Final Huddle: Cincinnati Bearcats Football Blasts Through UCF For Fifth Consecutive Win

CINCINNATI — UC football added a fifth-straight victory on Saturday in a 20-11 contest against the UCF Knights.

The healthy Bearcats faced a beat-up UCF squad that started backup quarterback Cam Fancher, and it showed in an ugly way. Cincinnati's defense posted its best performance of the season against a power conference foe. Meanwhile, Jeff Caldwell (three catches for 58 yards and two scores) posted a stellar day through the air, and Cincinnati overcame a lackluster rushing outing to get the win.

The Bearcats allowed just 4.4 yards per play and took the all-time series lead over the Knights 6-5. This win leaves them just one victory away from punching a bowl ticket for the first time since the 2022 season.

Scott Satterfield's team is carrying nice momentum into the second half of the 2025 season.

Caldwell Caps Big Day

Cincinnati handed the star receiver baton to Caldwell this week. The lanky deep threat showed early and often in his first career multi-touchdown outing at Cincinnati. Caldwell caught a nice 40-yard touchdown pass to open the scoring.

He did a great job getting separation on a sticky UCF secondary all day long and jumped up closer to Cyrus Allen at the top of UC's receiver stat marks.

Brendan Sorsby (12-21 for 191 yards and two scores with eight carries for 36 yards) wasn't super sharp through the air, but he had more than enough chemistry with Caldwell to make things crystal-clear result-wise across the 60 minutes. Cincinnati had close to double-digit explosive plays and Caldwell was a big factor in that. The aerial accuracy still needs tweaking but Sorsby importantly never put the ball in harm's way.

Caldwell has one of the best personalities on the team and is matching it with even more fun highlight plays to boost UC's case as a dark-horse Big 12 Championship contender.

Defense Allows One Leak

The UC defense was pretty strong across the board on Saturday, save for the quarterback scrambling. Fancher's only consistent tool was his legs, rushing 20 times for 108 yards on the day. He had the opposite impact through the air (4.5 yards per attempt).

Outside of that, UCF went a measly 7-18 on third down and 3-6 on fourth down. That had been an issue for Cincinnati entering this game, but they did a solid job of getting off the field in a timely fashion (a few penalties helped them on that front).

UCF was pretty undisciplined on the day, amassing 10 penalties for 75 yards and really handicapping themselves with those on offense. Cincinnati made sure they hurt with fundamental defense and a nice job of not allowing big plays (nine explosives allowed).

The secondary was flying around on Saturday, led by Christian Harrison with a multi-PBU outing. He's starting to really get a strong feel for the defense in his first season at Cincinnati.

Rushing Lacks, But Offense Executes Enough

The Bearcats' offense wasn't the buzzsaw it's been for much of this opening half to the season. UC got stuffed in the red zone twice for the first time in a game this season.

They still stayed perfect scoring points in the red area thanks to another pair of field goals by Stephen Rusnak. A lot of the uneven play came via rushing issues. UC ran for just 4.3 yards per carry after entering the game ranked second nationally in yards per tote (6 YPC). It was their second lowest-rushing total of the season (115 yards).

UCF did a nice job slicing through open rushing lanes and only allowed a couple of big rushing plays to Sorsby. The Bearcats' star quarterback kept Cincinnati turnover-free in what was the most important factor on a defense-driven day. I'd be shocked if he had more than one logged turnover-worthy play in this game after continuing to make great decisions with the ball.

Sometimes that and a few nice throws that he made are enough to get the win at home, especially against a backup quarterback.

Cincinnati hits the road next week as likely huge favorites against Oklahoma State.

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