No better time than the present to stake your claim on the conference. Three years ago, Bearcats fans had no hope as Tommy Tuberville was doing his best job to turn a respectable program into a bottom dweller. Fast forward, Tuberville and Cincinnati parted ways and athletic director Mike Bohn hired Luke Fickell.
While Cincinnati worked on getting themselves back together the UCF Knights were making a name for themselves in front of a national audience and became the cream of the American Athletic Conference in the process. Over the last two years excluding the current year UCF has only lost once and during that period they haven’t lost in conference play. They finished the 2017 season undefeated and even personally claimed a piece of the national championship, while they weren’t in the college playoff, the buzz they created has carried over to give this program Boise State “esqe” buzz per non Power 5 conference love.
Cincinnati hasn’t beaten UCF since 2015, while last year was a big measuring stick game for a program that went 11-2 last season. While Cincinnati is ahead of schedule they weren’t ready to take claim of the mountain top and dethrone UCF during a prime time game that let the nation watch the AAC. Friday, they have an opportunity to break their three game losing streak against UCF and let the rest of the AAC the conference is there’s.
As the great Ric Flair says, “To be the man, you have to beat the man”. In the AAC the man is UCF, can Cincinnati be the first team to beat them in conference in the last three years? If so, then Cincinnati becomes top dog and you have to answer to Fickell and crew until further notice.
