Cincinnati Bearcats Football Cracks College Football Playoff Rankings For First Time Since 2021

 The Cincinnati Bearcats are in the College Football Playoff rankings for the first time since the 2021 season. UC did not make the initial ranking last week after the Utah loss, but checks in at No. 25 this week.

They are No. 22 in the AP and Coaches Polls.

Cincinnati has everything to play for down the stretch of the season. If they win out, they will get one of the 12 spots in the 2025 CFP.

“We just had a bye week, and it was a great time for us, after six straight weeks of conference games," Head coach Scott Satterfield said on Tuesday. "I thought we had a great bye week. Last week was a reset for us to recover mentally and physically. We cut back on practice last week and allowed them some time to heal up. At the same time, we worked on some young guys and let them play. We had a great time with that. That was fun, so it was a good week. Knowing that we had Arizona coming up, we had the opportunity to watch them play Saturday and get ready for this team."

Cincinnati has a roughly 12% chance to win the Big 12, according to betting markets and various analytical models. They face Arizona at noon ET on Saturday.