Don't Rain on my Playoff Cincinnati Parade
The system is still broken guys
Cincinnati did it.
The Bearcats, despite unbelievable pressure from start to finish, won every game in front of them and are now the first Group of Five team to make the College Football Playoff.
But, of course, the discourse after it was official on Sunday has made for its fair share of idiots to try to lessen how large this moment was.
Let’s start off with why this moment was so big. As I said, this is the first G5 team to make the playoff, which has now been around for eight seasons. The first seven years consisted of eight SEC teams, seven ACC teams, five Big Ten teams, four Big 12 teams, two Pac-12 teams and two Notre Dame teams. Alabama (six), Clemson (six), Ohio State (four) and Oklahoma (four) make up 20 of those teams on their own.
But 2021 Cincinnati football is not the first G5 team to have made a case for the top four. The most publicized one was UCF, who ran the table in 2017 just to finish 12th in the rankings. That same Golden Knights team defeated Auburn in the Peach Bowl to go 13-0 on the year.
The next season, UCF again went 12-0 (for those counting at home, that is a 25-0 record across two seasons). The Golden Knights were rewarded with a No. 8 rankings, behind a pair of two-loss teams. If you would like to tell me UCF proved not worthy because it lost to LSU in the Fiesta Bowl, I will tell you to kick rocks, because it is clear you did not watch the two playoff semifinals games we got instead.
What I had forgotten was Western Michigan’s 13-0 season in 2016. It appears the committee had also forgotten about it, as the Broncos were ranked 15th, behind six three-loss teams plus, and this is the real kicker, 8-4 Auburn, who was right above them at 14. Talk about spitting right in your face.
Would Western Michigan have been killed by Alabama? I don’t know, probably? If only we got a chance to see it and find out. Washington was a unique team to make it, I guess, but this was another year of shitty playoff semifinal games: Clemson 31, Ohio State 0 ringing any bells for anyone?
Then finally, 2020 Cincinnati. The Bearcats handled business last year, finishing 9-0 in a COVID-shortened campaign. They finished eighth, behind two-loss Oklahoma and *sighs* three-loss Florida. And yes, Cincy lost its bowl game, with Georgia just barely edging out the Bearcats with a last-second field goal.
I ramble about the past years to bring you here.
Here, you can see two ESPN guys (Hey, aren’t the playoff rankings broadcasted there? Anyway) drooling out of their mouths in an attempt to make a point that is so easily proven wrong that Kirk here showed how wrong it was three words into his own tweet.
Yeah, it took SEVEN years, Kirk. Maybe that’s, like, our whole point?
These dudes, one of which is forced to sit in his College Gameday timeout corner alone every Saturday, have waited for this moment to try and prove some faulty point about how the G5 is actually treated fine and everyone should shut up.
I most certainly will not be shutting up, and let me tell you why. I know you have probably seen this already, but I’m spelling it out one more time.
To make the playoff this year, Cincinnati more than likely needed every one of these things to happen:
Go undefeated in 2020 ahead of the bowl game
Play Georgia down to the wire in the Peach Bowl
Beat Notre Dame convincingly on the road
Have Notre Dame win every other game on its schedule to be a top-five team
Go undefeated in 2021
Have three Power Five conferences with two-loss champions
Kirky boy here thinks Cincinnati makes it in over a 12-1 Oklahoma State. Every playoff ranking before this year’s tells me he is wrong, but thank god we didn’t have to find out.
After Baylor won, Cincinnati just had to beat Houston, which was not an easy task. The Cougars are a legit team that should have been ranked higher, and the first half proved that. But then the Bearcats came out of halftime and did what they have often done to teams hanging around: brutally fucking murdered them.
The third quarter started and boom: 6 plays, 75 yards, TD. Houston had the ball and boom: interception on the first play, then 2 plays, 23 yards, TD. Houston’s ball again then boom: three and out, followed by 3 plays, 62 yards, TD.
It was like watching an NBA team that just starts heat checking threes from deeper and deeper. They just kept going in.
When it was all said and done, Houston ran 4 plays and tallied up minus-8 yards plus the interception. Cincinnati ran 11 plays for 160 yards and scored 21 points.
Those five drives transcended me to another plane of existence. I had not felt that overjoyed watching a college football game in a very long time. These dudes have known that the G5’s best shot for a playoff berth to date was in their hands, and in nearly every game, it looked like maybe this was the time that Cincinnati would slip up.
The Bearcats would go into various halftimes up by small margins, and then the tweets from idiots across the country would fly in. Guess how each of those games ended? Not only in wins, but almost always in big wins, because this team has the strongest mental fortitude I have ever seen.
Cincinnati won 11 of its 13 games by multiple scores, including all three games against ranked opponents. It did not win any game by less than a touchdown, and won eight of its games by three scores or more. This is a team that is somehow battle tested with close game after close game, yet routs almost everyone.
And for the 13th time, this one ended in a win: Cincinnati 35, Houston 20. A statement victory that gave the committee no choice. What a moment, but the fact that is needed some luck shows how awful the CFP system still is.
This is a top four team in college football, and not just because of the zero in the loss column. This is a group that is better than at least 126 FBS teams, and the Bearcats proved that over and over again.
Luke Fickell is one of the best coaches in the country, Desmond Ridder is a tremendous quarterback and leader, Jerome Ford is an extremely underrated running back and Alec Pierce is an absolute Dude at wide receiver. The defense features likely the best secondary in the country led by Sauce Gardner and Coby Bryant, while linebackers Joel Deblanko and Darrian Beavers are still there to dominate. Also, Cincy’s defensive line play led to eight sacks against Houston, and I’d say that is pretty good.
I know people are going to say Alabama will kill Cincinnati, and while I don’t think that’s true (and I will write about that in three weeks), we will just have to find out together. But thank fucking god we actually get to find out this time.
Next week: Top songs of the year. Week after that: Top albums of the year. In three weeks: Why Cincinnati can beat Alabama. Let’s ride.
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