Play.
The Cincinnati fans storm the field after the title win.
Cincinnati won the American Athletic Conference championship after defeating Houston. 1:14
7:30 PM
The College Football Playoff has a chance to make history with the Cincinnati Bearcats.
They did everything they could in the American Athletic Conference championship game to make the playoffs, and they did it with a 35-20 win over Houston.
The final rankings will be released on Sunday. The resume shows that Cincinnati finished 13-0 with a marquee win over Notre Dame, and that they put together an impressive conference championship performance that should answer any questions the committee might have had. Notre Dame may move up from 6 to 5 by Sunday, which will further strengthen the win by the Bearcats.
The last two weeks, Cincinnati has been ranked fourth. It would be hard for the committee to justify dropping the Bearcats from their top spot because of Oklahoma State's loss.
The team has been in the national spotlight and has handled the increasing questions as if they did not exist. Maybe that's because the Bearcats were here a year ago.
I don't know what to say. Fickell said in his interview that the seniors did an unbelievable job. They went out and did it after they said this was on us.
The key difference is that the playoff door was open for them this year, instead of it being closed in 2020.
"They've done everything they've been asked to do," Fickell said. I told them to take care of the field. They deserve everything that's coming to them.
They had a good team returning, including its best players, and were ranked 8th in the preseason.
The calculation was changed by the win at Notre Dame. Group of 5 teams need to win marquee road games against non conference opponents. Cincinnati did that and did not win. It deserved to win that game.
Cincinnati has gone perfect in the Group of 5. In the last two years, the Knights finished with perfect records in the American Athletic Conference, but never got close to the Top 4. After beating auburn in the Peach Bowl, the UCF self-proclaimed itself national champion as a way to express its frustration with not being considered for the playoffs.
Cincinnati has arrived at this moment because of the backs of those seasons and their own in 2020. It has not been easy. Cincinnati's lackluster performances against teams like Navy, Tulane and Tulsa raised questions about whether the team deserved a top 4 spot. Its last month was amazing, and it left no doubt against Houston.
Cincinnati took a 14-13 lead into the break and went on to win the game. A pass interference call on fourth-down kept the drive going and led to the touchdown. Ridder threw a touchdown pass to Leonard Taylor.
Ridder said in his interview that he came back because of this. For this and for these people right here. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
On the next possession, Cincinnati scored on a beautiful 21-yard pass to Alec Pierce, which was thrown right to him down the middle of the field, after Houston had thrown a pass right to him. The Bearcats weren't done. On their next possession, Ford ran for 42 yards to increase the lead to 35-13 and send the crowd into a frenzy.
They knew that history was theirs.
Ridder said, "Now, we're on to another one." We can go try to win a national championship now that we have one game at a time.
