TicketsCINCINNATI - Coming off its lone bye week of the 2020 campaign, the No. 8/10 University of Cincinnati football team heads out on the road for the first time in 2020, traveling to Tulsa to face the Golden Hurricane on Saturday, Oct. 17 at noon ET inside H.A. Chapman Stadium.
The 3-0 Bearcats are ranked No. 8 in the Associated Press poll and No. 10 in the Amway USA Today Coaches poll. It's UC's first Top-10 ranking since the final poll of the 2009 season when the Bearcats were No. 4 in the final AP poll and No. 9 in the final Coaches Poll.
UC leads the American in scoring defense and total defense and is tied for the NCAA FBS lead with seven interceptions.
8/10 CINCINNATI BEARCATS
Head Coach Luke Fickell
Record at Cincinnati 29-13 (Fourth Year)
Overall Record 35-20 (Fifth Year)
TULSA GOLDEN HURRICANE
Head Coach Philip Montgomery
Record at School 26-38 (Sixth Year)
Overall Record Same
GAME INFORMATION
Facility Skelly Field at H.A. Chapman Stadium
Capacity 30,000
TV ESPN2
Radio 700 WLW AM / Sirius 83 / XM 83 / Internet 83
Online TuneIn.com
Series Record Tulsa leads 17-15-2
At Tulsa Tulsa leads 10-6-2
Last Meeting Oct. 19, 2019 - UC W, 24-13
ON THE AIR
TV: ESPN2
• Play-by-Play Anish Shroff
• Analyst Tom Luginbill
• Sideline Lericia Harris
• Online: WatchESPN.com
• Mobile App: ESPN
RADIO: BEARCATS SPORTS NETWORK
• Play-by-Play Dan Hoard
• Analyst Jim Kelly Jr.
• Host/Engineer Mo Egger
• Local: 700 WLW AM
• Satellite: Sirius 83 / XM 83 / Internet 83
• Online: Tunein.com / iHeartMedia App
• Mobile App: TuneIn (search Cincinnati Bearcats)
LIVE STATS: Cincinnati.StatBroadcast.com
MEAN STREET
The teams have met 35 times previously, but Saturday marks the fourth matchup since 1997 and only the fourth time UC has traveled to Tulsa dating back to 1980. Tulsa leads the all-time series 17-15-2 with UC winning five of the past six matchups. The Golden Hurricane hold a 10-6-2 advantage in Chapman Stadium.
THE COACHES
Luke Fickell, the 2018 American Athletic Conference Coach of the Year, is in his fourth season at UC. He has led UC to back-to-back 11-win seasons, the 2019 AAC East Division Championship along with consecutive bowl-game wins in the 2018 Military Bowl and 2019 TicketSmarter Birmingham Bowl. A veteran of 20 years in the FBS ranks, Fickell has been a part of two national championship squads, nine conference title-winning teams (seven as a coach, two as a player at Ohio State) with 16 postseason games and 13 NFL Draft selections under his belt.
Philip Montgomery is 26-38 in his sixth year as a head coach at Tulsa. Montgomery came to TU after a seven-year stint as the offensive coordinator/QB coach at Baylor. Under his coaching, the Bears led the NCAA in total offense and scoring offense in both 2013 and 14. Prior to his stint with the Bears, Montgomery spent five years at Houston.
FINISH WHAT YA STARTED
• UC plays its 133rd football season in 2020. The Bearcats program dates to 1885 and is one of the 10 oldest in the NCAA FBS. UC has won a league title five times in the last 13 years and has played 11 bowl games in the past 14 years.
• Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, UC lost games at Nebraska and vs. Miami (OH) and Western Michigan. The APSU game was moved from Sept. 3 to Sept. 19 and the Bearcats played Army West Point on Saturday, Sept. 26 in Nippert Stadium.
• No fans will be allowed in the stadium, except for immediate family members of players and coaches.
• UC has won five-straight American Athletic Conference FB Team Academic Excellence Awards from 2015-20.
• During the 2019-20 calendar year, UC was the only school in the NCAA FBS to play for a conference title in MBB (winter 2019), lacrosse (spring 2019), baseball (spring 2019), volleyball (fall 2019), football (fall 2019) and WBB (winter 2020).
• Fifteen states and four countries are represented on UC's 2020 roster, which features nearly 62 percent (77/125) Ohio natives, including 31 from Cincinnati. Eighty-three of UC's 125 players (66.4 percent) are sophomores or below.
• UC is 25-5 since 2018, ranking among the top seven teams in CFB in winning percentage during that span (.833).
• Cincinnati set a school record with its 16th straight win at home, the fifth-longest active streak among NCAA FBS schools. The Bearcats won 15 straight home games from Nov. 8, 1952 to Nov. 13, 1954. Cincinnati is one of seven teams in the FBS to go undefeated at home the last two-plus seasons, joining Ohio State, UAB, Clemson and Notre Dame.
• QB Desmond Ridder became the eighth signal caller in school history to cross the 5,000-career passing yards plateau. He has thrown for 5,206 yards in his career thus far and sits seventh on the all-time passing chart.
• UC is tied for second in the NCAA FBS with seven interceptions. The Bearcats grabbed five against USF, their most in a game since 2016 (5 @ Purdue) and most at Nippert Stadium since 2007 (6 vs. Oregon State).
• DE Ethan Tucky blocked an Army punt in the second quarter, his first of the season and fifth of his career.