Tickets"I don't know where we're going to land next week, but this is going to be a very tough act to follow."
That was Desmond Howard in the opening moments of Saturday's edition of ESPN's College GameDay, broadcast live to the world from the University of Cincinnati.
The @GoBEARCATS fans showed up for @CollegeGameDay today 👀. pic.twitter.com/s4Xaivqz7D
— American Football (@American_FB) November 6, 2021
And those words weren't just deployed to amp up Cincinnati's massive morning crowd, which began lining up for prime Commons real estate Friday night. Behind the scenes, ESPN staffers uniformly expressed the same sentiment: This was not something they see every week. It was privately referred to as the largest on-campus crowd of the year, and as someone put it, one of their most memorable shows in years on the GameDay crew.
This specific spotlight was something Bearcats fans had begged for since the days of Brian Kelly but didn't dare to dream of when Luke Fickell took the helm in Clifton four years ago, tasked with breathing life back into a program not many outside of Cincinnati's hilly campus saw this sort of potential in. So for a morning whose storylines were defined by the establishment's disrespect, College GameDay was yet another flag-planting on college football's mountain. Cincinnati—its team, its fan base—is bigger and better than they thought it was.
Wow. @CollegeGameDay showed up, and so did you.
— Cincinnati Bearcats (@GoBEARCATS) November 6, 2021
THIS IS CINCINNATI pic.twitter.com/cCgx5ZQpyN
Program-defining moments aren't supposed to come this often. Usually, the "I know I'll be talking about this in a decade" days are a little more spread out. Yet, just a month after fans in red swarmed Notre Dame Stadium to cheer the Bearcats to a signature win, they came back out to leave another mark on America. The Bearcats were the country's #1 storyline for the week in the wake of their #6 College Football Playoff ranking. On Saturday, the country got to put a face to a name in the form of thousands of tightly packed lunatics waving signs and screaming Down The Drive.
Later Saturday evening, after the sun had set and fans in red finally dissipated, Fickell acknowledged the elephant in the room, saying: "Some people can strip the joy from you. As a coach, I'm not going to do that."
It's something I wrote about last week, encouraging Bearcats fans to live in the moment and savor this ride the Bearcats are sending us on. But this season's dichotomy—soaring pride clashing with nagging disrespect and the urgent need to be perfect at every turn—was perfectly summed up by Saturday morning's party. In the words of our alma mater, "Stand first and last for old UC," but don't stop showing up in droves and cherishing the spotlight. Don't let anyone strip your joy. There's been plenty to go around.
Not only has Desmond Ridder moved within one touchdown pass of Gino Guidugli atop the career list, but he's also officially reached the 9,000 passing yard milestone, joining a club previously occupied by one player: Guidugli. (No other Bearcats have reached 7,000.) He's also surpassed 700 completions, second to Guidugli's 880. (No other Bearcats have 600.) And, while we're at it, his 25 career interceptions are still outside the top ten, a remarkable feat given his 1,165 career pass attempts, which are second all-time (guess who is first).
But he doesn't just make plays with his arm. Ridder has also quietly moved into Cincinnati's all-time top five in career rushing touchdowns. His 26 rushing scores trail Demarco McCleskey, Michael Warren II, and David Small, sitting just one behind Isaiah Pead for fourth place.
Hot on his heels in the ground game and amid a monster season of his own is Jerome Ford, whose 15 rushing touchdowns through nine games tie him with McCleskey for third-most in a season by a Bearcat. Ford has run for a touchdown in eight of Cincinnati's nine games, including five in a row—scoring nine in that stretch alone, despite averaging just 15 carries in those games. Cincinnati's running backs are averaging 6.1 yards a pop as a unit, which should be a point of pride for an offensive line that's succeeded at opening running lanes after losing last year's leading rusher Gerrid Doaks to the NFL Draft.
Up NextWe're officially headed down the home stretch. The Bearcats are off to Tampa this week, facing the Bulls on Friday at 6 p.m. ET.
They'll return home for Senior Day on Saturday, November 20, against SMU. Tickets are sold out but can be purchased through StubHub, our official secondary provider, HERE.
The final game of the regular season is set for November 26, the Friday after Thanksgiving, at East Carolina.