TicketsIt was a day just like Friday, unseasonably warm just after Thanksgiving. A noon kickoff cast a warm glow on Nippert Stadium, and by the second half, long shadows stretched down Carson Field. On that day, the Bearcats were desperate in the way you're desperate if the resume says 3-8 without a home win since August. The Huskies were 3-8 themselves, and a bowl game was out of the question for Cincinnati, so beating UConn wouldn't have meant much. Competitively meaningless. Yet, it also felt like beating UConn meant everything.
Cincinnati scored to take a late lead, but Connecticut had an answer and marched down the field. The Huskies scored as time expired, but an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty pushed the extra point attempt back to 36 yards, spurring a significant moment in a meaningless game.
Wide left. Exaltation for what remained of 23,125 joy-starved fans. The Bearcats had won at Nippert Stadium for the first time in months, and it felt so good they won the next 31 games there, too, for good measure.
That streak has been a constant thread through Cincinnati football ever since, but it ended Friday, five years to the day after it started, as the Bearcats lost 27-24 to Tulane in the final game of the regular season. The streak will go down as the 19th-longest in the history of college football and the fourth-longest of the 21st century.
Not many fan bases are blessed to call win streaks "eras," but that's what the Nippert streak was for Cincinnati. Think of where we've been since November 25, 2017: The 53 wins––among the most in college football, the three trips to the conference championship game—two of them home victories, the 11 consecutive sellouts—the most in school history by a long shot, the 16 NFL Draft picks—including nine in 2022 alone, the visit from College GameDay—which we've clamored for since it was reasonable to, and the trip to the College Football Playoff—history for Cincinnati and the entire college football system.
So, things are much different now than they were on that November day five years ago, partly because of how that meaningless kick floated left.
And yet the feeling in the air was unmistakably similar. In 2017 we choked down the bitter disappointment of a lost season and hoped that the future might bring something better. That's what I felt again on Friday; Disappointment over the loss and sadness for a season that fell short of our dreams as fans. You don't get anything for losing a game like that. It's functionally meaningless. And yet I feel hope for what's to come.
Fandom (especially within college sports) is illogical in many ways, but I always seem to come out ahead with the Bearcats. Maybe that's an experience unique to us; I don't know. When it comes to his team, Fickell calls it "blind faith." It's what got those first recruits to campus in 2017 before a single game had been won or lost. To ask for this type of faith means something different for student-athletes, obviously. But I think "blind hope amidst an uncertain future" is what I felt walking out of Nippert Stadium on November 25, 2017, and again on November 25, 2022.
It's the end of an era. Things will be different in the Big 12. They'll be better in a lot of ways, of course. But also more challenging. We probably won't win the next 32 games at home. And yet bittersweet hope for the future was rewarded on a November afternoon in 2017.
What initially feels meaningless is only given value by what follows it. As one era closes quietly like a Cincinnati autumn day, we'll wait for what comes next. It was worth it last time. Read More
Cincinnati scored to take a late lead, but Connecticut had an answer and marched down the field. The Huskies scored as time expired, but an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty pushed the extra point attempt back to 36 yards, spurring a significant moment in a meaningless game.
Wide left. Exaltation for what remained of 23,125 joy-starved fans. The Bearcats had won at Nippert Stadium for the first time in months, and it felt so good they won the next 31 games there, too, for good measure.
That streak has been a constant thread through Cincinnati football ever since, but it ended Friday, five years to the day after it started, as the Bearcats lost 27-24 to Tulane in the final game of the regular season. The streak will go down as the 19th-longest in the history of college football and the fourth-longest of the 21st century.
Not many fan bases are blessed to call win streaks "eras," but that's what the Nippert streak was for Cincinnati. Think of where we've been since November 25, 2017: The 53 wins––among the most in college football, the three trips to the conference championship game—two of them home victories, the 11 consecutive sellouts—the most in school history by a long shot, the 16 NFL Draft picks—including nine in 2022 alone, the visit from College GameDay—which we've clamored for since it was reasonable to, and the trip to the College Football Playoff—history for Cincinnati and the entire college football system.
So, things are much different now than they were on that November day five years ago, partly because of how that meaningless kick floated left.
And yet the feeling in the air was unmistakably similar. In 2017 we choked down the bitter disappointment of a lost season and hoped that the future might bring something better. That's what I felt again on Friday; Disappointment over the loss and sadness for a season that fell short of our dreams as fans. You don't get anything for losing a game like that. It's functionally meaningless. And yet I feel hope for what's to come.
Fandom (especially within college sports) is illogical in many ways, but I always seem to come out ahead with the Bearcats. Maybe that's an experience unique to us; I don't know. When it comes to his team, Fickell calls it "blind faith." It's what got those first recruits to campus in 2017 before a single game had been won or lost. To ask for this type of faith means something different for student-athletes, obviously. But I think "blind hope amidst an uncertain future" is what I felt walking out of Nippert Stadium on November 25, 2017, and again on November 25, 2022.
It's the end of an era. Things will be different in the Big 12. They'll be better in a lot of ways, of course. But also more challenging. We probably won't win the next 32 games at home. And yet bittersweet hope for the future was rewarded on a November afternoon in 2017.
What initially feels meaningless is only given value by what follows it. As one era closes quietly like a Cincinnati autumn day, we'll wait for what comes next. It was worth it last time. Read More