Scott Satterfield, Zach Grant Dive Into Cincinnati Bearcats Football 2026 Recruiting Class

CINCINNATI — Scott Satterfield and Bearcats football general manager Zach Grant met with the media on Wednesday to ring in the fresh 2026 signees on National Signing Day.

The Bearcats inked 21 talents across this week for an average rating of 59th nationally on 247Sports' metric. The headliner is four-star Avon (Ohio) offensive tackle Lance Dawson, who is the fourth four-star talent to sign with UC in the Satterfield era, following Zion Johnson in 2025, Daniel James in 2024, and Trevor Carter in 2023.

Grant dove into how they kept their highest-rated recruit in the class after a late push to flip him by West Virginia.

"Obviously, we were able to circle the wagons," Grant said about keeping Dawson in the class. "And a large credit to Coach Stewart and Coach Veidt too, with his connections at Avon, making sure that we got to the right people when we needed to, and kind of harnessing that. And I'll say this about Lance, I know he ended as our highest-rated commit.

"But when we offered him I don't even think he had a page. By the time he did, a bunch of other schools liked him, but that's the value of (recruiting staffer) Carter Wilson, when we evaluate that player and can tell him exactly what he needs to do to get an offer, that comes true, and he gets the offer, and then he's able to establish that trust with us before every other team. And we love Lance for Lance, it's not because he got ranked high; he earned that because of an incredible senior season, and we're happy for him to have the ranking, and obviously happy to have him."

Cincinnati has seven Georgia players in the class and five from Ohio to beef up their local talent in the home state. They went heavy in the trenches with this group (four offensive linemen and five defensive tackles) as the program gets ready for life without Dontay Corleone and Gavin Gerhardt on either side of the ball.

"I think one thing that stands out is five offensive linemen," Satterfield said about the class. "I think the bigs are always going to be a priority here. You've got to continue to bring in big guys, including the D-line as well. But the big guys in the trenches. Certainly the teams that are competing for Big 12 Championships have good O-lines and D-lines, I think we all see that, particularly those last four games we played. There are some really good offensive and defensive linemen that we're playing against, and so you certainly have to continue to bring those guys in. And we also know that that is a developmental position."

Cincinnati went with heavy volume in this class as they continue to try and develop great players from the fringes of the recruiting ranks.

UC has allocated more resources to transfer portal talent in Satterfield's first three years, improving by two wins each of the past two cycles. They'd love to stack nine wins in 2026, but they have to keep up with development, especially with the amount of veterans leaving the program.

"After the game Saturday, you want to give some time, let the guys rest for a second," Satterfield said about transfer conversations starting up with currently rostered players. "After the game you talk to anybody, everybody be mad at the world. And you want everybody to calm down a little bit. Let's give them a little bit of time. And so we're starting at this point of the week to start having some conversations this will go on probably into next week as well."

Cincinnati will find out its 2025 bowl destination on Sunday afternoon.

LIVE: Signing Day Press Conference https://t.co/M6zYffPgiP
— Cincinnati Football (@GoBearcatsFB) December 3, 2025

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