The Cincinnati Bearcats 19 game American Athletic Conference winning streak was snapped on Saturday by UCF in a 25-21 loss. The loss to a program that you were once chasing that has returned for the smoke and that can be humbling. Did the loss derail the Bearcats AAC Championship and New Year Six Bowl hopes?
On Saturday, the Blackcat defense gave up 505 total yards, in the past if you want to hang or beat the Bearcats you have to be able to run the ball against them and UCF on Saturday did just that running for 258 yards. Even with two quarterbacks they were able to gain those yards. We could dig deeper into the performance, but I’ll gloss over that part because the defense was on the field 20 more plays than the UCF defense (84-64) that’s huge especially on the road and when the offense is stalling out. The offense didn’t have its best game the running game didn’t get going until the second half only gaining 35 yards total and the passing game only completed 58% of Ben Bryant’s 45 passes.
As a group this year they’ve played with fire for weeks and at the Bounce House they got burned. UCF played a more complete game from start to finish and that’s why they came out of that game victorious. Now, with that humbling loss behind them can they catch the two programs ahead of them in the AAC?
What’s ahead in the conference:
6-2 (3-1 in the AAC) UC: Navy, ECU, @Temple, Tulane
6-2 (3-1 in the AAC) No. 25 UCF: @Memphis, @Tulane, Navy, @USF
7-1 (4-0 in the AAC)No. 19 Tul: @Tulsa, UCF, SMU, @UC
5-3 (3-1 in the AAC) Houston: @SMU, Temple, @ECU, Tulsa
6-3 (3-2 in the AAC) ECU: @UC, Houston, @Temple
