Bearcats Beat: Through their physicality, the Bearcats are finishing games this season

CINCINNATI — When the Bearcats beat Central Florida on Oct. 4, 2019, in front of a sold-out crowd at Nippert Stadium that announced their revival on a national level within the sport, they beat the Knights behind their physicality. Cincinnati rushed for 192 yards and held the high-powered Knights to just 423 total yards while forcing four turnovers.

Fast forward six years to the date, this past Saturday, and Cincinnati beat then-No. 14 Iowa State behind 260 yards rushing.

“When you see you can do that to a team, you start to lick your lips a little bit and get really excited,” running back Evan Pryor said after the win Saturday, the Bearcats first win over a ranked team in head coach Scott Satterfield’s tenure. “There are schemes that go into football, but when you line up across from someone and you just know that they can’t do anything to stop you or the guys next to you, it brings a different level of confidence. So you just got to keep building off it.”

It helps Pryor and fellow running back Tawee Walker that they play behind one of the best offensive lines in college football. The Bearcats offensive line is one of three in the country with just one sack allowed through Week 6.

Offensive line was supposed to be a strength on last year’s team, with all five starters returning from 2023. There were flashes early on, but the consistency has improved drastically from last year to this year.

“We got some new pieces, but for the main part, our whole team is back,” Pryor said. “A lot of the situations we see ourselves in this year we saw ourselves in last year. So that’s the difference.

“We can look at a situation like today, going up big at halftime, and knowing how it worked out last year, it’s huge. When you have that confidence in that experience in the back of your mind, to be able to know we’re up 31-7, but it doesn’t mean anything until the clock is double zero. Any situation we’re in, we feel like we’ve seen a lot of looks, a lot of things, from last season. We’re just gonna keep building off of that.”

In 2024, the Bearcats lost multiple games where they didn’t finish. They let a 21-point lead against Pittsburgh in Week 2 slip away. At Texas Tech, they came up short in a 44-41 shootout. Playing at home against West Virginia, with an opportunity to clinch bowl eligibility, they made too many mistakes in a 31-24 loss.

This season, they’re finishing games. They beat Kansas on the road, 37-34, behind a last-minute touchdown. Against Iowa State, the Bearcats defense got four stops in the second half that don’t include Iowa State’s last ditch series of laterals.

“It’s huge,” Bearcats head coach Scott Satterfield said Saturday. ” Obviously, red zone scoring is big. I think we’ve been really good this year in the red zone. We’ve been good as far as converting that into touchdowns. You want to score those seven points and to give yourself a chance to win. But our coaches come up with a good plan, and our kids have been executing. Those game plans in the red zone is huge to be able to get those
seven points.”

Cincinnati is a perfect 21-for-21 in the red zone this season, with 17 of those scores for touchdowns. The Bearcats are putting their feet on the gas and not letting up when they get in the red zone.

They’re also not letting up on their preparation and mindset as they head into this Saturday’s matchup against Central Florida.

“You can’t relax,” Satterfield said. “As soon as you relax, somebody’s getting better than you, somebody’s going to beat you, so you need to continue to train with the chip on your shoulder, that you have something to prove. That’s the challenge.”