Cincinnati Bearcats head coach Scott Satterfield didn’t mince words following the team’s 37-34 victory Saturday at Kansas, telling sideline reporter Lauren Jbara that the Bearcats are here for the Big 12.
Saturday’s win was the type that largely eluded the Bearcats in their first two seasons as a member of the Big 12, during which they posted a 2-7 road record in league games. Finding a way to win that kind of game — the Bearcats drove 75 yards in 1:16 to score the winning touchdown with 29 seconds left — could be what springboards them to reach their lofty goals.
Satterfield and the players haven’t been shy about their aspirations of playing in the Big 12 championship game this season. In a conference that is wide open heading into October, Cincinnati can make an even bigger statement during Saturday’s showdown with visiting No. 14 Iowa State.
If the Bearcats (3-1, 1-0 in Big 12) are going to contend this season, it will be because of ascending quarterback Brendan Sorsby. The Bearcats’ junior is coming off his second Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week of the season — earned because he threw for 388 yards and two touchdowns, while adding 52 yards on the ground, in Cincinnati’s win at Kansas.
Sorsby led the Bearcats on the game-winning touchdown drive that included an 18-yard pass to convert a fourth-and-10.
“That drive was awesome, and there was a little bit of adversity there like the rest of the game, but we found a way to persevere and come out on top,” Sorsby said. “We’ve been in so many close games since I’ve been here and it felt good to win one of them.”
Iowa State (5-0, 2-0 Big 12) has been where Cincinnati aims to go. Head coach Matt Campbell has led the Cyclones to two title games (2020, 2024) while building them into one of the Big 12’s most consistent programs now that Texas and Oklahoma are in the SEC — and Iowa State has the makings of a team that could make a return trip to Dallas in December.
Leading the Cyclones is quarterback Rocco Becht, who has 1,103 yards and seven touchdowns this season. He threw for 240 yards in the Cyclones’ 39-14 win over Arizona last week.
While Becht lost two standout receivers off last year’s team to the NFL, Iowa State has replaced that production admirably with myriad weapons in the passing game. Most recently, East Carolina transfer Chase Sowell went off for a career-high 146 receiving yards in the Arizona game.
“I thought we played really good, complementary football,” Campbell said. “We played the game in the rhythm that we would want to play in for the majority of the night.”
Iowa State’s secondary, on the other hand, has been dealt blows in back-to-back games. The Cyclones lost cornerback Jeremiah Cooper to a season-ending knee injury last week and Campbell announced Tuesday that cornerback Jontez Williams also will miss the rest of the year due to a knee injury suffered against Arizona. Both were preseason All-Big 12 selections.
This could be an opportunity for Cincinnati’s receivers to continue the strides they’ve made since their season opener.
Cincinnati’s leading receiver is Cyrus Allen, who has 23 receptions for 273 yards and five touchdowns. The Bearcats have three more receivers with at least 10 catches and 150 receiving yards through four games.
This is the third straight season the Bearcats and Cyclones have played. Iowa State has won the previous two meetings by an average of 18.5 points per game — the only games between the two schools.