College Football Twitter Debates Whether Cincinnati Belonged in the Playoff

The Bearcats made history in becoming the first Group of 5 team to make the Playoff, but were no match for the defending national champions in a 27–6 rout.

For the past four months, Cincinnati has put together a dream season that led the Bearcats to become the first Group of 5 team to make it to the College Football Playoff. Facing top-ranked Alabama on Friday, it didn’t take long for that dream to turn into a nightmare.

The Crimson Tide dominated all game long, beating Cincinnati 27–6 and controlling the line of scrimmage from the opening drive. Alabama rushed for 301 yards on 47 carries, and out-gained the Bearcats 482–218. The Tide’s defense was particularly effective against quarterback Desmond Ridder, limiting him to 17-for-32 passing for 144 yards and batting down numerous balls at the line of scrimmage.

Before the dust even settled on the game, folks around the sport began to get ahead of any conversation about this result being used to support an argument that Group of Five teams don’t belong in the Playoff. Cincinnati’s defeat is just the latest in a long line of similarly lopsided scores on the game’s biggest stage—and many of those blowouts have happened with Alabama on the winning side of things.

Regardless of what the future holds for Group of 5 teams and the Playoff, Friday’s result shouldn’t take away from the season Cincinnati put together. Check out more from the conversation below:

I’m glad Cincinnati was part of the #CFBPlayoff and the Bearcats should have been in over any other team in the discussion.

What Cincinnati experienced tonight is what the rest of college football has been experiencing: An Alabama problem. Welcome to the misery party.

— Logan Booker (@LoganMBooker) December 31, 2021

Today speaks more to just how absurd the Nick Saban dynasty at Alabama is than Cincinnati's worth as a playoff team.

Saying the Bearcats "didn't belong" because of the way this game unfolded ain't it. #CFBPlayoff

— Dean Straka (@DWStraka49) December 31, 2021

Cincinnati lost by 21. The average margin in College Football Playoff semifinals is now... 20.93 points. 10 of 15 have been decided by 3+ scores. Only three have been one-score games.

— Rodger Sherman (@rodger) December 31, 2021

Just want to get out ahead of it. Nothing that happens in this game proves Cincinnati didn’t deserve to be here. It just proves that Alabama is still very good at playing football.

— Tom Fornelli (@TomFornelli) December 31, 2021

Cincinnati still belonged

It got smoked

But it still belonged

— Barrett Sallee 🇺🇸 (@BarrettSallee) December 31, 2021

I know this sounds weird with the game at 27-6, but I actually think Cincinnati's played really tough and made things hard on Bama. Maybe they were never winning this game, but that team's got nothing to hang its head over.

— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) December 31, 2021