TicketsThe rumors started coming out of Camp Higher Ground in 2017.
"The kid looks pretty good. Yeah, the Tuberville recruit. The low 3-star. It's just camp, so it's hard to say, but Ridder might be something someday."
Desmond Ridder took a redshirt year that fall. He didn't throw a single pass in Luke Fickell's first season.
By the summer of 2018, as Bearcats fans had set their hopes on becoming bowl eligible for the first time in three years, Fickell played his cards close to the vest. The season's opener was a Rose Bowl tangle with UCLA in Chip Kelly's debut. As two-touchdown underdogs, logic favored the incumbent. It seemed like Hayden Moore was going to start, but the word was Ridder was right there. He was probably going to take the field in Los Angeles; it was just a matter of when.
On the third offensive drive of the 2018 season, Cincinnati got its answer. Ridder trotted out in an all-white uniform and never looked back. The Bearcats won the game on a gutsy fourth-down touchdown rush by Michael Warren II in the final two minutes.
The moment that sealed the deal.
— Cincinnati Football (@GoBearcatsFB) September 4, 2018
Mike Warren's third touchdown of the game couldn't have come at a better time.#Bearcats pic.twitter.com/r1JZTDInyd
Then they won ten more times that season, nearly doubling the win total fans had hoped for. It was just the third 11-win season in school history, helmed by a 25-touchdown performance from the conference's Rookie of the Year.
In 2019 the Bearcats did it all again, finishing 11-3 as Ridder fought through nagging injuries while managing to carry Cincinnati to its first AAC Championship Game appearance. Despite injuries and the first missed game of his career, he threw 18 more touchdown passes.
In 2020, through the teeth of a pandemic and in front of tens of thousands of empty bleachers, Ridder answered the call, leading the Bearcats to their first undefeated regular season since 2009 and their first conference championship since 2014. Despite the shortened season, he added another 19 touchdown throws to his resume last year. By the end of it, the unassuming kid from Louisville was garnering NFL Draft buzz. But he didn't think 31 wins—the most by any QB in Cincinnati history—was enough. There were more places to go and more gold to be mined in Cincinnati's hills, so he decided to come back.
One Last Ride... pic.twitter.com/LKlKgQtsAR
— Desmond Ridder9️⃣ (@desmondridder) January 8, 2021
Ridder has helped the Bearcats win ten more games this season, including perhaps the biggest in school history last month. Not only are his 41 wins the most in the country, but they're among the most by a quarterback in FBS history.
Wins are a QB stat when the QB leads the way Desmond Ridder does. He'll be the first to tell you they aren't. He deflects credit. He always deflects credit. But that's just because the kid who took his UC offer in a porta-potty at Churchill Downs has proven to be a professional over the last four years. He's a kid who, publicly, showcases a mature presence that's, privately, commanded a locker room since he was a freshman starting his first game—in a monsoon at Paul Brown Stadium a week after that Rose Bowl stunner.
He threw the first touchdown pass of his career on that rainy night in 2018. He finally finished his climb to the Cincinnati record books with a pretty spiral at Raymond James Stadium on Friday.
He'll take the field this Saturday for Senior Day at Nippert Stadium––a place where he's a perfect 24-0 as a starter.
In 136 years of @GoBearcatsFB, nobody has thrown more touchdown passes than @desmondridder.
— Cincinnati Bearcats (@GoBEARCATS) November 13, 2021
Congratulations, Des! pic.twitter.com/4JhNN4y8eP
He's thrown for six 79 times as a Bearcat, bookended by touchdowns in pro stadiums.
The kid's already a professional. I guess he's always been a professional.
Up Next The Bearcats are back inside Nippert Stadium on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. for Senior Day against SMU. All 32 members of the senior class will be honored before kickoff. Tickets are sold out but can be purchased through StubHub, our official secondary provider, HERE.Cincinnati will play its final game of the regular season on the road at ECU on November 26, the day after Thanksgiving, at 3:30 p.m on ABC.