Paul Finebaum takes Cincinnati backers in the media to task
After the Cincinnati Bearcats barely squeaked past Tulsa on Saturday night, 28-20, the surprisingly close victory could destroy the Bearcats’ hopes of getting in the College Football Playoff. ESPN’s Paul Finebaum pounced on the opportunity to let all of the supporters of the Bearcats in the media know that they have no chance of getting in the College Football Playoff.
“Yeah, I mean, they were a hair away from a two-point conversion to tie the game. And Cincinnati fans are just getting annoying. Excuse me, let me correct myself, it’s not Cincinnati fans. I don’t mind them,” Finebaum said.
“It’s the acolytes who beat the drum for them. Some of them work at this network by the way (ESPN). It blew up in their face. I really don’t wanna hear about it,” he said.
“I don’t think they have a path in. I really don’t care if they do or not. They’ve had opportunities to impress. When you’re Cincinnati — you have to go out there every week and dominate — or at least show up like you care. You have College GameDay on your campus. Be ready for the game. Perform. And instead, they looked like everybody else in college football yesterday,” said.
He’s 100 percent right. Given their incredibly weak strength of schedule Cincinnati had very little margin for error each week if they wanted to make a reasonable case to get in the College Football Playoff.
The Bearcats absolutely needed to blow every team out and instead they struggled mightily against a 3-5 Tulsa team.
In case you missed it, the play that Finebaum was discussing is below.
With 42 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, Tulsa running back Steven Anderson fumbled the football right before he was crossing the end zone, and the Bearcats recovered, ending the game.
Below is the the clip of the fumble.
The crazy part is, the Bearcats had just stopped Tulsa with 1:15 remaining in the game at the 2-yard line.
Cincinnati quarterback Desmond Ridder tried to sneak the football, but got caught up in the sneak pile, fumbling the football, and giving Tulsa the ball back inside the 10-yard line with a fresh set of downs.
Here is footage of the fumble by Ridder.
It gave Tulsa the football inside the five-yard line with 1:11 remaining in the game.
Then, once Tulsa had the ball back and their quarterback Davis Brin slid short of the end zone despite having a clear path to score.
What a wild, wild, finish and clearly, the Bearcats were lucky to escape.
Like Finebaum said, Cincinnati had College Gameday in town and failed to impress. Not doing so could cost them. Only time will tell.