Leading into the 2023 season, the Bearcats’ first season in the Big 12, reasonable expectations most likely ranged from this team being anywhere from 3-4 to 5-2 through seven games.
The Bearcats having only two wins, and an 0-4 record in Big 12 play, seemed unreasonable. Certainly this team would be better than that.
Look, the reality of where the Bearcats are at is frustrating. The two home games against Iowa State and Baylor were set up for the Bearcats to start stacking wins, creating hope that this team can still make a bowl game. And losing to Miami (OH), you get the point.
For a program that not even two years ago was one win away from playing for a National Championship, the current situation of the Bearcats feels like a world away from the College Football Playoff.
But there’s a silver lining here. This is a much better situation than 2017.
Quick question: how many people remember Luke Fickell’s first season in 2017? It’s okay if you don’t, considering the Bearcats went 53-10 over his final five seasons.
But the Bearcats 2-5 start this season, Scott Satterfield’s first as Bearcats head coach, has made me, at least, remember Luke Fickell’s first season in 2017.
This year, three of the Bearcats five losses are by one score. And the game against Oklahoma was extremely competitive.
Back in 2017, when the Bearcats were 2-5, here were the scores of the games they lost: 36-14 (at No. 8 Michigan), 42-32 (at Navy, when the Bearcats allowed 568 rushing yards), 38-24 (vs. Marshall, a game they trailed 24-0), 51-23 (vs. UCF, a game that was rain-shortened), 33-3 (at USF, a game that really was not that close). Also worth mentioning that two more losses to follow that season were by double digits.
But that team, and the program at the time, was truly starting from scratch. They were just starting to really recruit the “state of Cincinnati” as Luke Fickell termed it, they were picking up the rubble from the Tommy Tuberville era bottoming out and they were trying to raise themselves out of the depths of the American Athletic Conference. Or as I like to call that, college football irrelevancy.
The 2017 Bearcats averaged just 135.3 rushing yards per game and 351.8 yards per game. That team also averaged just 20.9 points per game and allowed 31.8.
This year’s team has an offense averaging 214.9 rushing yards and 444.9 total yards per game. They’re also averaging 27 points per game and giving up 26 points per game.
This year’s team and current state of the program are not in the same dire straits the 2017 team was in.
So, again, while this team being just 2-5 is frustrating given where this program was less than two years ago, just remember that the logical reasons why are much better than they were in 2017: new conference, stiffer competition, new coaching staff. And with a new coaching staff comes a roster turnover in an era of the transfer portal, NIL and having to compete in the Big 12. Combine that with the positives we’ve seen from what a Scott Satterfield offense and a defense that has known potential, and that’s why you should believe the grass is greener now than it was in 2017.
