Bearcats Beat: Bearcats get first win of 2025, still have long way to go on both sides of the ball

CINCINNATI — Style points aren’t going to be awarded for the Cincinnati Bearcats beating the Bowling Green Falcons 34-20 Saturday afternoon at Nippert Stadium.

The Bearcats were supposed to win. According to ESPN Bet, they were 23.5-point favorties against the Falcons. Big 12 vs. Mid-American. That should go the Big 12’s way at least 95 percent of the time. Cincinnati did its job. Great, but it never should have been as dicey as it was.

“Obviously, give a lot of credit to Bowling Green,” Bearcats head coach Scott Satterfield said. “They did a really good job of controlling the clock, keeping the ball, keeping the ball away from us, and the third downs and fourth downs and continuing their drive.”

Bowling Green had nearly 15 more minutes in time of possession than Cincinnati, also winning in first downs 21-18. Quarterback Drew Pyne completed 29 of 36 passes for 274 yards and a touchdown.

Way too easy. The Bearcats got out to a 21-0 lead midway through the second quarter, but the Falcons trimmed that deficit to two touchdowns on three occasions in the second half. It never should have been that close.

“I mean, we got to create some turnovers,” Satterfield said. “We’ve lost the turnover battle twice, and we got to do a much better job with that. We all know in this league, the quarterbacks we’re going to have to play, they’re outstanding. We got to do a much better job with that as we move forward to being able to mixing up coverages and closing the gaps.”

Offensively, the Bearcats pushed the ball down the field at a much better clip than they did against Nebraska. Quarterback Brendan Sorsby threw for 333 yards and three touchdowns and added a rushing score in the fourth quarter. Two Bearcats receivers, Jeff Caldwell and Joe Royer, each eclipsed 100 receiving yards.

But after rushing for 202 yards against Nebraska, the Bearcats managed just 106 rushing yards against Bowling Green.

“Hopefully we can figure them both out at the same time and don’t just keep going back and forth,” Sorsby said. “Obviously, we threw it really well today, that was working for us. They did a really good job up front, just shedding blocks and stuff, getting off and making tackles, making contact in the backfield, making it tough on us to run the ball effectively. But at the end of the day, we figured out a way to put points on the board.”

A win is a win, but this does not move the needle on expectations surrounding this Bearcats team.