do not miss many tackles. They pursue and hunt as well as anyone in the country. On top of that, they play with fanatical effort. Each player that starts fits that spot perfectly. Their coaches have done an amazing job of recruiting and developing a specific profile for each position on the field. Ryan Montgomery has stepped in as a nice complement to take some carries off Ford and has excelled.ĭefensively, Cincinnati has high draft picks at every level and wears opposing offenses down. and Tyler Scott are threats as well and are having good years.Īt running back, Alabama transfer Jerome Ford is a dog and has battled through numerous injuries this season but is an excellent player and catches the ball well, too. He leads the team in receiving and is a 50/50 jugs machine. Wide receiver Alec Pierce is baller and longer and faster than he looks. Josh Whyle is a red-zone scoring machine. The tight ends are massive and Leonard Taylor, who I wrote about this summer as a player to watch, is having a great year. The offensive line is massive and can body you up but is far from winning the Joe Moore trophy this season.
The weakness of Cincinnati might surprise you. When he gets into the open field he is gone and is a speedster when running in a straight line.
He makes plays running the football weekly, and has for years. Ridder’s ability to use his feet is the difference he is an excellent runner and will wreck you. Ridder is an excellent deep ball thrower and can pick you into pieces just as easy. Cincinnati’s scheme is not overly complicated but they do an excellent job of getting 1-on-1 matchups at multiple spots and execute to perfection.
Ridder has the ability to check at the line of scrimmage and is an excellent game manager. Ridder has been the catalyst at the most important position for four years now and has seen it all and always comes up clutch. Tulsa is a great example of a team that had a great chance to beat them but Cincinnati was built to step up in that critical situation and get the win.Įverything starts with the ultimate leader and competitor, quarterback Desmond Ridder. Cincinnati rarely beats itself and seem to always take advantage of their opponents' mistakes. Scheme-wise, Cincinnati's coaches are as good as anyone in the country at using the strengths and weaknesses of their players and meshing it with their schemes. Their coaching staff are maximizers and get the most talent and ability of their players every year. Cincinnati has developed its roster nicely with great evaluations on the recruiting trail and in the transfer portal. Fickell seems cut from the same cloth and his program starts and ends with culture.Ĭincinnati's roster consists of mostly Power Five talent at every position in a Group of 5 league, which is uncommon. They all seem like they've been brainwashed and they all seem to speak the same language and say the same things. Having been around my fair share of coaches from the Urban Meyer coaching tree, there is one thing that I’ve learned. Let me tell you how Fickell made this possible. If the Bearcats (-10.5) beat a feisty, one-loss Houston team and if Georgia beats Alabama, then Cincinnati will very likely become the first G5 program to ever crash the Playoff. 3 Bearcats have secured a (current) top-four spot in the College Football Playoff rankings and need to finish strong this weekend in the AAC championship vs. Headed into Tuesday night's penultimate playoff rankings, the No. The Bearcats don't have the wave of blue-chip recruits like the normal playoff suspects, but there's definite star power on the roster and you we've seen them to go to-to-toe with Georgia (close loss) and Notre Dame (close win) in the last. First Luke Fickell turned Cincinnati into an AAC power, and then he turned the Bearcats into, essentially, a top-tier Power Five team.
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