And by back, I mean way back. Bearcats fans will now have to wait quite a while to see UC take on Boise State.
Ever since Bearcats football scheduled a home-and-home series with Marshall in 2017 and 2019, we have known that some kind of change was coming to the 2019 Cincinnati non-conference schedule. Adding the return trip to Huntington to visit the Thundering Herd meant that UC had contracts to play five non-league games that season – obviously impossible, since 8 of 12 regular season games each season are reserved for conference play in The American.
Something had to give. And even worse, that 2019 schedule looked to be murderer’s row. UC was scheduled to host UCLA at Nippert, then play three road non-league games: at OSU-Columbus, Miami (OH), and Boise State. Then, the real head-scratcher: the Bearcats added a fourth road game at Marshall. There was some speculation that the Bearcats would try to reschedule the Ohio State game for a later year. It seems that instead, UC, Boise State, and Marshall worked out a three-way deal of sorts that benefits all parties. In news that flew completely under the radar, but is now posted on FBSchedules.com, UC and Boise State have postponed their series until 2024 (in Boise) and 2025 (in Cincinnati).
Marshall needed games big time for 2019, having only one date scheduled. So they brokered a deal to host UC, and they agreed to visit the Smurf Turf in Boise in ’19 as well – thereby filling the void that the Bearcats would leave on Boise’s schedule by playing in Huntington instead. I’d say it worked out pretty well for all parties. UC and Boise were able to keep their series intact, and both schools now have home-and-homes with Marshall, who has been the class of C-USA in recent years – definitely a solid non-conference game.
Marshall, for their part, was able to fill out that 2019 calendar and beef up their strength of schedule. The Herd team that started the 2014 season 11-0, eventually became C-USA champs, and finished 13-1 with a Boca Raton Bowl victory was laughed at and received very little national recognition – rightfully so, due to the fact that virtually their entire schedule was against losing teams. A C-USA team’s only shot at the New Years’ Six access bowl is to schedule up in non-league play and win. C-USA is not nearly as strong as The American or even the Mountain West, and Marshall seems to be figuring out that it needs some high profile games.
From the UC perspective, I like almost everything about this. Happy to have a home-and-home with Marshall, which is a good non-league game. Even happier that the home-and-home with Boise was able to be preserved. And thrilled that the game against OSU-Columbus is still on the books as well. But I’m still not really sure why UC added another road game for 2019. Replacing a road game at Boise with a road game at Marshall means that Cincinnati still will potentially have only have five home games that year under the AAC’s eight game scheduling format.
So here’s where the conspiracy theory aspect comes in: Does this mean that Cincinnati is already planning for a move to the Big 12? The Big 12 plays a 9-game conference schedule. So maybe UC is planning on having five Big 12 home games in 2019, which coupled with hosting UCLA would get them to six. That, of course, would mean that either the UC-Miami game would have to go on a one-year hiatus, or the game against OSU-Columbus would have to be pushed back. It seems unlikely that UC and Miami would stop playing annually for the first time since World War II. Excluding the war years, the last time the ‘Cats and Redskins/RedHawks didn’t play was 1908.
So maybe the game against the Buckeyes in 2019 will still get moved – who knows. If so, dropping down to three non-league games for ’19 would mean that beginning in 2018, UC has no more than three such games scheduled per year. 2018 would be the first year UC could join the Big 12 if it adheres to The American’s exit policy, which requires 27 months advance notice. Coincidence? #Big12Confirmed? We’ll see.