Is Cincinnati ready for prime time?
No, not THAT Prime Time.
Prime time, like big time.
The Bearcats played in a big-time game in the 2021 season, reaching the College Football Playoff, where they were subsequently dispatched by Alabama at AT&T Stadium in the round of four.
We mean playing in a Power-Five conference, week-in and week out, facing elite teams like Texas, like – Oklahoma.
What a coincidence. The Sooners are coming to Cincinnati – “on to Cincinnati, if you will – on Saturday, and it’ll be as the Bearcats’ first-ever Big 12 regular season opponent.
Associated Press writer Keith Jenkins focuses on the first-ever UC Big 12 game here (Cincinnati opens inaugural Big 12 slate against No. 16 Oklahoma ), and perhaps how fitting it is that it’s against Oklahoma. Now, the Sooners are saying goodbye to the Big 12 at the end of this season, along with fellow conference heavyweight Texas.
But in the last quarter-century, no team has been more successful in the conference than OU: the Sooners have won eight of their last 10 conference openers, and 14 conference championships in the history of the 27-year-old conference.
Get this, though, and thank you, Keith Jenkins, for this statistic: only seven teams entered the 2023 season who have won over 50 games since 2018. Two of them: Oklahoma and Cincinnati.
