Bearcats Beat: Can the Bearcats compete in the Big 12 in a pivotal third season for Scott Satterfield?

CINCINNATI — It’s time for some return on the major financial and emotional investment that’s been made in Bearcats football.

There’s the new $134 million indoor practice facility. The exterior presents an aesthetically inviting structure when driving into campus on Jefferson Street in Clifton. Inside, it’s a modern indoor practice facility that the players and coaches love and have raved about, and for very good reason.

There’s the new uniforms. They have a throwback feel to them, a throwback to the 2008 and 2009 BCS teams that came within one second of playing in the BCS National Championship in 2009.

Indoor practice facility. New uniforms. They’re both great. But there’s a missing ingredient that needs to be supplied this fall. Winning. something the Bearcats have not done consistently through Scott Satterfield’s first two seasons as their head coach. There’s also the Bearcats first two seasons in the Big 12. Eight wins overall, one in Big 12 win in 2023 and three conference wins last season.

The Bearcats athletic department has a new indoor practice facility to sell. They have new uniforms to promote and market. Now, go win some games in 2025, because winning is what will ultimately bring in recruits and transfers to get this program back to the national prominence it is just three seasons removed from when it played in the College Football Playoff.

“We finally feel like, hey, this is the team that’s going to be competitive in the Big 12 and the national scope,” Satterfield said earlier in Fall Camp. “Obviously, we know where we were at in the first year (in the Big 12). In the second year, we got better and think we’ve built to this team right here. The fanbase can look last year and see we were in almost all the games. We have the talent. We have the ability. We got to go make it happen.”

Satterfield has also mentioned leading into this season that this is the deepest team he has had going into his third season as the Bearcats head coach.

That’s all the more reason to go out and make it happen this season. But make no mistake: this is a make-it-or-break-it season for Satterfield as the head coach of the Bearcats.

This program is just three seasons removed from playing in the College Football Playoff, and that was just when it was a four-team Playoff.

Call that season lucky, fortunate, or something similar. That Bearcats team embodied what playing in Cincinnati and Clifton is supposed to be about: toughness, nastiness, physicality, pride and playing with an attitude.

The Bearcats of the last two seasons have not been close to that 2021 team. Even if that 2021 team was unprecedentedly great, and they were, that doesn’t mean this Bearcats team can’t at least be good enough to play in a high-major bowl game, if not compete for a Big 12 championship and berth in the College Football Playoff.

There is a standard that’s within this Bearcats program, set by many teams from 2007-2022. Beginning in 2008, the Bearcats won seven conference championships in 14 seasons. That’s the expectation in Clifton; to compete for, and win, conference championships.

Sure, moving to the Big 12 is an adjustment. But when other teams like BYU are adjusting well and competing for a conference championship, it makes it harder for there to be excuses. Those excuses go to the Bearcats winning just eight games in their first two seasons in the Big 12 and first two seasons with Satterfield as the head coach.

After a 3-9 first Big 12 season in 2023, the Bearcats were 5-2 through seven games in 2024. But all the promise unravelled with a five-game losing streak to end the season, one that had fans chanting “Fire Satterfield!” as the snow fell on Nippert Stadium and the Bearcats bowl hopes fell through their hands with a season-ending loss to TCU.

Satterfield said after that game that he believes this program is trending up and is not that far off. Given the context of what had just happened that night and the last five games of the regular season, that was rather bold of the Bearcats head coach to day.

But as a new season for the Bearcats begins on Aug. 28, their season-opener offers the opportunity to turn the page and show that this team can compete in the Big 12 this season. Cincinnati opens at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City when they take on the Nebraska Cornhuskers. That’s a huge opportunity to build back some confidence amongst the fanbase that the Bearcats are getting back to being competitive and competing for championships. To win in Nebraska’s backyard would be a momentum-builder to start the season and send a message that the Bearcats cannot be overlooked in the Big 12 this season.

For as much “progress” that was made in 2024, and the advent of a new indoor practice facility and new uniforms this past summer, this season is about winning games. Anything short of that, and this program may be heading to an even more uncertain place than it is in now. It’s certainly a far way away from where this program was on New Year’s Eve in 2021.